Real-life Super Dads

Responsible fathers prove that men can bring up good children single-handedly.

- Sonia Molema

AS WE celebrate Father’s Day, two fathers who are raising their children singlehandedly, after losing their wives, share the pain and joy of parenthood. Dingose Khosa (46) and Kagiso Mokgatle (47), both from Ga-Rankuwa, north of Pretoria, live 10km apart and do not know each other. But they share a common goal – that of being the best fathers ever to their children. Despite the challenges and frustrations they face as single parents, these fathers managed to keep their families together. They both agree that single parenting is not for the faint-hearted.

RAISING FIVE KIDS 

Dingose, a mechanic from Zone 20, is a father of five – three daughters and two sons. The children are Lesego (19), Bella (17), Olinda (13), Tshepang (12) and Lethabo (9). He says his wife, Theresa Modise, was diagnosed with cervical cancer soon after giving birth to their last born Lethabo in 2008. She succumbed to the disease in 2012, when Lethabo was four years old.

Dingose, who shares his RDP house with his five children and a grandson, says it was a dark period in his life after the death of his wife.

“The children were still very young and still needed their mother’s attention and love,” he says. “I had to quickly play their mother’s part to prevent them from going astray in need of motherly love and guidance," he says.

Dingose adds that the first few months after the passing of his wife were very difficult. “I was not coping and had to juggle parenting and my job,” he says.