…Inside the world of single mothers

BY KATE HALIM AND VERA WISDOM BASSEY

EBELE Ogadinma is close to 40 years. She is not married, but has a four-year-old boy who is the centre of her world. Ebele wanted badly to get married, but it seems marriage eluded her.

Instead of waiting around for Mr. Right like her mates, she begged her ex boyfriend to get her pregnant with no strings attached. All she wanted before menopause sets in was a child she would call her own, nurture and spend her money on.

With her four-year-old son On­yekachi by her side, Ebele says she’s fulfilled as a woman be­cause she can stand among moth­ers without feeling inadequate. To her, it doesn’t matter if she’s married or not. The most impor­tant thing to her is raising her son while she still hopes to get mar­ried in the future. For now, she is focused on giving her son the best things of life.

Ebele added that she has not asked the father of her child for anything since he was born. She’s comfortable raising her son alone. In fact, she’s happy that he obliged her when she asked his favour of making her a mother when time was running out on her fertility clock.

‘’I had to beg him to get me pregnant when it dawned on me that menopause was knocking on my door. I am a single mother by choice. I don’t want to waste away my life waiting for a man that may never come. I am hap­py”, she said.

If you look around, you would see many who are single mothers by choice. They are single women who instead of wait for their hap­pily ever after, take their future into their own hands by deliber­ately getting pregnant and keep­ing their children alone.

In the past, single mothers were teenagers. They were teenagers who were vulnerable and taken advantage of by men who had no intention of getting married to them. But these days, single moth­ers are definitely not teenagers; they are old enough to have teen­agers as their own children. They were just not lucky to get married on time and have children.

Most of these ladies who beg or pay men to get them pregnant won’t talk about who the father is. The most common and answer you get if you ask is “Oh the fa­ther is dead, but we were never married”.

Blessing Otigbu was engaged to be married four years ago, but she discovered on time that her soon-to-be husband was already married. She cancelled the mar­riage plans even though she was two months pregnant at the time. She was elated with the pregnan­cy but didn’t wish to allow the fa­ther access to the child’s life.

Today, her three-year-old daughter doesn’t know who her father is, where he comes from or what he looks like. Blessing has severed all forms of communica­tion with him because she wants her daughter for herself alone. With a well paying job and an official car to boot, her daughter couldn’t have asked for a better life than the one she’s being offer­ing in the last two years.

Forty six year old Bridget Douglas prefers a progressive married man who wouldn’t mind getting her pregnant. That’s all she wants. She doesn’t want his money because she is a wealthy businesswoman. She only needs a child to care for as the years go by.

When a married business ac­quaintance made moves on her, she laid her cards on the table for him. She told him she would n’t mind rolling in the hay with him, but she wants a baby and one who won’t even bear his name.

‘’Initially, when I told him what I wanted from him in ex­change for being his lover, he was shocked. He refused at first. But I told him that was the only way we could have anything together. I’m no longer a small girl. I wanted my child and I got her.’’

Bridget’s daughter is eight years old and in primary four. Even though she asks her mother who her father is, all she always gets, ‘’he is in heaven now’’ response. Bridget doesn’t want to go back on her promise to the father of her child. It was an agreement and she was bent on honouring till the end.

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Justin Ifedi was taken aback when his girlfriend suggested he got her pregnant on her 37th birth­day three years ago. He couldn’t stand the shame that engulfed him at such a bizarre request from the woman he loved. He said that men from his village don’t impregnate women and abandon them. So, he declined her request. That was the cause of their break up.

Ngozi Ikem works with a me­dia outfit on Lagos mainland. At above 40, she decided to take her destiny into her hands by paying a young man in her area to impreg­nate her. After many had failed relationships, she didn’t want to lose on both sides by waiting for a man to take her to the altar at an age when she would no longer be able to have children.

Eyes pierced through her pro­truding stomach everywhere she went. People were questioning her with probing eyes. Many were quick to take a glance at her ring to find out if she secretly got mar­ried, hence the pregnancy.

But she took all their behaviour in her stride, parading her stom­ach proudly and putting some meddling people in their places too. She refused to disclose the father of her unborn to anyone, including her mother whom she shared a close relationship with.

When she was halfway through her pregnancy, Ngozi travelled to the United States of America for her delivery. Today, she is proud of her son. He came into her life when all hope was lost and gave it a new meaning.

‘’I only told my family and friends what I did to get pregnant at 40. It was a risk but it paid off well. I am no longer a child. They don’t know who his father is. I don’t even plan to contact him anytime because I have what I wanted from him, the most beau­tiful son ever”, she said.

Ejiro is a businesswoman who owns a beauty salon and a heart­broken spinster who had the lost hope of getting a man to marry her. At 37, she controls her beauty business in two states and has enough money to take care of her­self without help from anyone.

Her last relationship ended three years ago. It was on and off over a couple of years and she dated other people in between too. As the years flew by, she re­alised that the best thing for her was to get pregnant and have a child before she regrets her wait­ing for Mr. Right.

She had tricked her then boy­friend into getting her pregnant. He had insisted on her aborting the foetus, but she would hear none of it. In the face of emotional and psychological stress, she de­cided to keep her baby and dis­card her boyfriend of many years.

In his anger, he warned her not to contact him for anything re­garding the child. But what he did not know was that she deliberate­ly got pregnant just to make up for not being a married woman. She needed the company of a child to get her mind off things and she got that.

But life has not been rosy all through as her son is asthmatic. He experiences crisis that leaves Ejiro in tears. On those days, she wished she had a man to lean on for moral support. As strong as the temptation is to get the father of her child involved in his deli­cate life, she cautioned herself otherwise.

‘’Sometimes, I regret bring­ing a child into this world under false pretence. It’s like God is punishing me”, she lamented.

For Mrs. Ijeamaka, a grand­mother to a daughter born out of wedlock, there is nothing wrong for a matured single woman to brace the odds and get pregnant and have a child without help from the father of the child. She said that given that times are hard, these single women should be applauded for caring for their children alone.

‘’My daughter was impreg­nated by her married lover four years ago. The man has grown up children and my daughter was aware he had his family. But she just wanted to have her own child. It has not been easy for my daughter, but she has been a good mother to her daughter.’’

Ijeamaka lamented about the hurts and betrayals her daughter had suffered at 43. She added that her daughter just got tired of putting up with so many un­realistic relationships. Because she was rich, it was hard for her to know if the men who trooped into her life really loved her or her money.