Where's my Daddy?

This goes out to all the ladies who are planning on deliberately getting babies out of wedlock. You might be well-heeled, but that child needs much more than the best toys money can buy; that child needs a father in the home and in his/her life.

Every child needs both parents

I was moved to write about this by my corporate neighbour who has two little daughters who are evidently missing a father in their lives. The little one now calls me Daddy and her sister calls me Uncle! Everyday my heart goes out to these adorable girls. The mother is too busy for them; she works for a bank and is busy Monday to Friday, sometimes even on Saturday. She leaves early and returns late. All she does is dole out endless toys to her daughters. 

She chose single motherhood because she didn't want to lose her independence by having to be accountable to a husband. Her idea was to have one child, but now she has two from different men and now admits it's a wearisome responsibility to raise them singlehandedly despite all her education and financial means. 

Basically she wouldn't advise ladies out there to get into what she got herself into. Yet it remains a trending song sung especially by feminists that it's cool to be a single mother. But when you dig into the reasons they advance, you find selfishness at the centre of it. They associate proper parenthood with the ability to provide; as long as you have enough money to feed and educate your child you don't need a man, so they argue. But how about the emotional needs of that child? 

Psychologists tell us that every child needs the presence of the father in his life as much as of the mother. That's how they learn the difference between a man and a woman, and their interdependence. If I were a woman I wouldn't like the idea of my child calling any man "Daddy" or "Uncle" - it says as much about the gaping hole in the child's soul; the hole that can only be filled by a father. It's when all the ingredients of a family unit are there that we get a stronger, steady society. That's why I'm blowing the trumpet for a paradigm shift.