I Became A
Single Parent, And I'm A Man
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 disheveled 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.
John Elliott aka Oaky Wood
John Elliott Aka Oaky Wood is
currently the Co-Founder of "The Corner 4
Women©2006" http://thecorner4women.com
is a Poet, writer, artist, webmaster and designer.
He is also the owner of the Oakwood Grafix©2005
Group of websites http://www.oakwoodgrafix.co.uk/
This article may be reproduced
provided it is unedited in any way with all links
intact.
