Harare — DAYS when women's duties were confined to raising children and taking care of households are long gone.

Today's women have more or less become equal partners in fending for the family and in some cases are the sole breadwinners, while a working couple is a now common phenomenon especially in urban areas.

This has spawned the need to engage the services of maids, baby-minders and a host of other domestic workers.

"Most parents are just 'too busy' to provide for their children and all they can afford is 'spoiling' them with designer clothing and sending them to the most expensive schools around," said Ms Eve Mugayi, a housemaid in Borrowdale, Harare.

Basically, it is a case of providing everything within the depths of our pockets.

However, affording children's material needs does not exempt parents from carrying out their roles in nurturing their children with the right moral and ethical values.

Incredible as it may sound, children as young as two years are conversant with slang, which they learn from their unsupervised interactions with people from various backgrounds.

Among their first words, slang is typical in their language.

Words such as "ndeipi", "haulume", "uri bhoo" and "maface angu" are becoming normal terms of expression among children of such ages.

Ironically, most parents take it lightly, in most instances they joke about it without realising the consequences of the use of such language by their children.

Unbeknown to many parents and guardians, slang is a street language intended to offer convenience to discuss issues that cannot be said in simple language.

Sometimes it is designed as a shortcut of expression and codification of language designed to be understood only by a particular group of people.

Sometimes the street language is not understood by parents who follow behind these "little dudes" in becoming streetwise and sometimes have the liberty of using some terms that capitalise on adults' ignorance and lack of understanding of the codes contained in some of the expressions.

This language corrupts both the mind and development of our children.

It creates a language and child development anomaly, which later affects the child's upbringing.

Music, radio or television stations can also give a hint on the socialisation pattern of a child; they can highlight which direction a child's interests are moving towards.

A Harare pastor, Gilbert Maredza, regretted that children no longer value church music as in the old days.

"It is sad that if you go into some houses and ask a child to sing a song, you will be surprised by the choice of song.

"Most children will not choose for a hymn they learnt at Sunday school, but music carrying vulgar and hate lyrics. This just goes to tell how a child spends his or her time."

Parents, whether employed or not, should not delegate the responsibility of nurturing children to housemaids, teachers and other people.

According to Dr Michael Haralambos, an internationally respected sociologist, the induction and socialisation of a new member of the society is the responsibility of the family.

Another sociologist, Peter George Maddurk, expounded Haralambos' theory by extending the definition of a family as a social unit comprising of two adults (in other cases it can be one adult) whose role is to socialise the newly born in accordance with the accepted social norms and values.

Therefore it is an undisputed fact that parents play a central role in enforcing social values in their children, hence they should live up to their roles as the first teachers of a child.

In most cases, the result is they lose control of their children who would have got used to speaking impudently to their carers whom they regard as social inferiors, anyway.

Mrs Pauline Mapuranga of Hatfield, Harare, complained that her daughter complains whenever she asks her to help with household chores.

"She told me that she does not want to be bothered after I asked her to get me a cup of water," said Mrs Mapuranga.

Beula Dyoko, a housemaid in Harare, said it was difficult for a stranger to instill discipline in a child without being "bribed" by the parent.

"In most cases you find children resisting instructions from people like us (housemaids) because they know very well that your power to enforce rules and discipline is limited," she said.

A strained relationship can easily prove that a parent has lost control of a child.

"You see a small boy disembarking from his parent's car wearing a pair of shorts that look like they are about to fall down. Honestly how do you correct this child's behaviour?" asked Rebbecca Chiwengwa of Hatfield.

This is just a tip of an iceberg, there are a lot of socialisation patterns that shape the character of children and parents have a moral obligation to monitor how young children use their time in their absence.

Since most parents spend their time apart from their children it is pertinent to invest time not only to talk to the children, but study the behaviour patterns they exhibit and take corrective measures where possible.

One of the major challenges of parents nowadays is to ensure that they remain "on top of their game", in other words parents have to be "street wise" as well.

In as much as it sounds complicated, parents should be street wise such that they become conversant with the ever changing social patterns of today.

Parents should make it a pre-requisite to understand the slang language codes or street language, so that they will be able to pick what their children are up to.

However, Garikai Chirau, a child psychologist, emphasised that it was not always that parents are to blame if children go wayward

"People are born with personalities on their own and may be born with the tendency towards addiction, aggression, anti-social behaviour," he contended.

"Parents can teach their children moral and responsible behaviour and the most they can do is moulding their children's character, with any luck, the child will ingrain those morals and behaviour and become a respectable trust worth adult," he said.

He concluded that sometimes the personality of a child might cause unbecoming behaviour.

Yet after all is said and done, the responsibility and installation of societal values should lie with parents not housemaids and other people we entrust to care for our children while we pursue our other commitments.

While society provides a framework on what is acceptable, conformity to those rules and ethics should begin in homes through the parent's instruction. This is possibly a panacea to the situation whereby a child is prejudiced of attaining the right moral and social values as much as it is also a way to curb the abuse of children at the hands of care givers and relatives.

There has been an increase in the number of cases of child abuse by those we entrust to care for them during our absence like maids, baby-minders and even our trusted relatives.

Today, cases of abuse in all its forms, like rape, indecent exposure, physical and psychological violation perpetrated against children are on the increase.

However, apart from these abuses, children have been subjected to a continuous but subtle character moulding by domestic workers and even some relatives they spend most of their time with.

Parents can be shocked to realise how much influence these people wield over their children's character.

Retlaw Matatu Matorwa is human rights and social justice practitioner and a journalist.