Let’s all march to the good tune of KDF directive on single parents
What you need to know:
- The question is why such archaic rules would thrive for decades.
- The answer might lie in our complicity as a society.
It’s an open secret that some schools in Kenya discriminate against children from single-parent families. More specifically, children from single mothers.
“You must have a marriage or a death certificate for them to admit your child,” lamented a single mother during a popular radio show at a local FM station in 2019.
While the veracity of her statement can’t be proven, what’s indisputable is that children from single-parent families are often treated by society as if they belong to a lesser God.
That is why a newspaper headline in the Sunday Nation on May 16 titled ‘In a first, KDF recognises single parents’ piqued my interest. The article revealed that children would have access to medical care, be admitted to military-run schools and other military benefits.
The question is why such archaic rules would thrive for decades. The answer might lie in our complicity as a society.
The idea of a perfect family having a father, mother and 2.5 children in itself is problematic. It forces onto citizens a narrative that they feel they must adhere to. And those who don’t fit into the mould: like single parents, blended families, adoptive families are made to feel the weight of their “otherness”. The pressure to conform has sometimes meant people staying in toxic marriages, sacrificing their happiness and peace of mind.
The school system is complicit in this. The curriculum makes no room for flexibility in the definition of the family unit, which leaves little young hearts yearning for their mummies and daddies to be together. And feeling like there is something wrong with them because their family is “broken”.
“When will you get married, mummy?” a little girl will ask her mother on the day she learns about families in school. The mother, fumbling for an explanation that will not traumatise the little girl, settles for: “Soon. Very soon.” Because every parent wants their child to belong.
Nobody sets out to be a single parent. But death, divorce and deadbeat partners happen.
The list is in no way exhaustive. The relentless energy and sacrifices parenting requires is a well-known fact and few dare it alone. This is modern reality.
According to the latest Kenya Demographic and Health Survey, nearly half (45 per cent) of children in the country do not live with both parents.
The survey also states that one in three Kenyan households is headed by women.
It makes perfect sense for institutions to then recognise single-parent families as complete family units.
The “othering” of single parents ends up hurting their children, who we all have a collective responsibility to protect as members of the village that is supposed to raise them.
KDF has led the way, so let’s all march to its tune.
Ms Oneya comments on social and gender topics [email protected]; @FaithOneya
