Take ‘Baby-Daddies’ To Task
I used to be of the opinion that if the father of a woman’s child or children was unwilling to support them financially, then the self-respecting woman should simply provide for them herself. Why would she have to convince a man to do the responsible thing? Why would she even subject herself to the rigmarole of the judicial system for a paltry maintenance settlement? If the fellow didn’t feel obliged in any way to look after his child (children), I believed it best for the woman to just get on with it herself. With the needs of children being so immediate, I thought any mother would do better writing-off the useless ‘baby-daddy’ and using their precious time to meet their children’s needs to the best of her ability.
My opinion in this regard has changed significantly.
I know of a woman who has been married for eight years. The couple have three children. This woman is better qualified than her husband and as a result, earns more than he does. However, this was not always the case. Almost from the day that she received her letter of appointment to a more senior position, her husband just stopped contributing to the home. Naturally, she began to and continues to take care of the children’s upkeep and household expenses all on her own. Meanwhile, her fellow’s salary is his and his alone, to spend on himself as he wishes. This woman has never really confronted her husband about the situation. She probably feels that as long as she can still manage single-handedly to make things work, why rock the boat?
Hearing of this woman’s situation made something click in me and now I am sick of it! There are far too many males beating their hairy chests (a la gorillas) about being men, all the while taking advantage of one or several women. It’s despicable that one can claim manhood whilst he doesn’t have a clue what his child eats, wears, how he/she lives.
This is an appeal to every mother; whether CEO of a blue chip or everyday Jane in the street; whether you are married to, separated or divorced from the father of your offspring. His DNA contributed to bringing your child (or children) to this earth and his duty towards the child’s life did not end on that night (or day). Children need and do best when they have both mother and father. So whatever your marital status, ‘baby-daddy’ must play his part and provide physically, emotionally and spiritually to his child’s life.
If the so-called ‘father’ is not living up to his responsibilities, then it becomes the mother’s responsibility to hold the bastard accountable. Nag him, harass him, drag him to court – do whatever it takes for the sake of your child. Yes, as women we can and usually do make things happen on our own, without a man. But we must keep in mind that it’s not only about us and what our pride will or will not allow us to do. Children also need their father’s love, time, salaries or maintenance payments so that they may not just exist but live fully.
Tuesday, March 15th 2011 at 2:36 pm
I do not support any man who neglects his children for whatever reason, neither do I support any woman who does the same.
I do not support any man who abuse his spouse, neither do I support any woman who abuses her husband.
I read the reflections by Thandi Mpofu with interest. What prompted me to respond to her reflections is her suggestion that a poor guy may be subjected to abuse simply because he does not enough money to cater for the needs of his children.
Are we saying if my wife is a bar lady earning $80 dollars and I am a manager earning $4000, I should force my wife to make a monetary contribution towards the upkeep of our children? Surely that sounds ridiculous.
Are we saying if in the above scenario it is the man who is the bar man and the wife is the manager, then the man should be forced to contribute financial to the children’s upkeep?
I think with suggestions like this we are taking the gender debate decades back. Whats wrong with my wife contributing the greater part of the financial needs of the household if the income levels of the wife are far greater than that of the man. I have a good example of a female workmate whose husband is a teacher and she works for an NGO. She earns more than ten times her husband’s salary. The poor man’s salary is not even enough to commute daily from Chitungwiza to Glen Norah where he works. The wife ends up giving him extra money. Is there something wrong there?
Was it OK when the wife used to earn less money and the husband was fending for the family, and it is now not OK that the wife is earning more money and can afford to fend for the family? Are we not trying to encourage the disintegration of families when we say poor husbands should be abused simply because the wife earns more than them?
I would very much want to hear other people’s thoughts
Joshua
Wednesday, March 16th 2011 at 7:57 am
Responsible, committed and involved fatherhood is an essential component of any attempt to transform families and societies to better reflect gender equity, child rights and shared parenting responsibilities and enjoyment.
It is in the home that gender inequality is at its most powerful and sometimes most hidden. Positive fatherhood therefore plays an important part in challenging the intergenerational transmission of damaging stereotypes and power relations.
