ABSTRACT
The majority of the nearly two million people living in Khayelitsha have come to the city from the traditional "homeland" of the Eastern Cape—a rural area where medical and educational provisions as well as job opportunities are scarce. However, life in the city is not easy either, and the burdens that are carried by many of the people in terms of poverty, illness, and single parenthood are immense. Having a baby is a given for women—is part of their life cycle—but under these circumstances is not always easy. In traditional culture the family of the father of the baby acknowledges to the family of the mother that their son has taken the childhood of the girl away and a sum of money is paid as compensation. The motherhood constellation and the father-in-the-mind of the mother are inner representations as well as living, outer realities, which need to be addressed directly and often concretely.
