Male Parenting
Male Involvement in parenting:
Fatherhood and involvement in child care giving is one of the least talked about aspects of family life though it remains as important as motherhood. Originally, father’s role was mainly to provide financial support and to protect the future of the family in terms of resource accumulation. Fathers are half of the world’s parents. Although this is obvious, it will be difficult to significantly improve the lives of children without addressing and involving fathers. Father’s involvement means a father’s functional and social involvement in a child’s life-functional involvement refers to a father’s physical and hands-on participation in different therapies (i.e. speech and language therapy, occupational therapy and physical therapy). Social involvement refers to the father’s engagement in different leisure activities (i.e. reading, singing and engaging in play)
CTPR conducts a series of interactive trainings under the Parenting for Respectability intervention to build father’s/male care giver’s confidence and skills so as to increase their participation and commitment in care giving with the following expectations;
- Improved father’s understanding of the ‘power to parent’ and be responsible for their children and families.
- Improved skills of the fathers in engaging with their children at family level
- Lightened father/male caregiver’s burden in taking care of their families and women’s economic empowerment
- Reduced gender based violence against children and improvement in maternal outcome.
VINCENT LUKYAMUZI
My name is Vincent Lukyamuzi born and raised in Mubende. I am in Kizingizi B Parental group. I am 28 years old and have two children and one wife. From the time I started attending, I have really benefited a lot from the Parenting for Respectability programme. I got my turning point from the session about living for 50 years and 3 months. I felt as though God was telling me that I have only three months to live. By that time, I was not with my children, their mother (my ex-wife) had dumped them with different relatives and I also didn’t really care how they were fairing. I was so shaken with that session, so I did not waste any more time, I immediately rented a motorcycle and picked up my two sons from their maternal aunt and started staying with them. I did not have a wife at that time and the children would disturb me a lot since I had to balance them with my business; one was one year and a half while the younger one was seven months. To be able to raise them well, I had to marry another wife. I can never accept my children to be taken from me again. There was even an incident where I came home drunk and fell on my younger son. He was hurt and didn’t want to talk to me or even accept anything from me, I asked my wife what I had done to him and she reminded me about that incident. I had to find ways of bringing his love back, I apologized to him and as we speak, we are in very good terms with him. So for me to be able to show love and care to my children is all because I have been attending the parenting sessions. I have also learnt how to handle marital issues. Whenever I get an issue in my marriage, I remind myself of the solutions we learnt during the sessions and I apply them; if my son gets angry, I at least know how to handle it; so overall, the programme has equipped me with knowledge on how to keep my marriage standing and also having a good relationship with my wife and children.
-
Vincent with his new wife and children -
Men practicing/learning how to cater for a new born baby 
-
Men from Lira actively take part in a parenting session