March 2020, in this very column, I wrote about the plight of a man who has not seen his children for almost three years. The man in question put up a tent and staged an 11-day hunger strike outside the social development department.
He did this in a bid to draw attention to his ordeal and to ultimately see his two children, who moved in with their grandparents after their mother died. He said the children's maternal grandparents did not like him much, citing the nationality and religious beliefs as possible reasons for him being barred from seeing his children.
A few years ago the same man walked from eMalahleni to the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria to create awareness for his plight. Men across the country could relate to his cry, garnering great support for his cause.
It seems the cries of these men have not been in vain. The Children’s Amendment Bill grants full parental responsibilities to the unmarried biological father of a child. Originally, an unmarried father did not automatically enjoy full parental responsibilities and rights.
Unmarried fathers need to meet certain criteria to enjoy full parental responsibilities and rights – criteria such as, if they were living with the mother at the time of the birth, consents or applies to be identified as the child’s father, contributed to the child’s upbringing for a reasonable period and contributed to child maintenance expenses for a reasonable period. This development in the bill states that a family advocate may issue a certificate confirming that the biological father has automatically acquired full parental responsibilities.
The bill also proposes that a person who has custody of a child may not deny a person with parental responsibilities access to the child, unless there’s an order of the court to that effect. This is a critical move because there are instances where present fathers would be denied access to their children, without merit. And to gain this access, they would have to jump through hoops, beg and go to exhausting lengths, to be a part of their own child’s life.
This is important in that the power would be taken away from those who at that time are the primary caregivers of the child. No party can leverage having access to the child, to the detriment of the other parent. The decision as to who has custody now rests in the hands of those who will act in the best interests of the child.
This can also equally be unnerving when one considers how ineffective our systems have shown themselves to be and how long they could take in deciding on such matters. The decision will however, at least, not be based on arbitrary, personal requirements as set out by the current primary caregiver.
The bill goes on to propose that a person who “prevents that person from exercising such [access] contact or such [parental] responsibilities and rights is guilty of an offence and liable on conviction to a fine or to imprisonment”.
Many men speak of the exhausting red tape involved in them gaining access to their children. This is not to say there shouldn’t be checks and balances. Men should be given a fair chance at parenting their own children. In as much as we have a problem of absent fathers, legislative strides such as these are important. To at least give those that want to father, an equal chance at fathering. Sad to have said “that want to father” as if fatherhood is something one can opt into or out of, but that is the sad reality in our country.
When such legislative progress is made, the impact is not limited to just a father having equal parental rights. Such strides impact on the broader context of our society. Such as creating shifts in people's understanding of parenting and fatherhood specifically, that it can equally be done by men and some men are enthusiastic about this role.
Such legislative moves aid in creating shifts in how children come to understand the role of men in our society, not reducing them to a provider that is distant to them but that men can be caregivers and nurture them as well.
The impact on the boy child – a boy child raised by their father, as a primary caregiver – will likely have a different conception of masculinity, fatherhood and what a present dad looks like, and may eventually become a present parent themselves.
This makes some inroads in fighting stereotypical notions of what being a father or man looks like. Importantly, as our society progresses, changes such as these contribute to the dismantling of the automatic assumption that the primary caregiver role will be played by the mother. And dispels the myth that men are not natural caregivers.
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