A sperm donor does not a father make

In the past month, we have once again been entertained by yet another interesting paternity drama involving a famous personality.

This whole ‘search for my father’ business really tires me because, after all, many of us cannot confirm who our fathers truly are.

We operate on blind faith which we support with words like, “I have my dad’s hair “or “I have my dad’s teeth.”

I find it somewhat comical (and tragic) when someone makes the huge journey to trace who their father is while the rest of us live happily in ignorant bliss.

You see, life starts when one random sperm makes a mad dash for the single ovum that is roaming in the female reproductive canal.

From there, it is all about the woman. She alone ensures that the ovum turns into a foetus and is birthed as a fully developed baby.

The long journey to turn this child into an adult begins. And that is even before we get to how motherhood ravages the female anatomy. Simply put, motherhood is a lifetime chore.

Fatherhood, on the other hand, is an elective duty. No court decree, pronouncement or declaration can turn a sperm donor into a father.

He has to have the inner conviction that it is in his best interests to co-operate with the mother in raising their child.

There are many men who, even when faced with indisputable evidence regarding their seed, still walk away.

Give and hope to take

Therefore, any woman who leaves her baby-making machine wide open had better hope that her partner in crime will reciprocate and do what is honourable and fair in the eyes of God and man.

If you let your man off the hook on day one, do not hope that later on in life his conscience or a court case will make him see the folly of his ways. It is unfortunate but sadly, that is how the cookie crumbles.

It is sad, in this day and age, to see how the journey to prove paternity always leaves the mother torn to moral shreds.

Even arguments about being innocent and naïve count for nothing because the world believes that you deserve no mercy if you even half willingly parted your legs. God help you if you chose to procreate with the wrong party.

If you happened to have procreated with your relative’s hubby or boyfriend, then you become the two-timing harlot of the century.

If you in any way grovelled or begged for some form of handout from the reluctant father (or his friends and relatives), then you and Judas Iscariot are blood siblings.

Urgent quest

The search for one’s father is usually marked with drama and unnecessary turmoil. Just read Barack Obama’s Dreams From My Father and you will understand that children, especially boys, struggle with the idea of ‘father’.

It does not help matters that this quest usually gets even more urgent as one become an adult.

So, the whole world cannot understand how a grown man with a family and career can subject himself to the humiliation and most possible outcome of being rejected by his own father.

Ghost of trysts past

Do legally issued Papa decrees result in any satisfaction, especially when they come after years of denial and trading of accusations?

How does one reconcile the bank and emotional balances of trying to finally trace where he or she came from?

What if there is no ‘welcome home’ fanfare, complete with the prize bull to slaughter for the long lost son or daughter?

It even becomes sadder when the child in question is hoping that perhaps he can at last use his father’s surname and perhaps get the recognition he has always craved.

The quest for one’s father almost always comes with the faint hope that siblings, step-mums and others will warmly welcome someone with whom they share DNA.

The happy ending almost always never comes because families get vicious and cruel when anyone threatens to damage the poster-perfect image they have worked so hard to portray.

And the mud that comes with the fight usually smears both the people who brought you into this world, sometimes creating unending hostility.

All these paternity squabbles make me wonder whether they are worth it in any way. Children who are compelled to find their fathers must be ready for war.

In the same breath, men must be ready for the ghosts from their sexual past to return and haunt them.