Joyce Gituro's hard lessons on raising boys as single mum

"As they were growing, I started feeling like they needed a father figure, and unfortunately, I was not dating. I had to start looking for a father figure for them. The sad bit is, the people I approached initially thought I was looking for a father for my children. They would accept being the father figures, but with the hope that I would bring them home and they would become the father."

Joyce was not looking for a romantic partner. She wanted a clear and intentional relationship between her sons and a male role model who could guide them. She was deliberate about the kind of men she approached.

"I am a Christian, so I wanted a person who would raise my sons in the ways of the Lord. Number two, I saw people who were already taking care of their families, had a relationship with their children, and I thought why not get a father figure for my children?"

Despite her clarity, the reality she encountered was far from what she had imagined. Her experiences were difficult, particularly with two men.

"I trusted one of them, who I thought was mature. He went for a date with my children without me, and when he dropped them off, he said, ‘I cannot be going for dates with your children, and I am not coming home with them, how then am I a father figure?’ Then I told myself, maybe he did not understand what I meant."

Though disappointed, she tried again.

"The second one was good. He tried to mentor them, but after a while, he started demanding my time without the children. He said I should also go on a date with him separately, which I flat-out refused. I had to move on."

While her sons struggled to find a consistent male presence, her daughter’s experience was different. She formed a strong bond with Joyce’s younger brother.

"I have never felt a daddy gap with my daughter. She has a very strong personality, I think, just like me. She has a very good relationship with my younger brother. I do not have a problem with my children connecting with their biological father, so my daughter calls me once in a while and tells me that she was with her dad for lunch."

Before the separation, Joyce and her children lived in Kilimani, Nairobi. Her children were used to an affluent lifestyle, and she worked hard to maintain it even after leaving the relationship.

When her efforts to find father figures failed, Joyce turned to the children’s biological father, hoping he would step up.

"I was so bitter. I asked him, ‘Why am I looking for a father figure for these boys, and you are there?’ Again, it did not work. He tried; they would go see him, but it became strained because it was bringing issues with the other family that he was already in. I told God, You gave me these children, you will be with them."

This period also reopened wounds from her own childhood. Although her father was alive, she never experienced his love. Her mother was a fifth wife, and Joyce believes this influenced the emotional distance between her and her dad.

"When I found myself raising my children alone, the rejection my dad had of me hit me again, especially the day one of my sons told me that his friends asked him, ‘Why do you keep talking about your mum when everyone is talking about their dad?’ I felt like crying. Then I asked him, what did you do, and he said, ‘I kept quiet."

Faith in God became her source of strength.

"I developed a very close relationship with my boys, and they started opening up to me. They would tell me about their challenges. Sometimes they would encourage me and tell me, ‘Oh mum, you think we are the only ones, even so and so is my friend and they do not have a dad.’"

Joyce raised her children in church, and that provided a much-needed community. However, one of her hardest moments came when her sons reached the age of initiation.

"According to our Kikuyu culture, mothers are not even supposed to get anywhere near when these boys are going through circumcision. I wondered, how was I going to go through this crucial milestone?"

Fortunately, Joyce found a solution through a church programme that organised circumcision during school holidays.

"I told their father where the children were because there was a day he was supposed to visit. He came, but that was it. After 10 days, the sons came home. I used to take them to Aga Khan University Hospital for dressing every three days until they healed."

Even then, Joyce remained committed to ensuring her children maintained a relationship with their father. She arranged for the children to meet him outside his home and return the same day, plans that came with financial sacrifices.

"When their dad was down financially, and I knew he was scheduled to see the children that weekend, I used to go shopping for things like shoes and clothes, then give them to their dad before he met them. I would also send him money because I wanted them to believe in their dad. They would come back and tell me how the dad took them out for lunch, to the barber shop, and bought them shoes. Although it was my money, I was fine with it because it was their happiness that mattered."

However, in retrospect, Joyce thinks that was not the best way to have handled the visit.

"I know I was trying to protect my children, but if today I were to start again as a single mother, I would make my children understand from the word go that he took off. I would tell them things as they are, the truth."

For nearly two decades, she carried the full financial responsibility of raising her children.

"I have paid school fees for my children because I value education. I have seen how it transforms people. I used to go to Saccos to take loans just so they could continue with their education. I also did my Master's for a very long time because sometimes I used to lack school fees, but still made sure that I paid for my children first."

Today, she speaks with pride about the adults her children have become. Her firstborn studied at USIU-Africa and is now working. Her second-born is on an internship and preparing to graduate with a degree in Criminal Justice and International Relations. Her last-born holds a Diploma in Communication from Daystar University and is working as a journalist.

As her sons grew into men, Joyce faced a new challenge.

"My other challenge now came after I realised that I was now living with men. How do I help them when they have issues? Friendship is what helped us navigate that season. To date, my children can tell me anything. When they are heartbroken, they come to me, and they break down in my house. They cry. I tell them these things happen."

