The silent side of parenthood: Lessons from single fathers
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Loading... - John Omari
- 12 Sep 2022
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For generations, raising a child has always been labelled as a woman’s job. This means every task that comes with a child from birth to maturity and independence. While the spotlight and concern have always been on single mothers, single fathers are generally often left out of the picture and conversation.
These figures are not only less addressed, they are given even lesser accolades for their work and effort in raising their children, be it alone or with the help of other people.
An online article titled ‘The challenges of being a single father’ by Dave Taylor describes this role best. The author shares his own experience about what he felt when he became a single father.
Dave says that when he became divorced from his wife, he found himself a single father to three children of ages 10, 6 and 3. This sudden role did not leave him enough time to digest and feel his frustrations, fatigue and the heaviness of the new hat despite being an active and involved dad before single fatherhood became his reality. He describes the role as a feeling of going from tag-team wrestling to having to take on another opponent solo.
Michael Omwonyi
His hat resembles that of Michael Omwonyi, a single parent to Junior. While Michael had planned to raise the now 13-year-old alongside his mother, Michael’s wife passed away shortly after she gave birth. This made him Junior’s mother and father at the same time.
Not being able to comprehend this role at the time, Michael decided to have Junior live with his mother for about a year. He used to pay him a visit with the intent of securing the father-son bond that was growing between them. A short while before Junior’s first birthday, Michael took him back to live with him in Dar es Salaam
A While before he began to live with Junior, Michael got a lot of opinions and advice from different relatives and friends to let Junior stay with his grandmother until when he was at least five-years-old because of Michael’s lack of experience in raising children.
“Having lived with both of my parents as a child, I wanted the same for mine because I believed it is a beautiful experience for both parents to witness the growth of their child to becoming the best version of the young man he could be. However when I lost Junior’s mother, I was not prepared to do parenting alone. I felt like I was attacked for doing it on my own but I did not listen to any of the opinions because there was no way I was allowing my son to not know his father for five years,” he details. Read More…
