I have no iota of respect for those who derive pleasure in shaming single mothers, its very shameful and sad to find “Women” as the convener of this shaming venture.

A lady once wrote ” Women raised by single mothers do not turn out well in life”. I find this particular comment very disturbing because it shows how narrow minded and myopic people are, how far patriarchy has dominated our society and I understood better why Nigeria is where she is today.

I have seen the society and family structure manifest in different ways. We have female children raised by both parents who turned out to be failures and those that turned out well in life. We have pastors children(Male or Female) that turned out to be rascals and those who turned out well in life. We have female children raised by single mothers who turned out well in life and those who did not. I have also seen those male or female children without parents that turned out well in life and those that did not. We have these categories of people because life or society is a phenomenon, multi facet and complex in nature.

We are in a Patriarchy dominated society where women, most especially single women or mothers are shamed or accused of not capable of instilling moral values into their children, mostly the female child. Today, womanhood has become an object of shaming that is incapable of instilling morals or values into female children just because he or she was raised by a single mother. Its very convenient for some of us to call any single mother irresponsible or question the upbringing or decency of any female child just because she was raised by a single mother.They find it convenient to question the character of any woman raised by a single mother, what about men or women raised by single fathers?

We also have married women who go about shaming single mothers or single ladies all over the social space. They look down on single mothers and ladies because they are “Happily Married”. They see marriage as the ultimate achievement in life, they portray and parade their marriage to be a perfect one on the readlooks. The greatest or ultimate achievement in life is not your marriage, your Gucci shoe, your car or your holiday trips to Dubia..the greatest achievement is the amount of lives you are able to impart positively.

You shame single mothers or ladies and portray a perfect marriage in the zukerberg’s space while you are constantly beaten and practically turned into a punching bag by your abusive husband, you have decided to endure your suffering because of what the society might say and how the society will see or label you. Most of you have no idea how strong single mothers are because your life evolve around your husbands.

Let everyone live there lives, if marriage is an ultimate or great achievement to you then good for you, let others who do not see marriage as their greatest achievement live their lives without getting bashed or insulted because life sometimes do not happen as we planned it.

It is unintelligent of anyone to analyze society or life using a mono causal instead of multi causal approach because Yoruba will say Omo ti oma gboran a gboran(A child that will listen will listen)..Yoruba will also say gbogbo aye lo nba ni to omo( The society also helps in training up a child). At the end of the day, the society also plays a major role in influencing and shaping a child’s life…how a child turn out in life is largely determined by the steps taken and how determined to come out well in life.

I appreciate every single mothers out there who are struggling day and night to secure the future of their children, your inner strength makes you stronger.

You are my hero.

Fadipe Seun

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