Girl code: Don’t force your advice on parents

Have you ever been part of some of those conversations where you have to keep telling yourself “Please be still”? I have been a victim on several occasions. Sometimes you feel like tying people on one end of a string and holding the other end then swinging it round and round till they are too drowsy to ever get any audience anywhere! Just the other day, before we were all sent back home, my friends and I were having a nice afternoon in some restaurant and I was sipping my favourite mojito when my powerful ears decided to do me good.

On the adjacent table was a group of about four men who had taken one too many. From the way they were shouting, I had no choice than to overhear their conversation. According to these men, children brought up by a single mother always grow up spoilt. To them, the absence of a male figure in any home is equivalent to the disastrous upbringing of a child. At some point, I almost rose from my seat to join the conversation but my guardian angel whispered to me, “Beryl, don’t lift those sitting apparatus from your chair. That’s not your battle”.

I stayed in my seat but here I am fighting the battle on behalf of the single mothers I have interacted with. I would have spoken about single fathers too but I am yet to have a one-on-one with any of them about the whole experience. The closest I ever got to a single father was when I tried dating one and the relationship went south faster than a rocket. This man just woke up one day and broke up with me and his children. I mean he just left the house with me and his two children inside it. You would have thought that I had come into the relationship with the two innocent beings. I had to look for this man and talk him into taking back his own children.

Anyway, back to those who think single mothers don’t bring up their children right. How about you publish a book on parenthood? Or better still, start a course on the same and enrol us? But I would never even register for such a course because most of you people already have a formed opinion about single mothers and their children. Do you people actually think we listed down our goals in life and made single parenthood one of them? Most single mothers found themselves in that situation and took the bull by the horns. If anything, you all should be giving some of us a standing ovation!

We raise these children just the same way we would have had there been a male figure in their lives. The only difference is there’s actually no male figure, at least one that we can self isolate with in the same room during such times. By room, I definitely don’t mean living room. If you don’t know which room I am referring to, you are probably part of the reason we are being castigated.

I wish we all could just live our lives as long as we are not endangering each other’s lives. If you are married, how about you concentrate on your marriage and bring up your child as you wish? Just stop running after single mothers day in, day out as if your peace depends on them. If we end up bringing up spoilt children, say it without pegging our marital status on it and vice versa.

To think that the people castigating us that day were all men is nauseating. It got me wondering who makes a woman a single mother? Wait, let me rephrase the question before your army gets here and skins me alive yet I am yet to find my prince charming. How does a woman get pregnant? By sitting on a banana peel and sliding her way to the delivery room, right?

Like I said, one day I will tie a string on you and swing you like a beetle.

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