“Did you forget the baby bag? What is the baby going to eat all day?” The mother’s question was captured in a video that is now circulating throughout South Africa.
The teenage boy does not make excuses. He asks her, almost begging, to take care of his newborn baby just for that day: if the baby cries in the middle of class, he says, it will interrupt the entire class. His mother does not give in. The teenager leaves anyway, baby in his arms, silently crying on his way to school.
The clip became the spark for a conversation South Africa has been grappling with for years: between 2024 and 2025, 117,195 babies were born to girls between 10 and 19 years old, some as young as 11. The law guarantees them the right to continue studying. Real life does not always do so.