Justice the social media way

I think we all agree that if you father a child you should take care of it. There are no grey areas. Though my knowledge of the scriptures is a bit rusty, I am certain it must be somewhere in the Bible as well.

It is disheartening to throw chaps rounds in a bar while your child’s name is constantly on the headmistress’s list of fees defaulters.

It is deeply disappointing to post lavish pictures of your hotel room in Dubai on Facebook while your children cannot even spell your name anymore.

It is not enough to use fatherhood as a tool to further your own social agenda when you cannot even remember your only child’s birthday. I think we all agree on those talking points; that men should pay up for their children. Period.

So those gentlemen blacklisted on that Facebook page — Dead Beat Kenya — do not deserve my sympathy.

Having said that, (Oh boy, did I end up being the guy who uses phrases like “having said that”?), let us also agree that Dead Beat Kenya is built on the same premise as mob justice; that as much as it might be effective, it is low.

It is not even a solution. It is a public crucifixion. A man who has not bothered with his child for five years is the kind of soul that is dead to such levels of cyber-bullying. He is the kind of chap who is incapable of caring.

 Two sides of a coin

Moreover, we cannot be quick to stone these chaps publicly because they say that even the flattest pancake has two sides.

A case in point is the gentleman who was “exposed” in that group and who later submitted receipts of school fees and M-Pesa remittances as evidence to this enthused court of public opinion.

Turns out that the woman who exposed him might have been driven by malice. It makes you wonder how to stop women who might just want to serve their revenge cold.

Everybody needs their time in court, I think. This justice on social media just is not the way to go.

We also all agree that it is not uncommon for some women to use children as leverage to either bully, frustrate, or alienate a man.

Come on, we have seen it before; women have been known to brainwash children about who their father is.

They use words like “useless” to describe fathers before their children or constantly talk such filth about the chap to the children, causing them to lose all respect for the man. How does a man react to that?

If your father is a useless yob you will see through him at some point. You do not need your mother telling you the kind of man he is.

In fact, mothers who try to cover the “nakedness” of their useless husbands to their children are the smarter ones because when the children finally see (and they will) who their fathers really are, they will respect their mothers for being such decent human beings and the opinion they form about their fathers will be legitimate. Children should not be hurled into this huge conflict or used as trump cards.  

If you are the kind of person who would put up a picture of your child and your ex online, complete with his telephone number, the names on his identification card, and a long story of what a bastard he is, then you deserved each other; you are both crass and indecent.

Do not forget that these men, these deadbeat good-for-nothing fathers, do not fear embarrassment. They were born shameless.

There must be better ways to get them to be take responsibility. There are other more civilised avenues, ways that speak to your own sense of decency.

 Need for dignity

This is not even about whether they should pay or not, because they should. This is about class and common decency and poise.

If he is a complete buffoon, if he has dragged himself down this road of disgrace, the least you can do is not to let yourself be dragged down this sewer with him, unless you also belong there.

A woman should be tasteful, for crying out loud! A mother even more so because these children will grow up and all these garbage people put online will always be there for the children to see and make their own judgements about your online actions.

So what if they find your actions unbefitting?

Look, every weekend I come here and knock women and their actions because women can be a pain. But I only do it because I have high expectations of them.

There are many things we can get away with as men that a woman would not get away with easily because women were built to have a certain level of reason and pragmatism that we might lack.

Women should be the island of reason, dignity, and grace amid the sea of our complete stupidity.

But coming on Facebook like that, to get to the level of those scumbags, playing to a gallery of a cheering online crowd is not the kind of action you want to embody as a woman. It all boils down to tact, ladies. You are known for  great acts of tact, and this is not one of them.