04/06/2024
Absent Parentage
Single parenthood is at 76% for single mothers, 36.4% on sole parentage for single dads. Black fathers are the most likely absent compared to others.
Effects on kids.
1. Diminished self-concept.
2. Compromised physical and emotional security when not raised by their father.
3. Consistently report feeling abandoned when dads are not involved in their day to day lives.
4. Emotional trauma and episodic bouts of self-loathing.
5. Susceptibility to mental health disorders, anxiety-depression-suicide.
6. Older kids turn to delinquency and crime, including violent crime, 85% imprisonment .
7. Lack of support on the sole caregiver leads to anxiety depression, burnout and inefficiency.
Let’s unpack the meaning of absent parent .
Deadbeat/ lacking qualities of good father.
There are many layers to this phenomenon, it’s not a cut and dry phenomenon.
1. Custody laws of the land giving minimal access to the non-custodial parent. Literally put, you are given access rights limited to a specific time out of the whole week or month; one is as good as the pocket can go maintenance wise besides you will be labelled a bad father.
2. What about in divorce situations?? As good as the law applies to family law , it has its pitfalls !!! Divorces and maintenance issues have further worsened the absenteeism reducing it to financials only. Imagine being labelled a good/bad father based on your contributions rather time spent with the children. 3/4 the time spent, children remember their childhood being good or bad based on the presence and participation of each parent not on wether money was there or not.
3. Automatically by the fact that you are separated or divorced, the non-custodial parent becomes the absent parent usually the father gets the short end of the stick.
4. Meeting financial needs is a plus , also means that they have what is basic and all the niceties of childhood.
5. There is an explosion of independent women, career women forgetting that its not the money that counts but presence; that being said there is also advocacy for women who just want to have a baby and raise the child alone or rather should i say societal ever-changing uncles( boyfriends or step-dads).
6. Economic situations force couples to stay apart thus limiting time spent together with children especially if limited by distance.
7. Cultural practices, paying maintenance/ lobola, if one does not meet the requirements, they have their-fatherhood rights stripped resulting in absenteeism, automatically qualified as a bad father.
8. Career and educational pursuits.
9. If a man can financial provide , he gets labelled a good father and if not derogated to being a deadbeat. Man are labelled with the same brush despite spending quality time with the kids . So basically if no money then bad father automatically.
10. Not all man are absent fathers because they deny paternity but because, cultural-socio-financial-economic-legal factors are at interplay/ confounders.
11. The stats are debatably quantitative rather than quantitative limited without in-depth information.
12. It may sound rhetorical but colonial laws like the land act, migrant labour act and the pass system which separated men from their families played a major role to the current build up of absent fathers. It created a trend of absent fathers limiting family union to once or twice a year.
13. The equivalent of migrant labour is the Diaspora labour drain seemingly affects both man and woman. Spousal and family visas are difficult to come by?
14. In some cases for 11/12 people remarry in their migrant destinations leading to abandoning their first family.
15. Non-resident parentage, these men are good enough to send money although they cannot spend time with their kids.
16. The same effect is created by Laws of the family court i.e divorce, custody rights, access, maintenance and guardianship.
17. Death.
Examples of replacement fathers.
Whether they are good enough or not it’s yet to be seen !!
1. Step-fathers.
2. General uncles ( multiple boyfriends)
3. Uncles both maternal / paternal .
4. Grandfathers.
5. Scarce other non-relationship male figures ( neighbours, elders, pastors) or rather society fathers.
According to Ibgo/Yoruba idioms : it takes a village to raise a child, though a resident father figure is more imperative / ideal.
The Cliche “ In the best interest if the children “ somehow accorded sole custodianship 99.9% to the mother creates an automatic inclination towards absent fathers. Access is usually as best seen fit by the mother; so if she decides to give you a supervised weekend once in a while provided you stay in the same locale, thus kids will interpret it as abandonment!!!