More commitment must be demonstrated to strengthening father roles and supporting men to realise their potential to facilitate their children’s attitudes and, as men, heal themselves from damaging and restrictive negative gender roles.
It seems simple to say that men need to play an integral part in development and that the biggest role they can play is in better supporting their children – yet, this is a stark reality that many people, including many gender activists and childcare professionals, don’t want to face up to.
Years of eulogising and romanticising the mother-child relationship, important as it is, and ignoring men as fathers and co-parents, has damaged the environment of care for children and put the whole onus of child raising unfairly on women.
The message given to most men is that they don’t count when it comes to their value in society, in childrearing and, consequently, in many development agencies’ work around improving childhood outcomes.
To give some examples: a major work on ‘Reconceptualising the Family in a Changing Southern Africa’, published in 2001 by Women and Law in Southern Africa (WLSA), does not mention fatherhood once, in 250 pages of closely argued statistics and analysis, and has no indexical reference to fatherhood at all.
In August 2008, applications were invited for organisations working on gender to access small funds for the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence campaign – in the small print, it said only applications from ‘women’s organisations’ would be accepted.
Men’s organisations wanting to work on tackling perpetrators were simply not welcome to apply. It might be politically correct to prioritise donor support to the ‘victims’ of abuse through women’s organisations, but ignoring work by men to prevent other men engaging in domestic and gender-based violence is nonsensical.
For sure, behavioural change is necessary on the part of many men as fathers. The Human Science Research Council (HSRC) has estimated that by the age of eleven, 46 percent of South African children are growing up without a father in their lives. Compliance with maintenance orders for child support is depressingly low in many Southern African countries. All this needs to be challenged vigorously, but we need to ask whether our low societal expectations of fathers are not the underlying reason why some of these phenomena occur.
Societal change is important if we truly want to make an impact on the MDGs for our children. We need to examine institutional prejudices, analyse their commitment to involving fathers in their processes and challenge them to change to a more inclusive parenting model.
UNIFEM and others have criticised, for example, Prevention of [HIV] Mother-to-Child Transmission (PMTCT) programmes, arguing that the real challenge is prevention of parent-to-child transmission. This is a more holistic and gender-sensitive approach to the issue of HIV infections that have to be examined more closely for their inclusion of men in the commitment to an AIDS-free generation.
Supporting fathers’ involvement in the care, education and financial support of their children is important for children and gender equality. But improving fathers’ emotional investment, along with their financial support, is also vital. It’s not just about the cash. If the child loses contact with the father, it also loses the social capital and networks the father has available to help the child develop. These include paternal grandparents and other relatives, friends, workmates, social and educational contacts.
Evidence from around the world increasingly shows that girls who grow up with a concerned father, even where the relationship with the mother has broken down, are less likely to become victims of sexual abuse later, that their psycho-social wellbeing and self image is better and that they will resist men who threaten their physical and psychological integrity.
Boys who grow up with a strong father figure, who does not mistreat women but who treats his partner and his daughters with respect, will be far more likely to transfer these values to their own relationships, with women as equals, and not exercise unfair and often physically violent dominance over the women in their lives.
There is no such thing as a fatherless child. Every child had a father or has a father somewhere, even if they do not live with their father or see their father very often. Many men can play the role of father to a child, including grandfathers, uncles, stepfathers, foster-fathers, older brothers, cousins or family friends.
African Fathers recently completed research in several townships in South Africa, including Soweto and Orange Farm in the Free State, about what children want from their fathers. It was amazing to see what a powerful role fathers play in the imagination of young children. Many told us of their rich relationships with their dads, but sadly, their teachers would tell us afterwards that it was all a fairytale.
The hunger for male nurturing is the unheard voice of many children in a time when old ideas about parental relationships and family are in flux. A child in Africa today may grow up in a family where the father is totally absent, in one where either parent had a child or children before the present relationship produced children or many other models of ‘family’. We need to accept this diversity in the environment of care for our children.
Unfortunately, we are a generation of fathers known for our absence rather than our presence in our African children’s lives. Poverty, migration and social expectations of low involvement of men in caring roles all play a part.
We need to encourage men to stay involved with their offspring, to bond earlier with their biological children and care for all children in their lives. It is time to deliver the African fatherhood revolution because, in the end, everyone gains.