Time has also brought emotional change. Watching her children leave home was difficult.

"I believe in independence and understand that my children have to support themselves after campus, but when the lastborn moved out, the emptiness was so loud. I had to go through therapy just to accept that they are gone, and I think it also helped me to free them and let them live their lives."

Paying fees

Despite living separately, they remain close.

"A week cannot pass before we see each other. If that happens, I think that I will be admitted to a hospital. One of my sons chats with me randomly during the day to genuinely know how I am doing, while the other one calls. My daughter video calls me every evening, and I love it because I also enjoy talking with my two grandchildren."

Joyce later bought land in Kamulu and built a home for her family.

"When we moved into that home, I saw the pride in my children. When I was giving my daughter’s hand in marriage, it happened in my home. I was not going to start pulling the culture card during dowry, yet it was non-existent when I was paying fees. I have been a father and a mother, raising my children."

Although society has become more accepting of single mothers, Joyce says stigma still exists, particularly in the church.

"In church, single mothers are still viewed as people who lack morals. There is still no respect in church for single mothers."

The role of a father in a child’s life

Counselling psychologist and gender scholar Caroline Njuguna says the relationship between single mothers and their sons is influenced by attachment.

"This attachment theory is where we have the emotional bonding and also the role of the dynamics in the family system. We need to appreciate that every relationship is unique. In the single mother households, the mothers are usually the primary attachment figure... but the son relies heavily on the mother for that emotional security, comfort and guidance."

She describes this bond as healthy but says it must evolve as the child grows.

"We have the issues of responsibilities, whereby the sons of single mothers will develop a strong resilience and have this protective instinct as they mature. They feel like, I am the one supposed to be here."

Without clear boundaries, this can become complicated in adolescence.

"When introducing a male figure to your son’s life, do it gradually. When taken too fast, the child may not assimilate into the relationship."

Male role models, she adds, do not have to be romantic partners.

"They can be family friends, teachers, coaches, uncles, or just older cousins... focus on character, not just the gender." She also highlights the emotional impact of a mother’s well-being.

"We may have issues of emotional insecurity, whereby the son may be highly sensitive to the mum’s emotional state. If, for instance, she is depressed, it can make this son be withdrawn, anxious or struggle with trusting relationships."

In some cases, sons take on parental responsibility.

"We have issues that we call parentification. The son will try to fix or emotionally support their mother because he feels responsible for her happiness."

"Mothers need to understand that love for their sons is not measured by proximity; independence is not rejection. Encourage their autonomy gradually, like we do when our children go to boarding schools or go abroad for studies or work. It is for growth, so just seek support when you have issues of separation and feel like it is very distressing."

Daughters need dads, too.

Prof Martin C Njoroge, executive director at Acme Enrichment Network (AENI) International, says daughters also benefit from father figures.

"A single mother can be extraordinary - and most are – but they cannot give what only a father can give. Not because she is not enough, but because there is something that happens in a girl's heart when a father - a safe, present, caring man - chooses to stay."

Referring to his role as a father figure who walks with children and youth for holistic development, Prof Njoroge shares that there is a kind of timidity in girls who have never heard a man tell them how proud he is of them.

"The first thing a father does for his daughter is show her what she is worth. Before the world tells her who she is, he has already told her. The way he looks at her when she walks into a room. Whether he puts down his phone when she is talking. Whether he shows up. All of that is speaking to her, loudly, every single day."

He adds that fathers also teach their daughters what love looks like by how they treat the people around them, and, in the process, the daughters create a picture of what a man should be, and carry it into every relationship they will ever have.

"A father also gives a daughter permission to be brave. When she knows there is someone in her corner who believes in her - truly believes - she will try things she would never attempt alone. I have seen girls who came to us timid and withdrawn, and within months of having a stable male presence, something opens in them. They start to speak up. They start to dream out loud."

When the father roles are unmet in a girl’s life as she grows with her single mother, Prof Njoroge warns that the hunger for having a father in these girls does not disappear.

"A girl who never had a father's affirmation will often spend years - sometimes her whole life - trying to earn from men what should have been given to her freely as a child. She may settle for relationships that are harmful because at least they feel like attention. She may work herself to exhaustion trying to prove her worth, not knowing that worth was never something she needed to earn in the first place,"

He adds that some of these girls become fiercely self-sufficient by deciding that needing people is a weakness, which is why he says there is a need to have men who play the father figure role among the fatherless.

"These girls are not broken. They have simply been robbed of something that was rightfully theirs. And if a community - a foster family, a mentor, a pastor, a teacher, a coach - can step into that space with consistency and genuine love, healing is absolutely possible. I have seen it. I have watched it happen in my own home, around my own table and in our many interactions at AENI International."

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