When 33-year-old Sandra Muthoni posted a photo of her son's graduation on Facebook, the first comment was not "Congratulations!" but "Where's the father?" She didn't flinch. "I've gotten so used to that question that I now smile and ask; do they ask the same when a dad posts his child's photo?" she says. "It's as if people expect me to apologise for doing it alone." Sandra, a communications executive and mother of one, is part of a growing number of women who are raising children alone.
Some left toxic marriages, some were widowed, some faced unplanned pregnancies and some, like Sandra, made the conscious choice to become solo mothers.
What unites them is not victimhood, but resilience and an evolving narrative around what constitutes a 'complete' family. "As long as there's love, we are enough," Sandra says.
Social media hasn't made this any easier and according to Sandra, the culture of podcasting nowadays also thrives on blaming single mothers for most of society's problems. "You hear things like, 'single mothers raise criminals who end up in jail', 'single mothers are promiscuous and irresponsible', or 'no man should ever marry a woman with a child'.
