Nigeria: "The Feminisation of Boys"

Article here. Excerpt:

'Many people are asking silent crisis is consuming the future of our male children. Fathers are spending more time away from their families either toiling at work, lounging with their buddies at the club after a hard day’s work, or generally involved in one thing or another that takes them away from home. They have surrendered the nurturing and upbringing of their children, especially boys, to women – their mothers, aunties, female house helps and nannies. Absentee fatherhood is taking an awful toll on our boys. Children need the presence of strong male role models as psychological, spiritual and moral anchors. This is the essence of the divinely ordained role of males as family heads.

The chronic absence of fathers leaves a yawning vacuum in the lives of these children. This is generally damaging for both boys and girls. It is a fact that girls receive emotional stability from the relationship with their fathers. Many girls deprived of fatherly affection, years later are still searching for that emotional succor from other males in abusive and sometimes, clingy or promiscuous relationships. But girls can at least compensate through proximity to their mothers from whom they receive valuable mentorship in the event of an absent father. Through the unique relationship they share, mothers can pass on wisdom and feminine graces to their daughters.

However, boys suffer grievously from the plague of absentee fatherhood. First, the absence of their fathers denies them the calming and steadying influence of a close male authority figure. The process of relational bonding between father and son, a crucial aspect of forming the male character, is disappearing. Boys are not being mentored, disciplined or coached by their fathers. Fathers are increasingly fathers in name only. Their fatherhood is a biological fact but exerts little or no moral impact on the children.'