AN OPEN LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
HI
My name is Motswedi and i grew up without a father. how many of you were fortunate to grow up with their fathers? how many of you weren't as fortunate?
how does this make you feel? are you angry? depressed? lonely? do you feel rejected?
All the emotions mentioned above are exactly how i felt most of my life.
So how is it possible that people grow up without fathers? for others, it’s because their fathers are afraid of taking on the responsibility of having to take care of another human being, so they flee. some have differences with their partner (our mothers) and they feel the need to discontinue the relationship. But along the way, they forget that they have responsibilities of taking care of another human being, (which is what happened in my case). mind you, taking care includes all aspects that one needs: emotional attention, physical support, giving advice, words of affirmation and just having that sense of love and affection from your parent. Some men feel like this is too much to provide for a child hence they just leave.
Others have their fathers present in their lives; however, they are emotionally unavailable. Their fathers are solely concerned with providing for the family physically and financially, yet they fail to understand that there is more to just putting food on the table. They do not know what their children's aspirations are, their hobbies and interests. all they care about is putting food on the table and buying their children the latest iPhone.
The effects of growing up without a father go far beyond being angry with him for not being around as a child. most of the time, children who grow up without dads are angry, angry at the world, angry with themselves and they tend to have a victim mentality. I remember when I was young, i reached out to my father, sent him a long text from mom’s phone telling him how much i want to meet him and his other children, telling him i want to live with them and get to know them. But he never replied. I remember i said to myself " i will never forgive this man for the way he treated me, i was so mad at him that i vowed never to forgive him. And that's when i started developing anger issues. i used to get mad and offended over everything. I still do even at the age of 22. IMAGINE. For a girl child, her father sets the parameters on how she should be treated by any man who comes into her life. This is done through the interaction they have together as the child grows older. The advice she gets from him to the mere physical affection of combing her hair to help her get ready for school. for the boy child, he gets to learn how to treat a woman from the way his father treats his mother. This explains why some men grow up and they abuse women, usually, they'd be acting out what they grew up seeing from their parents.
Why do you think we have a lot of gender-based violence in our society? why are men so disrespectful towards women and can’t take no for an answer? why are young women dating older men for either money, or just for the fun of it. why are people so unhappy? why is our country ranked 148th out of 156 countries?
There could be many reasons and answers to the questions above. but part of it, is because we didn't get the necessary love and caring starter pack from both our parents. Dr Jordan B Peterson states that children who grew up with both their parents are less aggressive and more assertive as they grow up and to top it all off, they are less likely to be depressed. This is because they get to learn assertiveness from playing rough games with their fathers when they are younger. In a given scenario where a younger you is playing with your father and your other siblings, when you were young, and it happens that you hurt one of them while playing. In that situation, your father at that time would halt the game, then try figure out what happened, and if he learns that you hurt your sibling, he would make you understand the situation(remember you're still young and do not understand a lot of things). and upon learning that you hurt your sibling, he would make you realize that you are at fault and need to apologize. That's how you learn about empathy at a young age. from your father. this could be the reason why some people never apologize to others even when they did them wrong. Because they were never taught how to be empathetic at a young age.
is there anyone you know who never apologizes to others? think about why they never do.
mothers who deny fathers the opportunity to bond and get to know their children. stop being selfish and think about your child.
what does this mean for us as young people?
why is it that the same guys who grew up without their fathers are still the very same ones neglecting their children now?
call to action: be actively present in your child's life, allow your children's fathers to be there for their children.
as for me, find out what happened to the 22 years old me in the next article.
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