There’s a disturbing pattern in my family, they usually do not get married. Many of my siblings have children. Almost every year one of them puts to bed, but there is no husband, no wedding, no ring, just cohabiting with the man and living as husband and wife. Yet those are the ones that make my father happy.

My father wants me to marry. According to him, there are plenty of fish in the sea. Just grab one and make her a baby mama. As if it is that simple.

Because of my beliefs, I cannot have a child outside marriage, and I am not even prepared for marriage now. I am devoted to my Pentecostal beliefs, so when he talks like that, it sounds to me like he is sending me into fornication.

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But he keeps holding my siblings up as examples. He brings them into ordinary conversations. You can be talking about food, work, the price of transport, and suddenly he says, “Look at your brothers and sisters. They have children. They have built homes.”

Then he turns to me. “Disgrace.”

Sometimes he boasts too. “At your age, I already had four children.”

I am 26, so you can do the math. Count my siblings. Those are the ones I know. The ones I do not know, maybe after his death they will come looking for him. That thought crosses my mind more than I like to admit.

I have started withdrawing from him. These days, I fear calling him. I fear interacting with him. The moment he hears my name, it feels like I am already on his accusation list.

And what makes it troubling is this, if I were to marry now, he is a father who cannot even help with a bridegroom’s haircut. Talk less of buying gifts for the grandchildren he keeps demanding from me.

He wants the title of father when it comes to grandchildren. But where is fatherhood in the things that come before that?

I keep asking myself, is fatherhood only about producing children? Isn’t the world trying to shift that idea, from father as just provider, to father as present, available, involved?

Because I do not feel fathered.

I do not have the resources to raise a child. I do not even have the foundation. So how do I go and bring another life into that?

Because from where I stand, choosing not to have children carelessly does not look like disgrace.

My father believes children are wealth. To him, a man without a child is nothing. That is why, sometimes, he pushes women toward me, even sending them to my home at night. When I chase them out, he insults me. He says I am not a man. He asks if I am even sure I can function as one.

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It is embarrassing to have a man like him as a father. And that is exactly why I want to take my time. I do not want to become just any father. I want my children to be proud to have me.

—Fred

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