Melville Cooke Me a de bes' babyfaada inna Jamaica
Shabba Ranks
WHEN A man treats his offspring like mongrel puppies which have no identifiable father, it is far worse than two adults in a homosexual relationship. If two adults of the same sex choose to attempt to screw up the natural pipe and hose treading, as disturbing as the thought may be, the only persons they hurt (well, for the men who go breaking the one way, that is) are each other.
When a man refuses to provide even the basic levels of care for his child and even goes as far as to not acknowledge the child exists, there is an unen-ding ripple effect. This goes from the education of the child to little boys running around with guns, lots of rage and lots of targets. The man who fathers more several more children than he can possibly hope to provide for mentally and physically is hardly better than the one who does not try at all.
'BABYFAADA PRIVILEGE'
A series of encounters over the past week got me to thinking about what I have come to call 'babyfaada privilege'. I define 'babyfaada privilege' as the notion which quite a few men I encounter have, that squirting semen into a vaginal passage and one of the millions then fusing with an egg to create a human being somehow makes them special, that they now have some sort of status, that the carvings in Fern Gully that prick the fantasies of women are their monuments.
In the Jamaican context, manhood is a very unfortunate combination word. Chief among these encounters was a conversation of sorts with a man who came to give the hedge its monthly once-over. He did not do a good job and I told him to cut the grass lower. He did not and, when he was 'finished', it was dark. I paid him 60 per cent of his usual amount and he protested. I told him he would get the rest when he came back in the morning and completed the job. "But de pickney fi go school," he whined. "So waapen, mi no have pickney too?" I demanded. He did not reply.
SICK OF IRRESPONSIBLE MEN
This is a man who has spoken about the great number of children he has, so I can only assume that me having a paltry two makes me a lesser human being and I owe him a living. I gave him the rest of the money and told him that if he did not turn up in the morning he should not bother to come back. I have not seen him since. Then I very briefly saw a wonderful woman from Portland at the Calabash International Literary Festival in Treasure Beach and she told my wife and I about some men she knows, who argue that when they have children, it is the responsibility of the government to take care of them. After all, nuh dat govament deh deh fah?;
I am sick of the men who strut around in the belief that being able to achieve an erection and impregnate a woman is some monumental achievement, that they have played their part in the advance of the welfare of the whole human race and can now go into early retirement. They are, quite frankly, screwing up the country and taking extreme pride in doing so. And don't tell me crap about socialisation and slavery, either. I am sick of excuses being made for them as well. They are simply nasty, worthless men. It is wrapped up in the term that they use when bragging about the number of children they have fathered, when they casually say 'a eight pickney me get'. Get? Get from where? Drop from sky? Where is the personal responsibility in 'getting' a child?
This is what so disgusted me about the last general election campaign that the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) ran, when they took to the 'breeda' strategy, a tactic full of vim, vigour and viagra. These were intelligent persons who coldly and callously tried to tap into the basest of nations of manhood, that making a child makes you not only a man, but a better man than someone who has not done so recently, that it somehow makes you capable of being a man among men. I am so happy that they lost.
The world does not owe a perennial 'babyfada' a living. In fact, depending on the level of support he gives his children, it may owe him a whipping. I often hear young persons being asked what they would do if they were Prime Minister for a day. Me? I would cull the lists of non-supportive fathers across the island, take out the top 10 in each parish and have a day when a strong-armed housemaster from Munro would apply 12 of the best in the town square at high noon. You know what makes it especially grating? When these things with testicles spout philosophies of justice and Black pride and talk about Empress and all that. Is some supposed Rastaman me a talk.
Mi puppa was a gallis
Same way mi come
Mi granfaada alone get 15 son
Merciless
Melville Cooke is a freelance writer.
