Johannesburg - Fatherhood is almost the exception in South Africa. In many communities single-mother families are the norm.
In fact, a recent SA Institute of Race Relations survey found that only 36 percent of South African children have their fathers living with them.
But while fatherlessness might have become common, it should never be regarded as “normal”. The absence of a father in a child’s life, physical or emotional, can profoundly disadvantage that child in adulthood, and they also tend to be vulnerable to many societal problems including alcohol and drug addiction, promiscuity, teenage pregnancy, crime and violence.
During the apartheid era, the migrant labour system contributed greatly to the alienation of fathers from their children. Women were left to raise the children alone and so many black men grew up without a father and had no role model of how to be fathers themselves.
To some extent, migrant labour is still a factor in South African family life. But more critical today are the patriarchal attitudes of many men toward women and children that exacerbate the distance between themselves and their children.
A popularly held belief, for instance, is that if they are not financially supporting their child, men should rather distance themselves from their children, according to a 2011 study by the UJ’s Centre for Social Development in Africa together with the Sonke Gender Justice Network. Unemployment obviously exacerbates this problem.
”As you lose your job, you start feeling the distance, you start making the distance. All the time when I go there, I don’t have anything. I must stop going there. How is my child going to look at me? What will my child say?” explained one father in the study.
In her book Steering By The Stars: Being Young In South Africa, Dr Mamphele Ramphele, confirms this sad truth. “Desertion by fathers is often prompted by their inability to bear the burden of being primary providers. The burden of failure becomes intolerable for those who lack the capacity to generate enough income as uneducated and unskilled labourers,” she writes.
Many among them are very young men who never see their children again..
Other factors have been cited in the absent father phenomenon, including lack of parenting skills due to the lack of father role models, women’s empowerment which challenges the notion of men as heads of families, separated or divorced women refusing their partners access to their children, negative experiences of fatherhood, and a social attitude that men are not responsible for their dependents (thus the huge number of men who don’t pay maintenance).
Redressing the state of fatherlessness has become nothing short of urgent, because the fallout can be devastating.
In their book, Baba: Men And Fatherhood In South Africa, authors Professor Linda Richter (psychologist) and Robert Morrell (gender studies researcher) posit that absent fathers, or worse, abusive fathers, account for many young adults contributing directly to the health, crime and other social crises we face today.
Global research has found that children growing up without a father are at a significant disadvantage when it comes to education, employment, behaviour and relationships.
Boys growing up in absent father households are more likely to display “hypermasculine” behaviour, including aggression, while girls who grow up without their fathers are more likely to have low self-esteem, engage in risky sexual behaviour, and have difficulties forming and maintaining relationships.
A father’s absence can be defined as either physical or emotional. So while he may reside at home, a father may be unresponsive emotionally to his family, possibly due to drug or alcohol abuse.
“Supportive fathers give girls self-confidence, and help boys develop healthy masculinity and clear identity,” says Richter.
“One of the biggest impacts of an involved father is that he gives credibility to school work. Children stay at school longer if their fathers support them in education.”
Unsurprisingly, the programmes and campaigns aimed at tackling this issue look largely at popular notions of masculinity and the socialisation of boys and young men, as these factors are perceived to underlie not only the absent father phenomenon, but also the spread of HIV/Aids, violence and the high incidence of rape.
So while the government is looking at stricter enforcement of maintenance payments, introducing paternity leave, a more equitable treatment of fathers in legal custody battles, as well as improving the availability and accessibility of “family-type” housing in cities, the real work lies in changing the hearts and minds of young men right now, according to organisations grappling with the issue on the ground.
Wessel van den Berg, co-ordinator for MenCare, a global campaign working locally with the Sonke Gender Justice Network, says MenCare has found in its research that if fathers learn that children need other things besides money, such as communication and emotional support, they remain involved more easily.
The MenCare campaign hosts expectant fathers groups, and also works with policymakers to promote new societal norms where fathers are concerned.
To this end, a MenCare global meeting is being planned in Cape Town in June, while media and other promotional campaigns giving prominence to ordinary father role-models are ongoing.
Kevin Rutter, a founder of Front Page Father, a local media campaign launched in November also wanting the issue front and centre of the national agenda, routinely presents talks at schools entitled “Boyz will be Men” (sponsored by Ernst & Young).
The aim is to empower young men to understand their emotions, and relate to others in constructive ways that will give them direction later when they become husbands and fathers.
“We need to break the so-called ‘man-box’, with all its stereotypes such as ‘men don’t cry’ and ‘men work, women raise the children’,” says Rutter. “I believe we have to start at age six or seven. If we get to this generation, it will heal future generations of men, and we will have a very different country.”
One self-styled role model of modern fatherhood is Sithembiso Ndashe. The father of a daughter, Ndashe is the founder of a Twitter and Facebook campaign called LOVEfatherhood. “Men need to stop blaming the system or the past. And the notion that it’s okay to just have a baby and get a social grant needs to be addressed,” he says.
His approach is to build a “brand” of good fathers, by reaching and changing the attitude of “one father at a time”.
Ndashe’s message will hopefully spread far and wide. But it is likely that the rural places that social networking doesn’t touch will present the toughest challenge in reinstating men who father children as real fathers to their children. - The Star
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CONTACTS
* Sonke Gender Justice Network – visit www.genderjustice.org.za
* MenCare – www.men-care.org
* Front Page Father – visit www.frontpagefather.co.za
* Search for ‘LOVEFatherhood’ on Twitter or Facebook