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Happy father’s day mummy

Father’s day is coming up and I am excited about it. I love the celebration surrounding this day, the gifts, the cards and generally the day itself. This year however I just want to pay tribute to a different group of dad’s because in their own right they are fathers too. This year I think of them because anyone in their right mind will know I’m not making anything up and they too deserve to be celebrated this Sunday.

There are great men that deserve to be honoured, men who work tirelessly to put food on the table for their families, men who go out to war not knowing whether they’ll come back home and the only thing that keeps them sane is a mental picture of their family. Men who make all the sacrifices necessary for their children and no matter what they go through they make sure they give that little girl or boy a smile that assures them, their daddy is a hero. These men deserve to be celebrated.

I live in a country where there are so many fathers missing in their children’s life, most of them don’t see the value of being there for their kids. Raising a child is left to be a woman’s responsibility; you’ll rarely spot a man in a children’s ward or in the maternity room. In fact as if to be cruel some men even disappear a few months after the child is born claiming the house has become noisy. The woman on the other hand takes up the responsibility of being the father and mother to the new offspring as well as any children already present. She is still recuperating from having a baby yet she has to go to work and when she comes back home she has no time to rest.

Don’t get me started on the high number of single mother’s today as well as the numbers of men who leave their women pregnant never to return. Women for one reason or another have had to rise to the occasion and play both roles in a child’s life. When did the situation become so awful? When as a generation did we breed the large number of irresponsible men we have today? Were they born this way or did something go wrong as they were growing up? On a daily basis I overhear conversations and read variety of posts on different social media platforms, men claiming they were trapped, dead beat dads denouncing their kids and my all time favourite a father who now wants to be associated with their child after success comes their way. These kinds of men show no remorse whatsoever for their actions, sure there are so many explanations which have been made up to try and excuse their actions however it has become rather tiring and boring to read the never-ending tales.

Women as well can be prone to leaving their kids under the care of others but to be honest this kind of irresponsibility is more prevalent in men. For some men if things don’t work out with the mother they completely shut down emotionally towards them both which is really unfair for the child involved.

As a single mother as well I know what goes into raising a child without any support, when my son calls out mummy and daddy I respond. Some men say to single mothers “you are not a man” as if to try and intimidate us, what they don’t realise is that it’s not a competition: it has become a way of life for any woman who raises kids without any help.

I strongly understand what father’s day is all about and in previous years I have celebrated my father; one of the great men I know, he is a hero to me and a great role model. This year things are a little different even though it’s father’s day as I celebrate my own father and the many other great men out there, I also choose to celebrate the great women out there who are of great courage and no mother’s day alone is not enough. They are not appreciated, as they should be, they are not given enough as much recognition as they deserve. So this father’s day I only have one thing to say:

“Happy father’s day mummy.”