Now I can't help to make this confession online but I have been giving much thought to why most bachelors I know shy away from getting involved with single mothers, whether unmarried or divorced, talk less about going to the altar with them.
Personally, I share their fears but in recent times I have met such loving single mothers who after some interaction, get to make me see that they were either victims of circumstance or love or both!
In our deeply culturally entrenched society, it is quite understandable why most unmarried men would not want to get involved with women who may have a child or two. The general perception of the African culture towards such relationships will tend towards stigmatization of the man as not being 'man' enough to get himself a 'fresh' 'damsel.
Next will be general fear by the man's family members of the inevitable involvement of the child(ren)'s father in the suitor's family sometime in the near future as it is more or less a given fact that runaway fathers always do come around the bend to re-establish the paternal bond with their once abandoned flesh and blood.
But I believe the most worrisome reason working against such unions is that the single mother, probably because she had come to gain acceptance and affection from her child(ren) particularly at the moment of her lowest points in life, tends to show more love and even allegiance to the child(ren) than to her new man. She is usually torn between attending to needs of either of her objects of affection and in most cases, takes sides with her past than with her future.
Thankfully, we Africans are imbibing all that is foreign and western and as such I see a light at the end of the tunnel where a couple in love will be walking down the street with the lady's kid in tow comfortably calling out to the man 'daddy' without anyone raising eyebrows because in the end everybody deserves a second chance in the game of love!
Personally, I share their fears but in recent times I have met such loving single mothers who after some interaction, get to make me see that they were either victims of circumstance or love or both!
In our deeply culturally entrenched society, it is quite understandable why most unmarried men would not want to get involved with women who may have a child or two. The general perception of the African culture towards such relationships will tend towards stigmatization of the man as not being 'man' enough to get himself a 'fresh' 'damsel.
Next will be general fear by the man's family members of the inevitable involvement of the child(ren)'s father in the suitor's family sometime in the near future as it is more or less a given fact that runaway fathers always do come around the bend to re-establish the paternal bond with their once abandoned flesh and blood.
But I believe the most worrisome reason working against such unions is that the single mother, probably because she had come to gain acceptance and affection from her child(ren) particularly at the moment of her lowest points in life, tends to show more love and even allegiance to the child(ren) than to her new man. She is usually torn between attending to needs of either of her objects of affection and in most cases, takes sides with her past than with her future.
Thankfully, we Africans are imbibing all that is foreign and western and as such I see a light at the end of the tunnel where a couple in love will be walking down the street with the lady's kid in tow comfortably calling out to the man 'daddy' without anyone raising eyebrows because in the end everybody deserves a second chance in the game of love!
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