Last week on the 19th June, the whole world celebrated Father’s Day, valuing the being there of their fathers and their love. What really bothered me was that from the few children I asked if they had wished their fathers a happy Father’s Day, only a few of the children had done so.
Is it that there is nothing like father’s love or some mothers have it in their heads that they have exclusive rights to their children to the total, complete and utter exclusion of the men who fathered them?
It is common knowledge that men are very good when it comes to impregnating women and deny taking full responsibility for their actions. It’s really heartbreaking when you hear women narrating their ordeal of carrying an unborn child without moral and financial support from the father of the child. They endure the harrowing ordeal of childbirth, amongst other aches and pains that go with such circumstances.
But does this give a woman exclusive rights over the child?
In retaliation to the absence of the father, women have adopted a very selfish technique of using children as ammunition to wage wars, settle scores, fuel vendettas and as leverage to carry on feuds with their former lovers or spouses by denying men access to their children.
Don’t get me wrong, ladies, I do not condone this irresponsible behavior by men but my issue today is that mothers should not estrange children from their fathers for whatever reason, especially since a father is not a commodity one can go and purchase.
Fathers are as irreplaceable, if not as indispensable, as mothers in the lives of children. We should leave children out of our failed love affairs and allow them to have a share of their father’s love.
However, this kind of behavior has been sustained by the widely held belief in our culture that often goes unexamined and unchallenged that mothers have a superior claim to their children than fathers do in situations where the father has not paid bogadi.
In as much as these mothers feel justified denying men access to their children they should consider some of the stories of children who spend years, exhaust their material and emotional resources searching high and low trying to trace their biological parents. It’s high time mothers have their children’s interests at heart and allow children to have a bond with their fathers and also for that child to have a ‘concrete’ identity.
Yes, being a woman is a biological reality and a woman can hold whatever status in her lifetime without any person’s contribution, with the exception of one. No woman can brag, take pride or boast about being a mother without the significant contribution of a man towards the attainment of that status. In other words, women can only realise that state of motherhood with the exclusive ‘facilitation’ of a man.
Those self centered thoughts of thinking that the mother has exclusive rights over the child should be done away with. Allow fathers to have quality time with their children. You are doing it for your child, not for the man who jilted you. That child needs to enjoy the love and attention of both parents and if there are any serious disagreements between the parents, everything must be done to protect the child from such wars.
So, ladies, allow the children access to their fathers, for to fathers do the children belong.
