1. Single Motherhood
The African Perspective
Presented By: Adenike
Adeyanju-Osadolor
Regional

2. Single Motherhood
•
This presentation attempts to illuminate some
of the challenges that single mothers face in a
patriarchal and cultural/religious pluralistic
Africa
•
Some real life case studies will be examined.
•
Lessons learnt from personal experience
would be shared with a view to offering some
suggestions towards developing coping
strategies to surmount these challenges as
well as encourage social integration of single

3. Single motherhood can arise out of
•
Life’s experiences – death of spouse, divorce,
rape etc.
•
Choice – younger upwardly mobile women are
making such choices – choosing to keep
unplanned pregnancies or simply wanting
children without the boundaries set by
marriage. It is an option for freedom and
independence.
Single Motherhood

4. Single Motherhood
•
It knows no barriers of age
- Women of any age can become single
parents.
- In HIV/AIDS devastated communities in
Africa, many grandmothers were forced into
single parenting of their grandchildren and
young girls became heads of households

5. The African Experience
•
Traditional African societies hold strong views
about single parenting
– If she’s a widow, she’s dispossessed of all her
entitlements and abandoned to her fate. If she’s
lucky, and she hardly ever is – the husband’s
family takes care of her children. If childless, she’s
on her own.
– In cases of divorce, rape, and even personal
choice, she’s stigmatized
•
Whichever way you look at it, there is no win

6. Case Studies
•
My Experience
- Dispossessed and abandoned
- What helped? – education, support of family and
friends, determination to succeed,
resourcefulness…
•
Amina
- Taken care of by family by religious standards
- But she becomes a property to be acquired by

7. Sharing Lessons Learnt
•
A single parent will face all sorts of challenges
– financial, social and psychological etc.
•
She will need to deal with a lot of different
emotions such as anger, fear, sadness,
frustration, shock, regret, self pity, bitterness,
loneliness etc.

8. Sharing Lessons Learnt
What buffers are available to the single mother?
•
External
• Education
•
Education empowers – it opens doors to decent
employment that financially empowers the single
mother to be able to meet the needs of her
child/children
• Advocacy
-
Stigmatization and exploitation of single mothers based
on culture and religion need to pave way for an
acceptance based on human right and dignity.

9. Sharing Lessons Learnt
•
Internal
– This is the most important resource a single
mother must have.
– The change we want to see must begin with us.
While the society takes its time towards
attitudinal change and social orientation towards
them ( especially in the African setting), single
mothers have to take matter into their own hands
to ensure, and perhaps force this change.
– How can they do this?

10. Sharing Lessons Learnt

Be strong and positive.

Find a support system.

“all birds fly higher and faster in
formation than any individual bird will fly
alone …”

Do not be a superwoman.

Make time to relax.

11. Cheering News
•
A new study, published in the Journal of
Happiness Studies, has revealed how mothers
who have children while single tend to be
happy with their situation.
•
Although many of the women questioned in
the research faced financial problems, lack of
support and feeling that they were
disapproved of in society, the study found that
having a child did not prompt unhappiness
among single mothers.

12. Last Words
“Before I got married, I had six theories about
bringing up children; now, I have six children
and no theories.”
- John Wilmot