Celebrities who went extra mile being single or separated parents

Independent music producer Tedd Josiah’s wife Reginah only spent three months with their newborn daughter, Jameela, before her sad death in September 2017.

Earlier, Reginah had miscarried. When she conceived Jameela, they were not sure she would carry the baby to term.

One night as she was breastfeeding, she complained of a headache. Everybody has headaches, Tedd thought. But this was a sign that something ominous could happen.

“From breastfeeding to dead in two hours. When people ask me what happened, that’s literally what happened. I’m still trying to come to terms with it. You do not expect that to happen because, according to you, she was not sick,” says Tedd.

The postmortem showed she bled in the brain and her body couldn’t contain the situation for lack of blood-clotting vitamins.

The producer, then 48, was left with a 90-day-old child to look after all by himself. He felt that his own mother was too old to start caring for a toddler. So, he took up the role of raising the child, assisted by a nanny who comes in during the day when he is away at work.

As Kenyans join the rest of the world in celebrating Father’s Day today, Lifestyle brings you the experiences of Tedd and other famous fathers who, through various circumstances, are not raising their children with their wives. We also reached out to celebrated pastor and fashion analyst Robert Burale, comedian “Dr King’ori” and actor Abel Amunga who shared their experiences.

Tedd says he has taken up the responsibility of raising Jameela with pride.

“We had planned to raise her as best as we could in this family of three. The nanny leaves by evening and I get to spend the evenings, nights and weekends with her,” he says.

While arranging the interview, he was adamant that it could not be done before 10am.

A typical day for him starts with him changing Jameela's overnight diaper, cleaning her up, feeding her and playing with her as he waits for the nanny to come.

He says it is important that he plays with her because that is how she learns. He then goes to work. In the evenings, he is back to the role of a hands-on father. They play a lot and he barely has time for himself as she is fussy and rarely still.

He then cooks their respective dinners, cleans her and they go to sleep. The weekends are more active for daddy and daughter. They spend the whole time together.

“Everything is a learning process for her: a word, an object or even new food. I try as much as possible to put my phone down and switch off the television so we can spend as much time communicating. We take naps when she wants to and if she wants to do something else, we do that too,” says Tedd.

Every time Tedd posts a video of him sharing moments with young Jameela on social media, they get thousands of views.

He says she has a funny character and enjoys learning how to pronounce words, mostly expressing herself through sounds and facial expressions. Another reason why Tedd takes his fatherhood role so seriously, to the point that he wants to go it all alone, is because Jameela was his wife’s pride, joy and life. She stopped everything to make sure she gave the baby everything she needed.

“The difference now is that her side of the bed is empty which, for me, in all honesty, is hard to bear. The question in my mind is, ‘Will anyone love her the way her mother did, even in that short time?’ My honest answer is ‘no’. If it’s her growing pains, periods and relationships, I’ll have to explain them to her and walk her through it all.

"I’m either going to be the person she confides in or the person she feels is letting her down, even if I were to get into another relationship. Even the nanny has learnt how to clean her from me,” he says.

ROBERT BURALE

Pastor Robert Burale, popularly known as the coach, has been separated from the mother of his 13-year-old daughter since the girl was two years old.

The pastor, a renowned fashion critic and TV commentator, has always been a believer in children enjoying the benefit of having both parents. Thus, they have always had an amicable agreement on how and when he can take his daughter.

“As the father, it would have been easier for me to disown the child, disappear and let the mother do everything. But I believe parenting is presence, impartation and impact. To a girl, her father is the first love,” says the pastor.

He says parenthood has been an exciting experience. When a child is young, it is easy for the parents to impress their authority on them and they would easily become what you want them to be.

He acknowledges that there are things that only a father can do, while other roles can only be done by the mother. He sees himself in his daughter through her confidence, while sometimes she also has her mother’s contemplative character.

With the girl now entering teenage, he admits to being a little scared.

“They have their own mind and they try to make you see the sense as to why they think they need to do what you are telling them not to do. What was lucky for me is that her mother was able to have the difficult conversations with her. As a man, I couldn’t fully do that,” he says.

Now he discusses issues with her and they agree on the best way forward. Burale and the girl’s mother agreed do what is best for the child as parents, which means they also never go against each other’s decisions and proclamations to avoid her having the opportunity to pit one against the other.

“It inculcates respect of authority in children because they know the parents are supporting each other as far as the child’s upbringing is concerned,” he says.

Mr Burale worries a lot about his daughter. When she is away from both him and her mother, like on school trips, he feels like his heart is out there with her. He takes it on himself to tell the girl that she is beautiful and that he believes she can be, and do, anything she puts her mind to. He wants to avoid giving an opportunity to any man to take advantage of the girl. He says raising a boy would have been much easier for him.

