My father is my mother
Said it with kisses
Mwah! Mwah! Mwah! Three kisses as I boarded the bus that took us off the plane to the airport terminal. As I looked back to see who was being overwhelmed with this most expressive kind of emotional bonding, I saw a man probably late 30’s maybe in his 40’s and a young man of about 13.
His son, and they had gone away on a long weekend to Berlin, the mother did not seem to be in their number, so I suppose it was a boy’s outing for male bonding or something like that.
I was surprised at the effect it had on me, not so much the sudden longing for a child but the fact that one can find someone to lavish love on, be so strong and protective whilst vulnerably expressive such that all are assured of security with each other.
The young man could well have been embarrassed but he did not show it, alas, my father never deigned to exhibit a tendency to the effete, but that is not to say my mum was quicker to kiss than to try her backhand swing across my face.
My father is my mother
Then, in the news, we find that a baby girl has been mothered by her father, a difficult subject of analysis but a reality that our society has to contend with.
Yesterday, I posed a dilemma to the warring factions of the Anglican Church who having been split by the subject of homosexuals in the clergy must wonder how to celebrate the possible Christianity of a girl born to a natural woman who is legally a man married to another woman who could not conceive.
In many ways, people seem to have a yearning for children, though many do not realise that desire for all sorts of reasons, the most serious being the inability to conceive when you have all the biological functions to effect conception.
Some would be minded to adopt, though one sees a lot of celebrities who along with their natural children still adopt to create larger diverse families.
Sort yourself out
I could understand what would have lead to a legally registered man deciding to conceive and take a pregnancy to term rather that run the gauntlet of prejudiced, conservative and uncompassionate adoption agencies.
One thing that cannot be violated is the ability to conceive and carry your own baby regardless of the social ructions one might encounter, the parents only have to work harder at making the child feel worthy, worthwhile and be of great worth in their community and society.
The girl would be fine
Many are already second guessing what life the girl would have and how it might turn out horribly for them, in the news yesterday on BBC World, they brought in a rather virulently conservative psychiatrist who condemned the parents as money-grabbing, insensitive and selfish – the commentary was completely off-putting no matter what she had to say.
However, in the end, I am still a supporter of strong family units even though I do not seem to be in one of note apart from running a large family of one.
Society is the bigger pool
Society is changing in ways we would never have countenanced a generation ago, apart from the unfairly derided single-parent family unit; gender is no more particular significance as to the pairings of persons that make up the parenthood in a family.
Where the church and many other religious organisations seem to be missing the greatest cause for proselytising is that their organisations are made up of people drawn from the society in which they sit and definitely not the other way round.
The so well sanitised religious adherents appropriately indoctrinated in the most dastardly bigotries and prejudices need to spend their everyday lives in society being examples that should encourage others not isolate and alienate those that seem to be different.
Unfortunately, church leaders are still too busy squabbling to attend to their calling, meanwhile, people are being called into ever more bizarre lifestyles that are fast becoming the norm.
Web logs by Akin Akintayo is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Netherlands License.