By Patrick Mndebele

Being a single mother isn’t an easy feat. We have Hagar as a biblical prayer example of how this can cause a mother to be exiled to a wilderness place. As we share on this we hope that single parents, mothers especially would re-examine God’s position on this matter.

Dear single mother. May the Lord give you grace to raise these kids in God’s ways. When the kids father want to bond with the child or to let the child visit him & his wife… it is a good thing. Though you are exes, this is his child too. Never use the child to settle scores, or demonize the father character to the child. It is good for the child to bond, love, and connect with the father.

If we as men and women open up about these issues we will agree that it is not really true that women hurt more and men are just like steel. The suicide (in males) and depression (in females) rates confess that hurt has no gender. It just so happens that women are more expressive, whilst men are more private with pain.

So, we cannot say: “she is being difficult and she does not allow him to see his own child because she is still hurting”. It is abuse to prevent the father to connect and bond with his own child. It is beneficial to the child to bond with his/her father. It is his/her father, no matter how bitter was your separation. Noone should use the child as an instrument of payback (vengeance).

We must approach this issue with such a mind, saints.

Let us face some realities here.
Re:
1) Pain cannot be gender specific. Even though pain may not come from the same place.
2) To dump the ills of the society to one gender and then call that gender to “man up” is to be in denial and to shift a core responsibility.
3) To brand men as people which are simply perpetrators which are stone cold and never feel any hurt is to falsely characterise a particular gender.
4) A sexist approach does not bear fruit, but it just develops a blame game for the ills of the society.
5) We, as parents must ensure that both our sons and daughters are raised in God’s ways, to try eliminate lots of the ills which usually occur. Rather than simply narrating and promoting the “men are trash” agenda.
6) Pain is expressed in different ways, as each gender suggests. When one gender expresses pain in a certain way, we should not glorify that way as superior. Genders behave differently.

These are some of the things women may say to children, ” Don’t ask me about your father! I don’t want to hear you mention his name in my house, ever!

Your father is some stupid boy, a moron which will die like a dog. Forget about him. When you mention him, I just lose appetite. You want to spend time with him for what?

Over my dead body. I carried you alone for 9 full months. Ungangitsheli ngaleyonja. Ngeke akubone, ngiyamlaya. Wangishiya, wahamba washada omunye umuntu ngikhona. You are my child wena. Yini engingakwenzeli yona mina? Ufunani kulenja, ngoba yonke into ngiyakwenzela”

Let us evaluate these words and share our thoughts for the equipping of the saints. Parents carry a serious responsibility in raising the Lord’s heritage. We encourage single mothers to respect the rights of fathers and allow children to have healthy interactions with both parents.