Raising Whitley is a new reality series about comedian Kym Whitley and her unexpected journey as she becomes a mother to an adopted son.
After mentoring a troubled young woman for 15 years, Whitley is horrified to learn that she escaped from the hospital after giving birth to a boy. The only contact information the mother left was that of Whitley. It became clear to Whitley that she had to volunteer to raise the baby, who is named Joshua.
So on the show we will get to see the comedienne/actress switch on her maternal instincts and take care of the baby boy.
While she does most of the work, Whitley gets a lot of help from her friends whom she collectively calls “The Village”, obviously spinning off the “it takes a village to raise a child” proverb.
So this is a bit of a tricky one. We are really happy that the Hollywood star took in an otherwise homeless kid and is taking care of him. Maybe the biological mother now knows about the show and sees what she’s missing out on.
We have Utatakho on Mzansi Magic which basically has kwaito star Zola go around South Africa looking for absent fathers. So the issue of absent parents is everywhere, making it commendable that Whitley took on that responsibility.
However, making a tv show about something this beautiful takes away the merits of the good deed. It’s like giving money in church and then announcing the amount out loud.
This brings us to the discussion about the celebrities who have publicly adopted kids in the past. Names like Angelina Jolie and Madonna come to mind. While it is beautiful to give otherwise underprivileged children a home, the publicity of it all takes away from the dignity of the child. Seriously, who wants to grow up in a home knowing that they are a charity case? Worse, in this case, with the world also knowing. It becomes about the high-profile adoption and not helping a life.
Whitley has done a great thing for Joshua, but one day he is going to be a man and might not like the idea of a TV show having been made about him. Of course, he can’t consent today, but that doesn’t make it right.
We are not saying this show is entirely bad, but we are highlighting that it could have been packaged differently.
At the end of the day, people’s lives are involved here.
l Raising Whitley airs on Vuzu Amp (DSTV channel 114) every Friday.