Khanyi Mbau is a mother who cares deeply about her teenage daughter, Khanukani “Khanz” Mbau and she makes sure to defend her like any mother would.
Khanyi Mbau is going through some body changes and she is not shy to talk about her skin lightening journey. To some she might appear as someone who does not love and appreciate her melanin. But she is trying to teach her daughter Khanz about loving yourself and being positive about your body.
Khanyi recently sat down with Pabi Moloi on The Morning Show with e.tv and she spoke about body positivity and teaching her daughter about this concept, despite her not being confident about her own body.
Her fifteen-year-old is active on social media and Khanyi said she sort of checked out her IG following and saw that she follows a page called 'Skinny Baddies.'
This made Khanyi curious so she sat down with Khanz and spoke to her about body positivity.
“She follows a lot of skinny baddies and I said, ‘my darling, baddies are not a real thing. You know, these baddies, after filters and everything, they probably don’t live the life that you live. You need to start following people that have a similar life that you have and things that you truly like so you need to change the people that you follow,” said Khanyi.
“How do you teach body positivity?” she asked in the middle of their conversation.
Pabi then asked the question probably on everyone's head which is how does Khanyi teach something when she herself altered her own appearance because she did not like it.
"Anyone who has an insecurity about their body means there's a trauma that's stuck on to them. What I'm trying to figure out with my daughter is, is it a health thing or is it a personal thing and I haven't found what that is. Because I know she is confident but of late she just turned 15 and everything is about the body and I think it's social media.
"So I said to her, ‘show me the people that you follow, I need to know the people that you follow because Instagram is a vision board.’ As much as people think it’s just a thing to see what Pabi is up to, what you see is what you become."
Kanyi is over protective of Khanz and she went berserk when rumours of teenage pregnancy made rounds.
She said she will not tolerate the treatment her daughter received, especially when it was based on a rumour started by social media users.
“One thing I will not allow is my daughter being victimised and abused by a rumour started by a woman on TikTok @bigmmam9410 from an innocent family video posted by Lasizwe.”
“Hate me all you want but @mbau2 is a child. The fact that the first thought that comes to all your minds is that a child could be pregnant shows how sick of a society we have all become. No wonder rape, child abduction, and abuse have become a norm and why stats are so high. our children are in danger, the energies we adults put out are vile and disgusting. we show no faith in them and don’t respect children,” she wrote.
