Lies single mums tell due to absent fathers

By Boniface Sylvester Mgozi.

In most cases after separation or divorce, women, are given primary custody of young children. That their fathers, unlike their neighbors’, don’t live with them always raises eyes brows among children. And as we have discovered, explaining to children the absence of a father is a big dilemma that many single mothers grapple with almost daily.

In fact, it has been noted that a good number of women who are raising children by themselves have absolutely no clue how to explain the absentee fathers, and how they go about it, as it seems, can make for great comedy.

Kids beaten for asking who their father is

Take, for instance, the case of Ntawiyanka*, a 27-year-old Kahama-based business lady, who has no clue who her father is. Growing up, her mother used to beat her up whenever she asked about her father.

“I got beaten several times for asking about my dad. By then, I didn’t know how sensitive the matter was to my mum. I used to wonder why, unlike our neighbors, my dad was never around. Unfortunately, whenever I asked, which I always did rather innocently, my mum would scold and slap me, accusing me of nagging her with stupid questions,” she says.

Ntawi recalls the day her mother knuckle-knocked her head hard before yelling, asking her to choose to stay with her or go to live with her father whom she had been incessantly asking about.

“Things got so bad at some point that she hit me on the head and threatened to kick me out of her house. With fury, she descended on me with knuckle knocks, yelling, ‘kama umeboreka na hapa, useme uende ukakae naye huko (If you are bored here, you can as well go live with him),’” recalls Julia, adding that she (her mother) later, in passing, casually told her that her father died in a road accident.

With time, Ntawi discovered how irritating the matter was to her mother and kept off completely.

Mums with no clue who sired their children

“After claiming that he died long ago, I stopped pestering her. I, however, suspect she just said that to keep me quiet. I am still curious to know him, dead or alive. Problem is I have no idea how to go about it because none of my relatives know him either,” says Julia, adding:

“I was brought up by a foster dad, and luckily for me my siblings treat me well and we are close. I always suspect my mum had a nasty experience with my biological dad, and that’s why she wants nothing to do with him.”