For some, it’s a choice they made to go down the road of single parenthood due to many factors like careers that they don’t want to mix with commitment. Others simply prefer not to be bothered by the drama that comes with irresponsible baby daddies that simply don’t have a care in the world. Welcome to the world of single mothers. 

For 24-year-old Justine Uwera, single parenthood was thrust upon her as she found herself pregnant by a man who refused to take responsibility. He accused her of sleeping with other men and denied the pregnancy.

"When I told my boyfriend that I was pregnant he said it wasn’t his, that he wasn’t the only man I was sleeping with and that it was over between us. He even started ignoring my calls and it was always a girl who picked the phone. I was devastated and felt so betrayed. I kept on wondering how a human being could be that heartless, but it was a reality I had to face. The bright side is that my parents supported me all through and now I have a healthy five-year-old son.

"I now have a job and I’m able to support my son but his father has never even made an attempt to be a part of his son’s life. Being a single mom is hard but I try to balance my work and find time for my son. Regardless, we live a happy life with my son and though things are hard sometimes, we still find a way to survive,” Uwera says.

One may wonder how a person can abandon his own flesh and blood, but yes it happens. Most of the time men flee when baby issues kick in;only real men stand by their women and take care of their little ones.

Single motherhood is a worldwide issue; research shows that there are about 10 million single mothers in the world today. There is rapid and drastic increase in the number of single-parent families in the latter half of the 21st century.

This change has been attached to the breakdown of families with negative effects for children, families, and society. Others suggest that single-parent families have been present in all societies over time and should not be viewed as deviant, but rather as an alternative family form. Regardless of how family diversity is viewed, the prevalence of families headed by one parent has a major influence on the social, economic, and political context of family life.

Jean Damascene Iyamuremye, a psychologist based at the Rwanda Biomedical Centre, says that women who give birth out of wedlock tend to be more disadvantaged than their married counterparts, both before and after the birth.

Unmarried mothers generally have lower incomes, and are more likely to be vulnerable in most aspects of life. He also says that single mothers also tend to fare worse than childless single women; for example, they have reduced marriage prospects compared to single women without children.

For the children born to single mothers, Iyamuremye says that they are more likely to grow up in a single-parent household, experience unstable family life, live in poverty, and have socio-emotional problems.

"As these children reach adolescence, they are more likely to have low educational attainment, engage in sex at a younger age, and give birth outside of marriage. As young adults, children born outside of marriage are more likely to have more troubled marriages and more divorces than those born to married parents,” Iyamuremye says.

He notes that men who abandon their kids experience repeating patterns in their lives; they could have lacked affection in their childhood or faced a similar situation of not growing up with a dad, a pattern of life familiar to them and hence not finding it a problem.

"For the same psychological reasons, the likelihood of suicide increases when a parent took his or her own life, the likelihood of parental abandonment increases when such abandonment is part of a man’s personal history,” Iyamuremye explains.

Sandra (not real name) is only weeks away from giving birth to her first born. You’d think that for her, it is eternal bliss as the father too is only expecting his first. However, she has been forced to cut ties with him as he has not shown any promise of being a responsible father.

"I like giving people the benefit of the doubt because people change. But when a man makes the same promise over and over again, and each time, fails to deliver, how long can you stick around? He was informed of this pregnancy as early as three weeks into it. He made promises to go with me to the doctor and help in any way he could. He said he’d be there for me and that we were in it together.

"I believed him the first time because he seemed genuinely happy about it. But then he went silent for about two months. No communication whatsoever. I asked him if he was okay and he only responded a few days later with just "yes”,” says Sandra.

For the following months, the pattern was pretty much the same when it came to her baby daddy. He made promises to save money for the baby but that dream couldn’t have died faster.

"After a few rows here and there, I realised that I couldn’t rely on him at all and that I was in fact safer off going at it alone. And that is what I decided to do because the thought of him stressed me out so much, I even worried I would get a miscarriage,” she says.

Josephine Kamanzi, a happily married woman and mother of two, says that it is callous for a man to walk away from the woman carrying his child; she calls it an act of selfishness and uncivilisation.

"A man should stand by the mother of his child because they both need a male counterpart in their lives, leaving a woman, especially when she is expecting, causes stress and in the end, affects the child too. Having a kid alone is so stressful because even those with help from the father of our kids still find hardships when it comes to raising children. Men should be responsible and stand by their women and also take care of their children,” kamanzi says.

Shamsi Kazimbaya, the National Coordinator at Rwanda Men’s Resource Centre (RWAMREC) says that: "For those who are not married, I think having kids happens as an accident, it’s not an issue of a man abandoning a woman or a child but rather something that was not planned. Men fear responsibility sometimes and end up opting to hide from it.

"But again there some women who at a certain age just decide to have children and it’s their own choice to be single mothers so, there are two categories of single mothers, those who happen to be single by choice and those who happen to be by accident. There are also gender issues where a man is not able to support the mother and the kid financially, and chooses to leave. Sometimes the woman has more means than the man and the man feels worthless, in the end, abandoning the mother and the kid.”

According to online reports, that women find themselves drifting "unintentionally” into parenthood with men they have no intent of marrying creates another generation of problems.

One thing is for certain though, regardless of the nature of the relationship two people might find themselves in, responsibility of the children is a joint effort and it is argued that anyone who intentionally walks out on a child doesn’t deserve one to begin with. But that can only be God’s place to decide.

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I SAY: What do you think about dead beat dads?

Sydney Nsekanabo

I don’t understand how a human being can abandon his own flesh and blood; a man abandoning his child is an act of cowardice. It is being selfish and heartless. Men should take responsibility after impregnating a woman, they should play their part as fathers instead of fleeing, it takes two to tango therefore the woman should not be the one to face the responsibilities alone.

Deborah Mutoni

Sometimes women, especially here in Rwanda, tend to trick men into marriage by getting pregnant, this tends to backfire when men are not interested in the pregnancy hence,they end up facing the pregnancy alone and raising the kid all by themselves. Men shouldn’t be solely blamed for that, women should take caution so as not to conceive until they find the right man who is interested in them and ready to start a family.

Eric Ntiyamira

Men constantly do the same thing over and over again, getting women pregnant and abandoning them, this is so uncouth. They shouldn’t take pride in going around breaking women’s hearts and those of their children too. I am a man but I can never do such to a fellow human, its being heartless and inconsiderate.

Ruckie Amish

Men should think about the wellbeing of their kids, they should know that if a child misses out on father care, they will be affected when they grow up. If the child is a girl, she will be affected even more, for example, she can become a prostitute or have multiple lovers just so she can compensate for the father attention she missed out in her childhood.

editorial@newtimes.co.rw