By Lwazi Nongauza.
Legacy coach, author and broadcaster Khanyisa M is leading a national conversation on what has become widely recognised as the Firstborn Daughter Syndrome — a social reality where eldest daughters are often expected to assume emotional, financial and caregiving responsibility from a young age.
The campaign forms part of a broader national engagement effort anchored by the Firstborn Daughters Convention, taking place on 14 March 2026.
Through a coordinated national media campaign, Khanyisa M is bringing this conversation into mainstream public discourse, unpacking how early responsibility shapes women’s leadership styles, mental health outcomes and professional trajectories later in life.
Across South Africa and continent, research consistently shows that women carry a disproportionate share of unpaid care and emotional labour, often from a young age. Data from Statistics South Africa and UN Women indicates that women in sub-Saharan Africa perform more than three quarters of unpaid care work, a burden directly associated with higher burnout rates, reduced economic mobility and long-term emotional fatigue. Within many families, eldest daughters are often the first to internalise these expectations, stepping into leadership roles by necessity rather than choice.
Khanyisa’s work gives language and structure to experiences that many women recognise privately but rarely see reflected in national conversations. Her message interrogates how leadership formed through obligation can result in chronic over-functioning, perfectionism and identity erosion — particularly among high-capacity women who appear outwardly successful but are internally exhausted.
The Firstborn Daughters Convention, set to take place at The Fortress Venue in Edenvale, is positioned as a national reflection space where women, professionals and community stakeholders can engage these realities collectively. The event is designed to encourage dialogue around inherited responsibility, intergenerational expectations and the systemic shifts required within families, workplaces and institutions. Tickets for the convention are currently available via Quicket.
Her forthcoming book, Are We There Yet, brings together interviews, lived experience and reflective analysis to examine how inherited responsibility is passed down across generations, and how women can begin rewriting leadership scripts that prioritise sustainability over self-sacrifice.
The book is positioned as both a personal guide and a broader reference point for organisations, practitioners and policymakers engaging questions of women’s leadership, mental health and social equity.