Dammy had a son when she was in secondary school and the father of her child deserted her immediately he learnt she was pregnant.  With the support of her parents, she went back to school, got a degree and she now has a high flying job.

But at 30, Dammy isn’t married. Each time she is in a relationship and discloses that she has a child to any of her suitors they develop cold feet.

 Dammy lost three suitors to this and she can’t stop wondering why.  Every time she goes back home at night and remembers this, she drowns herself in tears. She loves her son, very dearly but she wants her own home and doesn’t want any man to treat him as a baggage. 

On the other hand, Esther has decided to keep her love child secret from her fiancé because she is afraid he might change his mind about her. Luckily for her, her daughter calls her aunty and so each time John visits, he assumes Laura is Esther’s niece. Esther doesn’t know how long she is going to play this game but she is afraid that if she tells him she might lose him.

Nowadays, it is so incredible that women have to hide the fact that they have children out of wedlock or they are single mothers because it is socially unacceptable to be an unmarried mother.  

For a moralist country like ours that encourages disdain for single mothers and blame them for destroying the traditional family, it makes single motherhood lonesome.  I do empathize with these women because being a mom with a spouse is hard, undeniably hard, how much more being a single mum and having to deal with its attendant social burden. Life can’t be harder for these women who have to deal with judgmental stares and whispers.

However, what I don’t get is that our society tends to forget that these women were impregnated by men. They forget that it takes two people to make conception to take place and they forget that it takes a lot of courage for these women to make the decision to carry these children to full term. Why for goodness sake are the runaway baby daddies not shamed like these women?  I think these lily-livered men should be the ones to be stigmatized instead of these women. A man who decides to have unprotected sex with a woman should be man enough to take up the responsibilities of that child.

Please don’t get me wrong, I am not trying to heap the blame only on men but what I am trying to say is that it is high time we all stopped putting down women because they made a mistake in the past.

Every single mum is aware that they arrived at that status because they made poor choices. They knew at some point they were stupid to yield to the lust of the flesh without taking adequate precautions.

Unfortunately for some of these single mums, they have been unlucky with men. These women are morally upright but somewhere along the line, something happened and they ended up as single parents. 

I think we should stop poking our noses where it shouldn’t be and leave women who are living unconventional lives alone. These women are already miserable with their mistakes please don’t compound it.  Instead, they should be given a ‘hi-five’ because the journey of being a single mother is burdensome. These women don’t have financial and emotional supports but they strive to survive despite the odds.

Don’t get me wrong; this piece is not for women who have had children for men in order to attain a status or get a robust bank account. This piece is for women who made mistakes and owned up to it. It is for women who fell and who were able to pick themselves up and move on.

It is quite unfortunate that single mothers are tagged with bad reputation but in reality, they are the strongest, most resilient, most nurturing and most empathetic set of people you will ever meet. These women have to work round the clock to fend for their kids while the men who impregnated them roam about free looking for the next victim to hunt down. These women have fierce determination and unbreakable tenacity and so our society should stop making them feel like they are lesser human beings because they have no partners.

I think these women should be treated fairly and not treated like they have a contagious disease. I know a guy who was in love with a single mum but he backed out when his mother kept pressurizing him not to marry a woman who had a child.

According to him, his mum wanted him to marry a fresh girl. How shocking is it that our society prefers a woman who has had countless abortions to one who had the courage to bear her shame to full terms.

Moreover, that is one of the reasons baby factory business is a multi million naira profit enterprise and also why abortion business will continue to thrive in our clinics despite the fact that it is illegal.

 Nigerian fathers, please when your daughters come home pregnant, don’t push them out. Hurl out all the angry words at her but draw her closer and support her. I understand how disappointed you are but pushing her out won’t solve the problem; it will only compound it. Mothers, I understand you always take the blame when your children go wrong, most especially for your daughters. But I will encourage you to cry a river if you must and lash out at her but love your daughters no matter what happens. Stay by her side and help her through the tortuous journey of the sudden motherhood.  

I remember when I was in secondary school, one of my classmates got pregnant, but her parents gave her all the supports she needed at that time. She went back to school and later got married to the same guy who got her pregnant.  At our last reunion she came with her son who was about twenty years, we all couldn’t help marveling at the young man.  She was a proud mum that night.

However, enough of my pleadings and here are cautions to all the moral police around; first and foremost it is not all single mums that got kicked out of wedlock.

Related News

And what if they did?

Moreso, we should start dealing with the fact that some women just chose not to marry those who impregnated them.

Some were in a committed relationship but their love story turned sour at the end while some got married but later ended up with a divorce. So, there are so many reasons why some people became single mums and please check your judgment meter next time you come across one.

In as much as they are responsible, leave them to live their lives!  They work hard and they are good parents too, even without their spouses. Let them be, they deserve a second chance too!


Re: Welcome to the season of sex dolls

many thanks for presenting the season of sex dolls. At least, men will heave a sigh of relief from some of you women that are overbearing on us men with unending demands and nagging attitude. At least, men have where to turn to now with this new replacement for the women. If not for the sake of having children women are now no longer necessary. –Ademola

God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah because of immorality.  How much more when people leave humans to commit fornication with dolls? And you people are not afraid to advertise it in the papers. Don’t you people fear God or why are you taking God for granted? Don’t you read your Bible?

–09036088–24

 Bola, the Joromis of this world, as displayed in your dramatic piece on sex dolls, are insane humans. What could have made a man share sexual practices with a man-made lifeless plastic-mold of a woman than absolute insanity? There are various options for a sexually deprived married or unmarried man to pick from provided he has the required needs to back up his sexual desire. The woman only needs to lure her target for a sexual session with attractive body composition and carriage which in the end would even provide her with sexual and financial compensations.The advent of sex dolls should not come as a surprise to humans because, in my view, it could be classed as one of the end-time signs predicted by the Christian faith; tutored by the Bible. Sex dolls device is definitely a design of the devil. One could even forgive masturbatory device in place of sex-dolls option.

–Lai Ashadele.

Bola, I think I am with Joromi on this….It is a man’s world after all —Felix.

Please I read you and your current sex dolls article, this is what has made people in Trumps kingdom experience depression as human beings, and they are relating more with machine and robots than themselves.

–Victor Ariole

Sex dolls are technology from hell; that’s what they are. Dolls for that matter! Tufiakwa. But Men are really weird in their heads o!

—Uche.

 Women have been using sex toys for decades without much talk. Oyinbo men have been using sex toys without any noise; but just hearing about sex dolls have turned Nigerian men to adventurers. –Kemi

Na wa o! God have mercy. Let thy Kingdom come. –Omobola

They should enjoy their dolls. There is time for everything —Ngozi Lloyds