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'Family values' are leaving too many families behind
While the idealised family is a mother, father, and children, the actual fabric of Kenyan life includes grandmothers as primary caregivers, street-connected children, and couples without children.
Court of Appeal Judge, Katwa Kigen recently came under fire for his interpretation of Article 45 of the Constitution on marriage and family formations.
In Kenya today, the idea of “the family” is often defended as if it were fixed and universally understood. On paper, it is presented as simple: a mother, a father, and their lovely, unproblematic children.
It is an image many of us have grown up with, reinforced in classrooms, churches, and public discourse. Our Constitution recognises the family as the natural and fundamental unit of society and anchors marriage as a union between a man and a woman.
But step outside that image, and the reality across Kenya is far more complex.
Families, as they exist in our homes, our neighbourhoods, and our daily lives, are far more varied and far more human.
There is a single mother in Jericho raising her children with the help of a sister and a neighbour. There is the grandmother in Kisumu who has become the primary caregiver after HIV loss reshaped her household.
There are young people, barely into adulthood, holding together child-headed homes with quiet resilience. In our towns and cities, street-connected children form their own systems of care and belonging.
There are also couples without children, by choice or by circumstance, building lives grounded in companionship and mutual support.
There are families formed by queer partners, and others in polygamous relations, building lives of care and commitment, often without formal recognition but no less real in how they sustain one another. These are not outliers. They are the fabric of Kenyan life.
And yet, when we speak about “protecting the family,” it is often a much narrower image that is invoked. Public conversations, and too often policy choices, like the 2023 Family Protection and Promotion Policy, elevate one model while leaving others insufficiently recognised or supported.
This is not accidental.
It reflects a hierarchy of whose families count, and whose do not. Some families remain largely invisible in law and public discourse, including those formed by queer partners, whose relationships and caregiving roles continue to exist without recognition or protection.
The consequences are real. A young person heading a household carries adult responsibilities without meaningful support. A single parent navigates stigma alongside economic strain and religious shun. Families already on the margins are left to absorb gaps that systems were meant to fill.
If we are to speak honestly about families in Kenya today, we must begin with a simple truth: no single definition captures how Kenyans live, care, and belong. Defending the family, then, cannot mean protecting an impractical ideal. It must mean strengthening the conditions that allow all families to exist with dignity.
At its core, family has always been about care, who shows up, who stays, and who shares the burden of living. These are not qualities confined to one structure. They exist wherever people commit to one another’s well-being.
Our constitutional commitments under article 10, 27 and 28 to dignity, non-discrimination and equality demands this broader understanding. It requires not just recognition in principle, but support in practice, ensuring that all families, as they are lived, can access protection, opportunity, and care.
Public debates are not neutral. They are often shaped by well-organised campaigns such as the religious one fronted by Kenya Christian Professionals Forum, that frame reproductive freedom and autonomy as threats to family values, narrowing what is seen as acceptable and influencing how policies are implemented in practice.
This is where conversations about health, rights, and autonomy stop being abstract and become a test of whether we are serious about families at all. We cannot claim to defend the family while punishing people for the choices they made.
Equally, we cannot defend family when government policies overtax them, expose them to harm and remain silent when religious institutions exclude them. If we are serious about defending families, then we must also be serious about the conditions that sustain them, including access to healthcare, education, social protection, and the freedom to make informed choices about one’s life.
There is a tendency, especially in moments of social change, to retreat into familiar definitions, to hold tightly to what feels stable.
But the Kenyan family has never been fixed. It has always adapted to economic realities, migration, crisis, and changing care needs. What has endured is not its structure, but its purpose: to hold people through life’s uncertainties.
That is what deserves recognition and government benefits, not a single image of family, but the many ways people continue to create it, sustain it, and rely on it across different circumstances.
If we are to mark the International Day of Families in any meaningful way, it cannot be by defending an ideal that excludes most people’s lived realities. It must be by aligning our laws, our policies, and our public commitments with the truth of how families actually exist.
Because the real question is not whether we defend the family. It is which families we choose to defend, and which ones we are willing to leave behind.
Mr Nyamoto is a Human Resource professional, a postgraduate student, and a fervent advocate for youth human rights who dedicates his free time to volunteering at St. John Ambulance Kenya. He can be reached at [email protected]
