‘Fatherhood’ ruling late, but a small step in the right direction

I was deeply perplexed by the Nairobi High Court ruling on Thursday that fathers should be listed on their children’s birth certificates without their consent.

I always assumed that that was the done thing. Apparently, under the (now out-dated) law, a man could refuse to lend his name to the birth certificate even if he were the biological father.

Imagine that: A law that gives you an automatic out when it comes to parental responsibilities. Must be nice to be a man!

Women, of course, do not get the same get-out-of-jail card as they are the carriers and "birthers" of this same child; so, parental responsibility is automatically assigned to them.

There is a route I follow on my way home, through an informal open-air market in town.

On the pavement, where the merchandise is displayed, the women traders either hold their babies to their chests as they bargain with customers or make the toddlers ‘beds’ on baskets of fruits where the little ones lie and gurgle happily at the Nairobi lights.

Men do business here too, but never have I seen one taking care of a child while on the job. And you cannot tell me that it is because these men are not fathers.

On the streets of Nairobi, just like in the deeply patriarchal village where I come from, childcare remains the almost sole preserve of women.

And yet, for the Ameru, just like many other communities in this country, children are viewed as primarily belonging to a man — but if, and only if, he chooses to claim them.

Now, am I the only one appalled that such a glaring double standard has endured in our law books for such a long time, until God granted Justice Mumbi Ngugi the wisdom to call time out for all ‘deadbeat fathers’, who have until now remained vindicated by an archaic law that lets them off the hook scot-free?

GOOD EFFORT
I remain amazed by the mental (and apparently legal) acrobatics that society will engage in to bend over backwards to accommodate men. Stay with me, I have a point.

Should a man decide that fatherhood is not for him, he can easily hit the road and leave the woman holding the baby (literally), with little to zero consequences.

If a woman is educated enough to sue the man for child support and monied enough to follow the matter through the courts, she could hold the man’s salary ransom and rightfully use it to bring up their children.

If not, as is often the case, she will live a dog’s life struggling to singlehandedly provide for children that she did not sire alone.

The society and the law have ensured, through the refusal to enact laws that would give women safe and affordable access to safe abortion, that once a woman gets pregnant she must automatically become a mother.

But surely, the least we should do is force the man to man-(oh, the irony)-up and bear responsibility.

The ruling is a small step in the right direction.