The Men In Our Lives

The Men in Our Lives
D
ivorce, death and the irresponsibility of many of our fathers out there has robbed many young women the warmth and stability of a healthy family situation. There is no such thing as a perfect family, but surely every individual, every young person; every girl deserves to have some kind of father figure in their lives.
It is a sad and an unfortunate fact that many first years that come to Rhodes yearly come from broken families, headless families, families with no father figures and many of these first years are affected psychologically by this, in one way or another. Many of these young adults come from single-parent-headed families and for many of them this single remaining parent is the mother. Having come from a broken family, a fatherless family, I realize how deep the implications of having no father-figure in ones life. However, I decided to narrow my observation to the effects fatherlessness has on the young girls that came to varsity for the first time this year.
I spoke to a young lady in my res, who lost her father when her parents decided to get a divorce at the age of ten, and asked her about how this had affected her growing up. S’nazo seems to believe that many of the mishaps in her life have been aggravated by the absence of a father figure in her life. This young lady has attended counseling for the fifth year this year and her stumbling block has been the inability to commit and trust, especially males in her life. S’nazo is now homosexual, and she dates other women. She believes that this is a conscious decision as she refuses to be subjected to the same rejection she felt when her dad left. S’nazo is not the only young lady I spoke to, I also spoke to Tumi who had lost her father to a nasty car accident two years ago. Tumi is still struggling to come to terms with the loss of her father as she personally believes that a father figure in one’s life is pivotal. I then sat and did a little self-introspection about the issue, because unfortunately I am part of the statistics, I too, lost my father at a very tender age. I realized who better to know the effect of having no father figure has on one’s life. It was always the little things that really got to me, the Father’s Day cards, the Parent’s meetings, the prize giving ceremonies and the sight of my mother sitting there alone and beaming with pride, ALONE. The day of my matric farewell, the day of my valedictory, the day I received my matric results, the day I first came to Rhodes, these were all significant days in my life and my own father was not there to appreciate them with me.
Psychologically this is said to have permanent implications on girls and these carry through to their adult lives and even through to their own children one day. In Victoria Secunda’s book, Women and Their Fathers , she states there explicitly that the absence of a father figure in a girl’s life is far more server e than it is for boys. She says women without fathers grow up to be far more dependent on the men in their lives, or are simply unable to commit and trust other males. She says the main role a father plays on a child’s life is to help them develop their own competence and independence. This then obviously lacks to some extent in the lives of the young women who grow up without father figures in their lives.
When one comes to place like varsity, it is a test of one’s character and values. Many of the decisions you make here could and should affect the rest of your life. It is therefore important that one has a solid up-bringing. No one has a perfect life, however it is important we draw attention to the pain some young women who walk around this campus experience and be sensitized to it. I pray that all the girls that have grown up and continue to grow without father figures in their lives, find the strength to continue holding their heads up high.