Here’s to hoping Father’s Day is worth celebrating some day

It is almost impossible to celebrate Father’s Day without it being marred with negativity.

It sounds ideal to centre our conversations on celebrations and ignore all the things that have to do with men who also happen to be fathers. It would be disingenuous of us to suddenly forget to remind us men that we have declared war on women.

The truth is, the fathers who are really doing their best to father their children and are appreciated by their wives were celebrated on Sunday, and they continue to be celebrated in life.

What we need to come to terms with is that fathers are men. And men in South Africa are killing women and raping women. Until such a time where we get to a point where we know that the men who rape and commit other crimes against women are not fathers, this reserved day will be a reflection of men, holistically.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t end there.

South Africa has one of the highest rates of fatherlessness in the world. According to the 2018 Statistics SA General Household Survey, 43.1 percent of children lived with their mothers while a smaller percentage (3.3%) of children lived only with their fathers in 2018.

Basically, around 63% of births registered in 2018 had no information of fathers. This of course doesn’t mean that the fathers are not present in the children’s lives. Nevertheless, research has shown that the most children in South Africa have absent fathers.

More than half of South African fathers are not present in the lives of their children. And if our understanding as a society has enabled us to understand than when we say “Men are trash” we are not saying that there are no good men, then we should understand that when we lament and highlight fatherlessness on Father’s Day we are not saying there is no good, present and active fathers.

To celebrate Father’s Days in an overwhelming manner would mean that we should have an overwhelming percentage of fathers who are active fathers to their children.

To validate Father’s Day, fathers have to be in their children’s lives. To make the conversation a good story to tell, dads have to play their roles in their children’s lives.

Many children still spell the word father as, “M-O-T-H-E-R”. So, in the event the post across social media platforms offended you on Father’s Day, we cannot apologise for that. Because more than 60% of mothers are doubling up the parenting role. They are not our fathers, but such a day is a heartbreaking reminder to children who grow up without their fathers.

A day such as Father’s Day is a painful reminder to many children that they have nobody to wish a Happy Father’s Day. Again, fathers are men and as a country, men who are fathers, men who are CEOs, men who are leaders, men who are absent fathers, and all of us men who are men by default by being born male are abusing girls and women.

For that, until such a time that fatherlessness and men killing women and girls are things of the past, it won’t be business as usual, including and not limited to Father’s Day until the status quo changes.

• Kabelo Chabalala is the founder and chairperson of the Young Men Movement (YMM), an organisation that focuses on the reconstruction of the socialisation of boys to create a new cohort of men. Email: kabelo03chabalala@gmail.com; Twitter: @KabeloJay; Facebook: Kabelo Chabalala

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  Kabelo Chabalala.

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