Bitter single mother narrative only favours absent fathers

Children are costly, an unwilling parent even more so. The other day I took a walk to the Booysens Magistrate’s Court.

Always intrigued by matters of the child, I wanted a different perspective on child maintenance, to meet the faces behind the numbers, see the people dependent on the system. It is important to first understand that, across the country, there are no statistics that give real numbers to the number of maintenance orders in place.

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In essence, we do not know what is being paid to recipients by the defendants, through garnishee orders or in arrears.

In a country of nearly 70% homes of absent fathers, have the court systems taken into account the difficulty that comes with having to spread one so thin that they ought to be mother and father, teacher, general practitioner and transport driver?

Yet we must also be honest with ourselves, in that, not every court will agree that every applicant’s request is valid. Comments from maintenance officers who tell them to further live in poverty.

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This, they say as “ma’am, you’ll just have to learn to live within your means”, all the while the other parent lives as though they do not have a responsibility and care in their life. And when these women lash out, they are labelled as “bitter baby mamas”.

Are these women not tired, not strained. Are they not hungry, having sacrificed their meals in order for their child to eat? Have they not given up their most basic needs to cater for their child’s luxuries?

Let me say this, the socialisation of single mothers who voice their children’s needs as bitter is nothing more than excusing parental responsibility in favour of the men who procreate these children, who they now see as a hindrance.

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Bitter single mother narrative only favours absent fathers

This narrative can only be changed by the courts, not the women who feel victimised by it, not the men who consider it to be their safe heaven and hiding place.

We can only wish the women who walk these corridors the strength to see their mission through and the courage to keep their roar when they themselves feel that they have become the hunted!

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