Perhaps one of the most overlooked privileges is not wealth itself, but having enough margin in your life to respond to reality. Over the last few years, we have become fluent in the language of privilege, speaking easily about financial privilege, pretty privilege, racial privilege, passport privilege, educational privilege and social privilege, and in doing so we have become increasingly aware that people do not all start from the same place and that some doors open more easily for some than for others. Yet there is one form of privilege that seems to receive far less attention, and that is the privilege of being able to do something with the information you have, not simply knowing, but acting, because the truth is that information alone changes very little. We like to imagine that if people only knew better, they would do better, and entire industries are built around this assumption, from self-help books and documentaries to podcasts, awareness campaigns, public health initiative...
In Kenya, few social realities are as visible — and as normalized — as single motherhood. Walk into any Kenyan town , village , or estate and you will hear it: “ single mother .” It rolls off tongues with ease, as if it were the most natural title in the world. It carries weight, stigma, sometimes pity, sometimes pride. We hear phrases like “I was raised by a single mother” or “She’s doing it all on her own” so often that they hardly spark a second thought. But pause for a moment: why does the phrase exist in the first place? Why is there no equal and opposite phrase — “ absentee father ” — that carries the same recognition, the same punch, the same weight in society? This question matters because it reveals not just our family structures , but also our values as a people . The Normalization of “Single Mother” In Kenya, the term single mother has become so normalized that it is almost part of our cultural vocabulary . It is said casually, often with ...