Father’s joy & struggle raising daughter alone
By Ian Baraka, July 9, 2025In 2008, Jay Walemba’s life took an unexpected turn. He became a father at the age of 21 and had not planned for it.
When his girlfriend became pregnant, he was left with no choice but to marry young and start a family. Now 37, Walemba reflects on that turning point moment.
As a young husband and father, Walemba embraced his role as the head of the family.
At the time of his marriage, he had not furthered his education beyond secondary level and thus made the decision to return to school for a better life.
He also paid for his wife’s university education to help her upgrade from a diploma to a degree.
But looking back, he realised this was a costly gamble.
“I painfully learnt that while she was doing her degree, she was dating someone else. Immediately after she cleared and graduated, she came back and carried everything, including my daughter, in 2016. I was then working in Naivasha. After she left, I became single and heartbroken. I painfully learnt to accept the new reality.”
It was a difficult transition for father and daughter.
Father’s intervention
Walemba recounts an incident in 2020 when his daughter called him one morning when he was at work. The girl wanted to see him because her mother was mistreating her.
Walemba pulled strings here and there and organised for his daughter to get to where he was.
“By then my daughter was 12. What prompted me to get my daughter, was because the mother was treating her badly and she also didn’t want any connection with me. Anytime the mom would hear that I went to see my daughter in school she would transfer her to a new school where I didn’t know. That affected the child a lot,” Walemba says.
Walemba adds that within four years, her daughter had been transferred to six schools.
The transfers from one school to another were so many that they affected the girl mentally, emotionally and academically. The father had to act to save the situation.
Through effort and determination, he was able to get full custody of the child and started living with her.
Navigating the path of a single father raising a teenager (the girl is now 17 years old) has not been easy. With the girl deep in her teens, the father has had to navigate issues like discussing her menstrual cycle and reproductive health issues.
When the issues her daughter is facing get too hot for the father to handle, he engages the help of his sisters and female friends, who help him to navigate the tricky waters.
Navigate tricky waters
The biggest challenge he has faced raising his teenage daughter single-handedly is how to fill the gap of a mother’s love and care.
“One of the biggest challenges is that she’s not able to get that mother’s love, and then there are communication barriers as I’m not able to create that safe and open environment where she can share personal issues comfortably. Sometimes, I take her out for dinner to bond and connect with her but sometimes she declines the offer,” Walemba says.
Walemba highlights another challenge she faces is helping her with personal grooming, self-care and homecare issues, which is mostly a woman’s territory.
He further adds that sometimes the daughter faces social stigma when other students ask her why they only see her father coming for visiting days and why she doesn’t have a mother.
Such inquiries make her daughter feel isolated.
Dating again
Another challenge is dating other women, as a single father.
“There’s a time I tried finding another woman and dating. I even introduced her to this lady and they became friends, but it never worked out. Sometimes she would be moody, especially when she feels that I’m giving the lady more attention than her. During a date, when we are having dinner together and I’m conversing more with the lady, her mood changes, so I felt that I need to give her time to clear school and settle since she is in form three and I don’t want to affect her performance,” Walemba says.
Raising a teenage daughter in this digital age is not a walk in the park.
“I’ve been forced to be a strict parent when it comes to gadgets. For example, I gave her a smartphone and I was monitoring her activities on my laptop. I noted that she was posting stuff I was uncomfortable with and I took the phone and donated it to a children’s home. She was angry at me.”
Finding time for his male friends is a challenge too, he admits.
“Sometimes I want to hang out late with my male friends, but I feel that I need to take care of her so I go home early,” Walemba says.
Indeed, raising a child as a single parent has its fair share of challenges.
According to therapist Dr. Zipporah Nyangara, single parenting is not an easy journey especially on the child’s side as it may pose psychological challenges.
This is because there is the feeling of abandonment and rejection especially where co-parenting is not working. She further notes that the feeling of abandonment can further lead to anxiety and trust issues later in life when the child is grown up and married.
“In the event one of the parents is absent, it leads to low self-esteem because this child wants to compare themselves with their peers and classmates, and they may start questioning their self-worth,” Dr. Nyangara says.
She adds that when both parents are present in a child’s life it’s easy for them to take responsibility and share parental roles.
Balancing father-mother roles
“When it comes to social development some children develop independence because they know that they have to take care of themselves and have to be resilient. Others will struggle with trust issues and seeking validation from peers. They seek for validation because they are not used to it or they have not seen it growing up,” Dr, Nyangara says.
In order to mitigate the potential psychological challenges that may arise in children who are raised by single parents, Nyangara advocates for single parents to have a father or a mother figure to help fill that crucial gap.
“As a parent, allow children to express themselves, encourage independence by letting the children learn how to solve problems and be independent. Most importantly, have enough quality time with your child, get to understand their likes and dislikes and also encourage them by telling them they are beautiful or handsome, as this will boost their self-esteem,” Nyangara advises.
Meanwhile, tough as it is, Walemba continues to raise his 17-year-old daughter on his own, navigating the challenges of single parenting with commitment and care.
He has learnt to seek support from female relatives and friends to help his daughter’s specific needs.
His advice to fellow single parents is to allow their kids to be themselves without bounds, encourage independence, spend quality family time together, and offer endless reassurance to help strengthen their self-esteem and emotional stability.