As women we should not have to go it alone…a man and a woman have an equal role to play in the upbringing of a child

By Mutryce A. Williams

In our society, a mother is the epitome of strength and she wears this as a badge of honour. She can and has for centuries moved mountains and held her family together. She is impregnable. She can do everything, but the question is – “Why should she have to do everything?” I suppose that as mothers one of the first things we have to realize is that we should not have to go it alone. We have to realize that we cannot do it alone, of course if we absolutely have to, we will brace ourselves and do the best that we can. However, we need to be honest with ourselves and realize that a child needs his or her father as much as he or she needs a mother. I am certain that there are many who would have my neck on a chopping block for making such a statement, as this way of thinking goes against the grain. 

Some may view it as I am somehow trying to take that much deserved badge of honour from the mother who is raising or has raised her child/children by herself. I am not! Then again we need to ask ourselves why that statement would bother or ‘sting us so’. Is it because we have been saddled with the burden of raising a child by ourselves or is it because we never knew the presence of a father? These things affect us in more ways than we may know. I can hear the cries now, “How much woman just raise they children by themselves everyday…she must be drunk man...the man them aint of no use…so is we just have to take up the burden and do it by we self.” I applaud every woman who has had to do this, as I can imagine it being no easy feat. Again I ask: “Why should a woman have to raise a child by herself? Is it because that is just the way things work?”

As mothers we must ask what is our role in all of this? I have heard some women say, “Well if the man them want go what we could do to stop them?” This is true, we shouldn’t have to drag on to a man’s heel to make him take responsibility for his child, but we have to ask as well, am I doing everything in my power to create an environment for him to have a relationship with his child? Is it a case where ‘we fall out’ so ‘I don’t want to have a thing to do with him’, forgetting that there is the welfare of the child to be concerned about. Some of us do not know how to separate the two. Why can’t we agree on, “Me and you aint in nothing you know, but we got a child together, so let’s see how best we could get along and raise this child!” Some of us become bitter if the man has chosen to move on with another woman. The child then becomes a weapon or a pawn. The child becomes our trump card, especially if this is a man who cares about his child. Don’t be so shocked, there are men who care about their children. 

As mothers we exclaim, even in the presence of the child, “You aint getting me child to carry round no dirty foot woman…if you want to see him is on my terms and if you can’t agree to my terms then you aint going see him…let me see who you going choose…that thing or you child…let me see what you make out of…” Now mothers think on this. What does this do to your child? Who suffers in all this? Another twist is, your son sees this behaviour, he grows up and finds himself in a similar situation - what do you think he would do? Do you think he would stick around or that his mind would drift to his feelings of his younger years and he may say, “Me, I don’t want all that drama, let she fire she tail, the child may be better off without all of this nonsense.” On the other hand, ones daughter may be watching and she learns the artful skill of manipulation, masters it even, keeping it should she find herself in a similar situation. This is how she has learnt how to deal with this kind of man. The cycle goes on and on.

As mothers, how do we view the man’s role? Is he a father or a provider of finances? I know that there are some men who are seasonally employed who may not be able to give as much as they would like to financially and, because they are unable to do so, they do not show up to visit their child. They feel ashamed because they have been socialized to think that a man’s role is to provide financially for his child and nothing else. 

These men know that should they show up empty handed they would be berated by the mothers even in front of the children, and rather than look like a failure in front of one’s offspring these men stay away. I ask: “Who suffers in all this?” There are those of us who don’t hesitate to drag the man across the courthouse when he fails to pay child support, but when he asks for visitation rights we make it crystal clear, “Judge all I want is he money to feed me child…I don’t want him around me or my child…what he want see the child for?” Do we stop to think about how the absence of a father affects a child? Do we ever stop to wonder why as women we hold on to this way of thinking? Some of us, even without knowing it, are not even aware that this doctrine has been ingrained in us.  

 I ask: “Is there something wrong with realizing that the man has an equal role to play in the upbringing of his child?” Do not get me wrong either, I am not saying that a man and a woman must be married or be in a relationship for this to be accomplished, but that each party should play an active role in the upbringing of that child. We hear the exclamations daily. “My mother was my mother and father, what father you telling me bout!” We also hear, “Look my mother raise all of us without the help or support of one man and look how good we all turn out!” We hear mothers telling their children, “What father you bawling for, is me carry you nine months, is me feel all the pain bring you into this world, is me you seeing everyday, what you know bout father, you worthless father take up heself and gone leave me, you think he care, he aint care, if he had care he would have been here, so don’t let me hear you bawl for no father again because I will surely give you something to bawl for, bout you bawling for father!” In these modern times we are hearing, “I make enough money to support me and me child, so what do I need a man for, he can go where he going when I done get my child!”

I would be honest, I shared some of these views but lucky for me I have friends like Kalil Newton-De Laucaudray and my sister Julie Charles who sat and reasoned with me, who after much frustration tried to make me realize that the father has an equal role to play in the up bringing of the child. These are women who were raised by strong single mothers but they are also women who embraced the ‘new motherhood doctrine’. I was one who said, “How you mean is he child too; tell me what exactly he do? Tell me! He feel any pain…I think the child is more the mother’s child than the man’s.” Another friend of mine who shared the same views said she made that remark to her significant other and his response floored her. He said, “Since a woman don’t need a man, since the child is more the woman’s than the man’s, let me see you make a child by yourself.”

We live in a society where we are rush to put labels on everything but we fail to ask the “whys”. I even ask, which is something that perplexes me to this day, “Why if women are raising the men, why do these same men grow up to be absentee fathers? Is it because their mother wore that badge of single motherhood so well that they don’t think that there is a role for man in the upbringing of a child?  Is it because she failed to sit him down and tell him that being a single mother is quite challenging and tell him that as a man he ought to be responsible? Mothers, is there something wrong in letting our children know that life as a single parent is very challenging and I am not just talking about financially, would that somehow make us seem weak or take that badge or halo away from us? Is there something wrong in telling our daughters that regardless of what happens between herself and the father of her child she must create an environment where the child has a relationship with his or her father. The cycle has to end somewhere.