The Single Mother Trap!

A couple of years ago, I went to visit a good friend of mine in his house. I met his girlfriend there and we got a talking. In the process, I found out that he had been going out with this lady for awhile, in retrospect that should have been my clue in, after all I am his close friend and I had never heard of this woman. After the lady had left, I sat down to have a personal one on one with my friend. Of course, the ever curious Pammy, had to talk about that lady. The conversation went like this:

Pammy (laughing happily) : “wow! I see the signs”

Male Friend: ” What signs?”. ” What are you on about now?”

Pammy: “she seems to be the one o!”. (At this point, I was already planning my traditional getup for his introduction ceremony).

Male friend (with a bemused look on his face): “the one for what?”

Pammy:”ah ah. Marriage. This is the first time I have ever seen you so serious about a woman in my life”

Male friend (laughing uproariously): ” Not in this life time, she is a single mother”.

Pammy (confused look on my face): “what does that have to do with anything? She isn’t with the father of her child so why is that an issue?. It is obvious you love this woman”.

Male friend (still laughing): “Please o! Don’t you know that you do not take on people’s problem. A single, young, successful man will never marry a single mother unless there is an extra incentive. It isn’t done unless he is off his knockers. You just use them to pass time till you are ready”.

Pamela at this point is pissed off and amazed at this kind of thinking. So, it is fine to f*** a single mother, and be in a quasi relationship with a single mother but you can never take this person seriously! Allow me to become Zimbabwean for two seconds as I say asi chi nha!

Now, I felt that this kind of mentality was just one for my friend who I had put under my “Pammy’s cuckoo list” but I happened to log into one of my favorite Zimbabwean forum sites and this topic was under discussion. The question really was, “why do Zim men want to date the single mother?” A lot of the response brought up were basically on the same line as my friend:

a) easy to sleep with.

b) no need for any form of commitment.

c)many do not expect any form of commitment from men.

Now, I am a bit concerned about this because it seems that many African men view these women in the same line as prostitutes. My question is, what makes these women so different that they cannot expect to receive or give love? Why must the rule be different for men and women when it comes to single parenthood? A man can have children with twenty different women and he is still looked at as a prime catch for any woman but women can’t do the same and be looked at in the light of being someone’s wife. This is a double standard that needs to be addressed.

So, as I often say, edumacate me……why won’t you take a single mother as a wife? For single mother’s, how have you found the dating scene?

*PS: Pamela isn’t a single mother. Pamela is anti double standards in relationships. Pamela is definitely against men who get women pregnant with no intention of marrying them and go chasing other women in their late teens and early twenties (you know who you are!). Oh yes, for those African women having sex with African men, be careful…it is very easy to become yesterday’s discarded newspaper if you get pregnant for him without a ring on that finger, so wrap it up, take those pills and everything in between. To be forewarned is to be forearmed!