Tears of a fatherless child
Friday, June 17, 2022 | 540 Views |

Paternal bond: Not all children enjoy their fathers’ presence in their lives PIC: INSTITUTE OF FAMILY ISSUES
In Botswana, many children either grow up without father figures in their lives or abusive homes. Even though Mother’s Day holds the greatest significance in many people’s lives, this is not always the case with Father’s Day because many children grow up with absent fathers and if some have fathers, they get abusive ones who never devote a single second in their children’s lives.
Many children are birthed by single mothers resulting in many children growing up without knowing their fathers because some men are accustomed to denying their children paternity immediately when their partners tell them of their pregnancy.
Here in Botswana, we have many single-parent households, mostly female-led, so what does that suggest? That some fathers choose to ditch the responsibility of caring for their children and leave them to the ones who carry them during pregnancy to do the heavy lifting.Of course, in other dynamics, there are instances where the father wants to keep the baby and the would-be mother does not want to, hence the saying ‘whose body is it anyway’.In...