Childhood is something very precious, even more so in a country like South Africa where violence and death is a part of everyday life.
But what few realise is that the change that came about with the first democratic elections in 1994, signalled a change not just for millions of blacks, but also millions of white children who had grown up in the traumatic and violent 1970s. Children like me.
The day white rule on the African continent came to an end is one very few will ever forget.
It was seven o' clock, South African time on the morning of April 26, 1994. But white rule didn't come an end through violent rebellion. There were no cheers and no fireworks, only the quiet shuffling of feet as millions of people across the country queued at the polling stations.
Most of them for the first time, including me.
For older whites, it was a day of conflicting emotions and a sense of relief. The burden of guilt, which was one of apartheid's most profound legacies, had at last been lifted.
This was my first election since coming of voting age, so I was filled with an overwhelming sense of duty to participate in what would become a historical moment in South African history.
It wasn't only historical for the the millions of oppressed black people, but for my entire generation of white children who had grown up in the fragile 1970s. Right up until that very moment we had all been taught to hate the black man and not question the actions of government. Almost two decades of white propaganda came to a screeching halt in the hands of thousands of white 18 year-olds.
Very few people in free countries will ever realise how much power a vote holds. But on that cold morning in South Africa the power to bring about change burnt deep in the hearts of each and every one of this so-called lost generation - black and white.
When I was about seven years old the woman who worked for my family brought her son to our house while she worked. He couldn't go to school because of violence in the townships and she thought he would be safer in the white-only neighbourhood we lived in.
This was the first time I had ever met a black child that was the same age as me. When you are that young you don't see colour as something that makes you different from someone else. Unfortunatley, all over the world, this is something adults lose.
But being with this young boy, who was so similar to me and yet so different had a profound effect on me.
It was a time of change and realisation for me because up until that point I had never met a black child, nor ever spoken to one.
Segregation laws in South Africa at that time forbid blacks and whites from socialising. It was unheard of for a white child living in the city to have a black friend. We didn't go to school together, we didn't share toys and we never, never dated or even thought about getting married.
The government controlled what you read or saw on television and TV wasn't introduced in South Africa until the early 1970s anyway.
If you lived in the city, black women worked in white homes for white families and black men worked on the mines and factories for white bosses. That was the only "mixing" that was allowed.
Besides schools, theatres, restaurants and even the city centre after a certain time of night was Whites Only!
I remember in a town called King William's Town they used to ring a very loud siren at a certain time of night and all the black people who were in the town centre at that stage had to leave immediately or they'd be arrested.
Kimberley, where I grew up, was a little more liberal than most other cities in South Africa. The majority of its citizens were either British, Jewish or Asian thanks to the diamond mines and the powerful De Beers.
They were just about the only reason the city existed and thousands of black men worked on the diamond mines.
And yet, you can spend years living in a city like Kimberley without ever speaking to a black person unless they worked in your home.
I remember asking my teacher in class why things were the way they were? Why don't blacks and whites mix?
I was sent to the principal's office and put in detention. Teachers would simply respond with "You're an impertinent child and shouldn't be asking questions about things you know nothing about."
In my senior year, a new English teacher arrived from England. Mr. Gilbert was a little more liberal than I think the education board realised and took it upon himself to enlighten us as to the situation in South Africa. He did it rather subtly so that no one could point a finger at him or threaten to send him packing.
It was 1988 and pretty much the year I knew I wanted to study journalism.
I was tired of asking why and not getting any answers. It wasn't just apartheid against the blacks, but against my generation of whites too.
Nelson Mandela once wrote: "For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others."
No one in South Africa was free!
I spent a turbulent year in the United States reading as many books and magazines as I could find about South Africa and joined Amnesty International to rid myself of some of the guilt I felt at being so ignorant.
It was in 1989 that I first heard the name Nelson Mandela and I felt like the only person in the world who didn't have a clue who I was or where I was from.
South Africa became a disease I wanted to rid myself of.
I even lied once about where I was from because I didn't want the woman asking me to think I was from a country that killed black people for sport.
But when I returned home in 1990 everything changed about four days before my birthday when Nelson Mandela was freed.
I joined millions of South Africans watching on television (yes TV actually covered the event) as this great man took that long walk from the prison gates to the edges of a large crowd.
The cheering was deafening. But what I remember most about that moment was his face.
He was smiling and dancing and I imagined what it must have felt like when the door to his cage had finally been opened and he re-discovered wings he thought he'd lost forever.
"A man who takes away another man's freedom is a prisoner of hatred, he is locked behind the bars of prejudice and narrow-mindedness. I am not truly free if I am taking away someone else's freedom, just as surely as I am not free when my freedom is taken from me. The oppressed and the oppressor alike are robbed of their humanity," he said.
And I joined millions of South Africans in believing that things could and would change after decades of shame and here was the man to make it so.
The next few years passed in a haze. I went to college to study journalism in 1991 and by the time I graduated the first democratic election was on my doorstep.
You want to know what it was like growing up in a white South Africa? You have to imagine what it must be like living in a beautiful cage with windows on only one side.
When Mandela was freed the windows on the other side suddenly opened for the first time and everything you believed in, everything you thought was real suddenly blows away on the wind like dust.
You have no idea what South Africa is like until you walk through a township and find that everything you had is everything they lack. You discover that everything you believed in was a lie and the first 20 years of your life is meaningless.
I pity my generation. Most of us are living abroad because we can't live with the reality of the new South Africa. Most of us can't remember our childhood - we've pushed it so far back into memory that it's forgotten. The guilt is unbearable.
But most of us left South Africa when Mandela retired and handed over the reigns of power to Thabo Mbeki.
Suddenly the reality of a changed South Africa wasn't what we envisioned. It was taking too long and the increase in crime, unemployment and those dying from AIDS was unbearable.
We didn't run away, we simply chose to live a better life somewhere else and yes, most of us still bear the scars and the guilt of having made the decision to leave.
Nothing much has changed since then. Children are still hungry, thousands are still unemployed, crime in rampant, AIDS is killing millions every year and leaving even more orphaned and while the poor still dream of the day they'll own a house and have what the white man always had -- the politicians grow fat and rich on their dreams.
Mandela said that we haven't taken the final step of the journey, but the first step on a longer and even more difficult road.
He has long since retired from the public arena and does what he can, but change doesn't come overnight they say, it takes time - that's what he meant...
In spite of the problems South Africa still faces, I truly believe that the government has achieved what no other government in the world has - it has brought together all the races of one country in peace.
What was it like growing up in South Africa? I always think of it this way: I was born in 1989 at the age of 18 and everything that happened before that means nothing anymore - it was just a dream.
Photo by Ian Berry "Living apart collection"
