WHAT ABOUT SINGLE FATHERS?

24 Aug 1994


        Single mothers have attracted a great deal of attention lately.  
They have been excoriated as examples of gross social irresponsibility, 
the Straits Times even denouncing it as tending to "breed or exacerbate 
...promiscuity, juvenile delinquency, crime, drug taking and a general 
breakdown in self-discipline." Most egregiously, grassroots leader 
Abdul Halim Kadir said: "We cannot tolerate single mothers..."
        Curiously enough, the same people who would not abide 
single mothers remain "mum" about those who are even more 
irresponsible and deserving of censure than the young, desperate 
women left holding the baby. I am referring, of course, to the men who 
father the illegitimate children. For, unless there has been a revolution in 
human reproduction, there are no single mothers without single fathers. 
        It takes courage for an unwed woman to decide to keep her 
baby, knowing very well that she will be condemned. Meanwhile, the 
irresponsible young man who fathered the child gets away scot-free. 
For him, there is no financial or legal cost, and since we decline to 
condemn him, hardly any social cost either. Until this incongruity is 
redressed, pious pronouncements against single mothers will reek of  
hypocrisy.
        The above condition is even more farcical in the light of 
solemn proclamations that Singapore must remain a patriarchal society 
that insists on the man being "responsible for the children he sires"  
(ST, Aug 23) Is there an unspoken qualifier: Within marriage? If so, 
how shameful. If not, then we should penalise single fathers and treat 
single mothers more gently. After all, the latter is already paying dearly 
for their mistakes.