“Whoever dates my daughter will be in trouble. I will need certificates of good conduct up to his 10th generation,” he jokes.

The pastor has also found a middle ground so that his daughter knows it is okay to approach him with any issue she has. They can talk about crazy stuff, including making fun of each other, and they have a good laugh.

However, he ensures that she knows daddy is not joking when it comes to serious matters. He says fathers are supposed to point their children in the right direction by being providers, protectors and moral compasses.

He says this means showing and not telling: praying with them, using language and mannerisms that are respectful, being at their school events and taking time to do the things they enjoy.

“Do not be too friendly with your children at the expense of their discipline. Raise your children in a way that instils the right values in them. However, if you’re too much of a disciplinarian, their lives will be chaos when they get to be away from you for long periods; they will tell themselves it is okay to do anything as long as you do not find out,” he says.

DR KING’ORI

According to the Children’s Act, in cases where an unmarried couple has a child and they are no longer living together, the mother has parental responsibility from the onset. The threshold for the father to be granted custody over the mother is very high.

Two months after breaking up with his ex-girlfriend, comedian and television show host Dr King’ori (real name withheld on his request) got a call from her informing him she was pregnant. He chose not to denounce it.

He wanted to be the best father to his child. But the woman got into another relationship and things became complicated. After his daughter’s birth, he got to see her on very few occasions.

From October 2014 to June 2016, he was not allowed to see his daughter. Not knowing how she was developing, he only held on to the memory that her finger nails and his had the same shape.

His parents even told him that if he could not have both the baby and the mother, he should just let go.

“They came up with a concept to try and convince me how hard it is to co-parent when the mother is in another relationship. And life has shown me that this is true,” says Dr King’ori.

Though it was initially difficult for him to meet his daughter, finally the barrier was broken and she now knows him very well.

He says she is a younger, female version of himself. Even though Dr King’ori has a girlfriend and a son, he still pays school fees and medical insurance for his daughter.

He prays that she will turn out to be the type of person he wishes he had raised her to be.

They spent the last school holidays together and he got to learn a lot about her.

Sitting across from the person that mirrors him, having conversations with her and having fun, was like a magical experience for him. He says she is one-track minded and you can rarely sway her from her line of thought.

“I’ve prayed about the possibility of raising her in my house, and instilling my values in her. The tricky part is that I am not actively involved in her daily life. Unfortunately, the legal system does not give a man a fair chance when it comes to custody of children, but I look at her and I forget all the drama it takes to get to her,” sums Dr King’ori.

ABEL AMUNGA

Actor, musician, master of ceremonies and voice-over artiste Abel Amunga single-handedly raised his daughter Ruth Matete into an accomplished woman.

Ruth, 32, is now a celebrated recording and performing gospel artiste and CEO of Goshom Music School. She shot to fame by winning the 2012 edition of Tusker Project Fame.

Ruth’s father and mother were high school sweethearts. She got pregnant when he was 22 and in college while she lived in a village in western Kenya.

When not in class, he used to do menial jobs and would send her money.

But the relationship ended afterwards and Ruth’s mother was married by another man. The stepfather was abusive and when Ruth was seven, her mother was hospitalised with injuries. She told Abel that Ruth was not safe with her stepfather.

Abel had remarried when he took in Ruth — who had not been inside a classroom by then. Her mother succumbed to her injuries a few months after being hospitalised.

The first two years with her stepmother were good but she resented Ruth because she could not conceive children of her own.

For the subsequent three years, the relationship became very strained between Abel and his wife. She would beat up Ruth and lock her inside the house for weeks when he was away working. One time they came home from church to find his wife gone.

“I sat her down and promised her she would never be exposed to any other mother or any other father. My late mother wanted to take her in, not confident I would cope as a single father. But I refused. I wanted to show Ruth the love she had been missing all those years,” says Abel.

As she grew, he tried to win a place in her heart by not only being a parent but also her friend. He ensured that he was the only person she could share anything with, no matter how personal. He decided to spent a lot of his time with and around her, sacrificing his artistic careers.

When things started becoming more than he had prepared for, in her puberty years, he sought the help of a female neighbour whose daughters were age-mates and close to Ruth.

This enabled her to also get advice from another perspective and not just think that Abel was speaking to her the way he was because he simply was her father.

The father and daughter have been singing together for years.

“The one activity that knitted us together was music. A few months after bringing her from the rural areas, I realised she would hum tunes. So I started coaching her and 90 per cent of our activities involved singing together. 'It won't be long' by Andraé Crouch was the first song I taught her and it is our favourite too,” says Abel.