Life on its own is a challenge, and it’s even worse when one of those challenges involves growing up without a father figure in one’s life. The focus of today will be on children that have grown up without a father figure.

In cases like these, some have met their birth fathers but they have never received unconditional love, care, joy and happiness, safety, or emotional or financial support. Some have been lucky enough to have fathers on the side that have modelled the role of a father; these could be uncles, grandfathers, brothers, cousins, or people who are admired from the community. Hence there is a saying: “Everyone is a father but not everyone is a dad.” In the writer’s opinion, this means that all males that have been blessed to create babies through mating are then regarded as fathers because women cannot not create the baby alone. The father is a father in this regard because he has contributed to the pregnancy of the woman through his sperm only. At other times such men are referred to as ‘hit and run’ men.

On the other hand, a dad is beyond being a father. A dad takes responsibility for his actions. He is mature, empathetic, caring, and supportive. He does not leave you, as a woman, with a burden, he’s generous enough to face life’s challenges with you. Not many of the children out there have been lucky enough to have a dad in their lives. Life these days is well dominated by fathers who are afraid to take responsibility for their actions when women pronounce themselves pregnant. The minute a woman opens up to them about their pregnancy, they leave. As a woman, you then have all the responsibility of raising the child on your own. This is why most women go into a phase of having postnatal stress after they have given birth. The burden becomes too much for them to an extent that they even attempt suicide or, a worst-case scenario, they either abandon or kill their babies because of the stress. Yet such things would have been prevented had the father been present at the time.

Today’s focus lies on a female who grew up without a father figure in her life and the challenges that she has had to bear throughout her life. At present she has grown to be a beautiful 28-year-old woman who is working hard to make a name for herself regardless of life’s misfortunes. The lady in discussion was born to two young parents in the year 1992. Her mother was 16 years old and her father was 17 years old at the time. Both parents were still schoolkids, and because of that, the paternal grandparents of the child had to raise her; they raised the child so that her parents could finish school and be able to cater for her. Luckily enough, both the parents managed to finish their matric grade, but in the process, after the child was born, the father went AWOL.

The saddest part is that the father was around the same area, but could not be a dad to the child. The paternal grandparents continued to raise the girl child: they took her to crèche, and from there her paternal grandfather played a father-figure role by taking her to an English school that not many could afford at the time. The paternal grandfather paid for her school fees at that school until matric because he wanted the best for her.

Furthermore, the father of the girl child never bothered to be there as a father figure, or rather, dad. The child would see her father when he came to see his parents, although there was no attachment because the girl child had never seen her birth father and he had never expressed love to her.

In 2012 the girl child completed her matric and went on to university to pursue her BA in Psychology. In 2020 she pursued her Postgraduate Diploma in Educational Management. Her paternal grandparents were still in contact with her, together with the child’s maternal family at this point. The girl child also started her own NPO youth mentoring organisation and her own company, regardless of life’s misfortunes. Through the years, life had not been easy, especially with not having received unconditional love and a sense of attachment from her birth father. In a right sense of mind, we know that we all need unconditional love from both our parents in order to turn out well later on in life. Hence many psychological studies have proven that when a child misses an attachment stage while they’re still young, it then messes with their adult life, including their future relationships.

Even though the girl child’s accolades seem profound, she had struggled in her intimate relationships, in a sense that she has always been attracted to men that have ‘red flags’. She has been attracted to such men to an extent that she even became a victim at some point in her life. She was emotionally abused, controlled and manipulated throughout that relationship. Her relationship with a narcissist messed up her emotions and psyche, in a way that she does not trust fully and always seeks assurance or security in relationships because of her past relationship, and because of having an absent father in her life.

The lady in discussion has also created a wall to protect herself and that has caused problems in her relationship, hence she is perceived as controlling. Life continues to be a challenge in this regard, especially because she never went to counselling in her entire life to deal with this problem. She has only depended on herself in dealing with this matter. It’s even worse when you have to deal with such things when you wonder how things would have turned out had you received unconditional love from your birth father figure.

The story of this young lady is testimony to the fact that a father figure in one’s life is important and should never be taken for granted. Every child deserves to be loved by their birth father unconditionally. Fathers should never even be instructed to love and be there for their children, it needs to be a mutual feeling. That way no child needs to struggle in their adult life because of the decisions that their birth father made that favoured the father only.

This needs to be a call-out to all fathers out there who have left their kids in the hands of women only, or left other men to raise their kids. Men’s conferences need to educate birth fathers about the importance of taking responsibility once they have impregnated a woman. Failure to do so should at least be accompanied by constitutional rules that if you deny your child a father-figure attachment, you permanently lose your rights as a father to have a say in the child’s life.

You can imagine how it’s still going to be a long road for the young lady, because before everything else, she firstly needs to deal with her past trauma, which has continued till this day. Despite the young lady’s upbringing, she is working hard as a female figure. She is conquering against all odds, which is phenomenal and inspiring.

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