There is a notion in the literature of fathers as the moral guides of the households. However, Lesejane (2006) argued that the changing conceptualisation of fatherhood has since stripped men of this function. However, contrary to this, in the interviews conducted in this study the
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young women expressed the need for and the importance of fathers to shape their morality.
Another important theme that emerged was that it appeared that the children of strict mothers had better morals than their counterparts with less strict mothers.
Nthabiseng: “A father should teach you about the values and moral of life – someone who will teach you about how to behave in particular environment as a woman.”
Bontle (FG1): “Out of respect for a father, the discipline in my house would have improved. There are some things that would have been better if they were spoken by a father.”
Most of the participants endorsed the conceptualisation of fathers as moral guides. The responses, both in the focus group and face-to-face interviews, highlighted the importance of fathers as moral guides in the households. Most of the participants, although aware of the efforts that their mothers were making to maintain order in the house, felt that the households would have been better managed if there had been a strong father presence. Participants such as Bontle described their mothers as overly emotional and not always rational when disciplining their children. Dikeledi also described the job of dealing with a delinquent child as the duty of a father.
Dikeledi (FG1): “Most times you find that delinquent children are those who are raised in a female-headed household because a mother cannot really guide you when it comes to teenage delinquency – that work is reserved for fathers.”
Further to this, Relebogile had started living with her 23-year-old sister after her mother’s death and, in her narrative on the level of discipline and control in the house, she explained that there are no controls in the house and she and her sister did as they pleased. She openly expressed the fact that there was no discipline in the house.
Relebogile: “There is no discipline. My sister and I always fight; we fight a lot. There is no one to tell you what to do. There are no rules in the house. We do what we want to do. The only thing that helps me not to be wild and all that is because I am focused
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on my studies. So, this is the one thing that prevents me from doing a lot of things.
Also the things that my sister went through like having a child and leaving school, they have encouraged me to avoid a lot of things and do my school work. So that is how I keep myself under control, but if I want to go … I go and there is no one who tells me what to do.”
Conversely, Thuto had used her mother’s pain and frustration as her motivation to stay disciplined because she wanted to make her mother proud.
Thuto: I have never gone south [become unruly] or anywhere, for that matter, with my mom, never … discipline and being disciplined. Well, discipline should come from a parent, either one of them. But choosing to be disciplined comes from you as an individual. My thing is that I could have gone south a few times if had I wanted to in those teenage years, rebellious stage. I didn’t because, when I looked at my mom, I always went like “I do not want to disappoint that woman in any shape or form”, I am going to finish school; I am going to make something of myself. I am going to get her all the things she wanted or that she wants, but cannot acquire for herself. That was my mentality…that kept me going. I do not want to fall pregnant while I am still at school or leave school or stuff like that. I do not and I never did.
There appeared to be a reasonable degree of discipline in the households where the participants described the mother as strict. Lebo and Tshegofatso explained how their mothers were generally strict when they were growing up. However, Tshegofatso admitted that, although her mother had been strict, she had needed a male in the house to assist her in maintaining and upholding the discipline in the house. She explained how both her sisters had left the house to cohabit with their partners, despite her mother’s disapproval.
Lebo: “Shuu, discipline here is intense, my mother, while we were young before I got to the age of 16, my mother was like “her house, her rules” and that, basically, what you had to follow.”
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Tshegofatso: “Yho! Nna my mother is a very strict person. I would not say there was no order in the household, even you would not notice that there wasn’t a father in that house but then, these two decided that they will go beyond her, what she desired from them is not what they did. It became hard for her to deal with them without a father.”
Paramount to the role of fathers as moral guiders and strict mothers was the young women’s belief in their ability to shape their life trajectories. In the excerpts above the young people acknowledge the role that their parents had played in shaping their lives but contended that they could never have achieved in life had they not taken a decision to set and follow their dreams. Carpenter (2010) refers to action as life course agency.