by John Elliott aka Oaky Wood
After years of living a lie, with a wife who didn't show me, or our children the kind of love most would normally expect from a partner, I found myself alone and trying to come to terms with being a single parent.
Over the many loveless years, I hung in there, in the vein hope that everything would right itself. I clung to the old values, believing that I should just continue for the sake of keeping my family together. But as time went by I realized that neither my children nor myself could continue the way things were. I watched as my children were being neglected, whilst I was at work, often returning to find them locked in, alone, sometimes without any electricity, or food in the cupboards, whilst their mother was out drinking with friends, and coming home in the small hours of the morning, drunk and in a dishevelled state. I had to do something as this was taking its toll on both my children and myself too. Decisions had to be made; life changing and drastic measures were indeed needed for our continued survival. Yet I was a man, and this wasn't going to be easy, as everything certainly is geared towards mothers bringing children up alone and not their father. Courts' deeming that children needed their mother's more. But what if children had mother's who were unfit custodians, what then? Men have certainly had a raw deal when it comes to custodial battles with estranged spouses, but that tide of change is happening. More single parents are in fact male, why is this I wonder, is it that women are becoming less maternal, and reverting to a way of life, like many animals in the wild where offspring are abandoned to survive on their own in this cruel world. Or is it the tendency of women of certain ages suddenly wanting to feel young again, and wanting to free themselves of the responsibilities of parenthood in their pursuit of their own happiness's. These questions could never be answered fully by myself, as I was a mere man and only endowed with a man's sense of fairness and logic. And through all this my children were suffering by being denied the love a mother should indeed be giving them, a kind of love only attainable from a mother. I took on this awesome task through my own deep passion and love for my offspring, my own paternal feelings were so strong, in wanting to give them all the love and understanding I could.
Through hard work and dedication, fighting back the many hours of pain and loneliness I set out on my journey of discovery. Being a single parent is just this, a wonderful and rich journey of discovering your children all over again. The realizations that they depend entirely on you and no one else, sink's in. I dearly love my children and have willingly sacrificed almost everything for their welfare; indeed the sacrifices were many along the way. I am a survivor and as such have learned to adapt myself to the many changes life throws at me.
Society frowns on male single parents, out of fear of the unknown. Its through this underlying fear that other men look down on single parent father's, believing them to have gay or homosexual tendencies, after all which normal male would want to take on the mantle of being both a child's mother and father figure in one, doing all of the chores / jobs deemed feminine, like washing cooking ironing and shopping not to mention the housework. As for myself I have never associated these chores to be gender specific and should be shared in any type of relationship. I believe a man to be more masculine by being capable of achieving the so-called female jobs around the house and home. I was brought up within a family consisting of sisters, and was expected by my parents to learn all the fundamentals of basic good housekeeping and being involved in everything from the weekly washday chores and the ability to knit and do needlework from a very early age. In our family environment it didn't matter what gender you were, if the job needed doing you were expected to learn it. Today the pigeon holing of men and women into their respective slots still exists amongst our peers but as a single parent and male it's difficult to convince prospective employers that you are not a liability and can offer a much higher level of employee usefulness in the workplace and be an asset to any company.
As I look around me, my children are growing up fast, they are becoming adults, well I certainly do use that term loosely as in my eyes they will always be my babies. But through my dedicated care and love I brought them out of an oppressive lifestyle, and they are indeed better individuals because of my decision to bring them up as a single parent. They are better equipped to face their own futures, as they prepare themselves for their own journey through life. I am a single parent and a man and very proud of it.