Charles Kong Soo

Ger­ard-Paul Wan­liss, 53, from Ari­ma, is a pho­tog­ra­ph­er and proud sin­gle fa­ther of Eli who turns 14 soon.

Wan­liss’s son was on­ly a year old when he and his part­ner sep­a­rat­ed.

The ded­i­cat­ed dad al­so cares for his el­der­ly 83-year-old ail­ing fa­ther, who is a can­cer sur­vivor.

Wan­liss al­so cared for his moth­er who passed five years ago and suf­fered from de­men­tia for the last three years of her life.

Hold­ing down a job while lov­ing and car­ing for his son and par­ents, pro­vid­ing gen­er­al sup­port and giv­ing guid­ance to Eli is not an easy task.

But while it may be chal­leng­ing, it is tru­ly a labour of love for Wan­liss to take care of his fam­i­ly.

Wan­liss has been a sin­gle dad for 13 years. “I’ve been a sin­gle par­ent to Eli and had vir­tu­al­ly no sup­port sys­tem. Af­ter his moth­er left, I nev­er re­al­ly got back in­to the game.”

Wan­liss added that be­ing a sin­gle fa­ther can of­ten be de­mand­ing and chal­lenges are go­ing to arise, but all one can do is try his best and fo­cus on the most im­me­di­ate mat­ter at hand.

He said chil­dren al­so face many chal­lenges in to­day’s so­ci­ety such as peer pres­sure and bul­ly­ing which par­ents need to help them nav­i­gate.

Con­cern­ing his son, Wan­liss said, “He tries his best, it’s chal­leng­ing at times with some of his sub­jects. He’s in Form Two at CIC and en­joys go­ing to school and be­ing around his friends.”

Wan­liss al­so takes care of his fa­ther. He said his fa­ther’s mo­bil­i­ty was af­fect­ed be­cause of his knees and he need­ed as­sis­tance in many ar­eas. He al­so pre­pares his meals for him.

While his dad is co­her­ent, he us­es a walk­er, so Wan­liss tries not to be away for very long, and af­ter a pho­tog­ra­phy as­sign­ment, he heads straight back home.

He said he does not have a so­cial life; go­ing out and lime with friends and hav­ing a few drinks is not pos­si­ble be­cause of the de­mands of be­ing a sin­gle par­ent and care­giv­er, in ad­di­tion to fi­nan­cial con­straints.

Wan­liss said a friend sug­gest­ed that he need­ed to get out more of­ten and have a re­la­tion­ship.

He said that in to­day’s world, it is very dif­fi­cult to have a re­la­tion­ship, es­pe­cial­ly for a sin­gle par­ent with fi­nan­cial re­spon­si­bil­i­ties such as house and car main­te­nance, gro­ceries, bills, his son’s school, and his dad’s care.

Wan­liss said what he loved about his job as a pho­tog­ra­ph­er is that it is the clos­est thing to so­cial ac­tiv­i­ties as he gets to meet peo­ple at cul­tur­al, re­li­gious and oth­er events.

The dot­ing dad loves to take his son on dri­ves, chase sun­sets and go to the beach where they take mem­o­rable pho­tographs.

Par­ent­ing tips

* As­sist your child in their school work and projects when­ev­er pos­si­ble.

* Par­ents should set prop­er ex­am­ples as good role mod­els for their chil­dren to em­u­late

* Don’t blame youths for all so­cial ills; they’re watch­ing adults be­hav­ing bad­ly, drink­ing, us­ing drugs, curs­ing, bad dri­ving, play­ing the field etc

* Use com­mu­ni­ca­tion in­stead of cor­po­ral pun­ish­ment and ‘tough love’ to af­fect change

* Stop ver­bal­ly abus­ing chil­dren and us­ing de­struc­tive words and lim­i­ta­tions such as good for noth­ing, stu­pid­ee, dotish, you can’t do that, you are not smart enough etc to re­verse the trend for a shift in be­hav­iour and ac­tion.

* Change neg­a­tive stereo­types