SELLO HATANG | Flipping the script on single parent fathers

There are stories society tells so often that we stop questioning them. One of those is that fathers leave. Another is that mothers stay.

The result is that we have normalised absent fathers and normalised single mothers to such an extent that neither story surprises us anymore. We expect women to carry the burden. We expect men to disappear.

The stereotypes have become so deeply rooted that when reality presents us with a different picture, we almost do not know what to do with it.

That is why a recent conversation on my radio show stayed with me long after the microphones were switched off.

As we mark Men’s Month, I wanted us to do something different. Not because fathers need a public relations campaign, but because some stories deserve to be told. We spend a great deal of time talking about fathers who are absent. Rightly so.

Their absence leaves wounds that many children, like me, carry into adulthood, but what about the fathers who stayed? What about the men who woke up every morning and chose responsibility over convenience?

Of course, not every father’s absence tells the whole story at first glance. While there are men who willingly walk away from their children, there are also fathers whose attempts to remain present are quietly frustrated by circumstances beyond their control.

Some fight legal battles and endure closed doors, unanswered calls, or years of alienation, eventually becoming little more than providers because every other avenue of fatherhood has been denied to them.

To a child, it may appear that their father chose not to stay, when in truth he was prevented from doing so. Their pain is real, but so too is the silent grief of fathers who never stopped wanting a relationship with their children.

The programme began with a conversation featuring Dr Mzamo Masito, author of This Country Hates Our Men/Boys, Zibuse L Kunene, from Dads in the Picture, and Anzio Jacobs from the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund. Together they helped frame a bigger conversation about children, families and the role society plays in raising them.

Jacobs reminded listeners that children do not grow up in isolation. Dr Masito offered a line that I suspect will stay with me for a very long time: “The love for a child begins at the end of our conflict and competition.”

I immediately thought about how often children become casualties of adult wars. Too many children are caught in battles they did not create. They become evidence in arguments rather than human beings deserving of love. Masito’s observation was a reminder that parenting begins when our desire to defeat each other ends.

Kunene added another profound reflection. We must prepare children to understand that parents are imperfect human beings.

Perhaps one of the greatest gifts we can give children is permission to see our humanity. Parents make mistakes. We get tired. We lose patience. We get things wrong.

The danger comes when children grow up expecting perfection from people who are simply trying their best. Love and imperfection can coexist. In fact, most families survive precisely because they do.

Then came the stories. The stories that statistics can never tell.

Isaac Photo became a father while still at university. Life interrupted his plans. Faced with the reality of raising a child, he left university and entered the world of work.

Mpho Khomo’s story carried a different kind of pain. His partner passed away when their firstborn child was still very young. Overnight, he found himself navigating grief while trying to raise children who were themselves learning to live with loss.

There is no handbook for that. No YouTube tutorial. No university degree. Just one day after another. One school run after another. One difficult conversation after another.

Yet despite their different journeys, both men arrived at the same conclusion. Parenting requires sacrifice. Not the kind of sacrifice that earns applause. The quiet kind. The kind that happens behind closed doors.

Both fathers spoke about relationships and how careful they had to be before introducing new partners into the lives of their children.

They understood that children should not be expected to emotionally process every chapter of an adult’s romantic life. Trust had to come first. Certainty had to come first. Children had to come first.

The true measure of a parent is not what they accumulate for their children but what they sacrifice for them

Perhaps the most powerful voices on the programme belonged to the daughters.

Tsholo Photo and Amogelang Klouw did not speak about fathers who merely paid school fees. They spoke about fathers who cared. Fathers who worried. Fathers who listened. Fathers who loved. Listening to them felt like watching stereotypes crumble in real time.

For too long society has treated nurturing as though it belongs exclusively to women. Yet here were two young women describing fathers who had nurtured them, disciplined them, guided them and protected them. Their stories reminded us that care is not a feminine instinct. Care is a human instinct.

Both daughters also spoke about discipline. Their fathers travelled internationally for work; responsibility arrived early. Expectations were high. Sacrifices were required from everyone. What stood out was not resentment but gratitude. Not entitlement but understanding. Not distance but trust.

Their fathers believed in them. Children often become what the people who love them believe they can become.

As the programme came to an end, I realised something. Perhaps the greatest disservice we do to men is to only notice them when they fail.

We have become experts at telling stories of abandonment. We are less comfortable telling stories of commitment.

Yet there are men all around us quietly raising children, carrying grief, making sacrifices, navigating loneliness and choosing responsibility every single day.

They are not perfect. Neither are mothers. Neither are children. That was precisely Kunene’s point. They are present, and presence matters.

The conversation left me with a simple but profound truth: children do not need perfect parents. They need parents who stay.

As I often say, “The true measure of a parent is not what they accumulate for their children but what they sacrifice for them.”

This Men’s Month, perhaps it is time we widened the conversation. Not to ignore absent fathers. Not to diminish the extraordinary work of single mothers, but to make room for another story too: the story of fathers who stayed.

• Hatang is the executive director of Re Hata Mmoho and a host of Power Week on Power 98.7