Hats off to fathers raising another man’s spawn
Jun 24, 2009
Ho! I got a Father’s Day gift of no ordinary kind. But, unfortunately, that is all I will tell you about it. I rarely want to make deserving fathers who missed out jealous.
Hilary Bainemigisha
Ho! I got a Father’s Day gift of no ordinary kind. But, unfortunately, that is all I will tell you about it. I rarely want to make deserving fathers who missed out jealous.
So, I will tell you a distractive story about a father who deserves a Father’s Day gift even more. His name is Kisekka. The 42-year-old engineer went to cheer his son play at a football tournament.
But in the crowd, there was another guy cheering the same boy with even much more gusto. He turned to look at him and the guy looked like Col. Mugyenyi. And he was a carbon copy of his son!
The next day, he ordered a paternity test and the results said there was a 99.9% chance that he was not the biological father of this child, Kisekka Market. The real owner was backed by documents and he was the same guy that was cheering his son.
After that raging mad Connaro decided to do the unthinkable. He did not copy the traders in Kisekka Market. He did not call for a demonstration, he did not give ultimatums and he did not fight the Police.
He just forgave everyone and disappointed the Utoda Kiboko Squad, which was warming up to quell his upraising. He just pleaded to remain the father of the footballer, albeit not the owner, the position he still occupies as I write.
How many of you would do that? Men rarely throw parties when they discover that the children they were raring have no biological connection with them. They know that fatherhood has a social construct but if that genetics component cannot be figured out, it is like being stabbed in the heart. And women know as much, so they rarely want to rock their husbands’ waters. The men look after children who are not theirs unaware that the land title is not in the lands department.
And this is more common than corruption. Researchers from the University of Oklahoma discovered that about 3.7% of dads in the US are looking after someone else’s child unknowingly. It may not seem like a lot until you do the math.
The US census of 2005 showed about 28 million fathers with a child under 18. That meant over a million Americans were looking after some other man’s child.
With the same statistics, applied to our population, about 300,000 men are raising a child they do not know belongs to another man. That is one in 25 dads.
I counted us in office and discovered that my neighbour could actually be raising another man’s child! I turned and looked at him but he kept typing away at his computer, unaware of the fact that his child may actually not be his. Poor guy!
And the President insists the election laws will not change. This means that in a country where a DNA test costs several cows, we may never know if the animals we rear are goats or sheep.
The problem for many men is jealousy. We all know our wives have had battle experiences, perhaps superseding our own. But we sweep such a possibility to the back of our minds and walk with heads raised high like we are the only conquerors of the colonies that we have.
Then comes the bastard. Everytime you look at that child, you see a tangible example of your wife’s physical intimacy with another person. So intimate, they decided to have a child together.
And if the child is younger than the marriage, it means the wife cheated on you (which may mean you are not a performer), refused to erase the footsteps (which may mean she did not mind if you left her or not) and decided to keep the photocopy of her lover (which may mean she loves him more than you).
That is why many men would not mind raising a stranger’s child, but not their wives. They even think the man will retain a sexual visa to tour their wetlands when they are not looking.
Evolution studies have proved that males are designed to care deeply about who their children are.
The natural explanation is that men do not find it reproductively beneficial to invest all their resources in an offspring who is not carrying on their genetic line. In the nonhuman model, males will even kill offspring that is not theirs.
Of course children are innocent and deserve all the love they can get. But in reality, it does take a special man to raise another’s child. But it is possible.
From the Biblical Joseph to Kampala’s market vendors whose markets have been sold off. My hat is off my head for all of you who discovered that your children belong to someone else, and you still do not mind.
It is absolutely a beautiful thing to love and care for another man’s child or children born through your wife and call them your children. If anything, it takes a real man to do that even when the children are physical reminders of her infidelity, vote of no confidence and corruption.
I have got nothing but respect for them. And I hereby dedicate today’s column to you.
hbainemigisha@newvision.co.ug
Ho! I got a Father’s Day gift of no ordinary kind. But, unfortunately, that is all I will tell you about it. I rarely want to make deserving fathers who missed out jealous.
So, I will tell you a distractive story about a father who deserves a Father’s Day gift even more. His name is Kisekka. The 42-year-old engineer went to cheer his son play at a football tournament.
But in the crowd, there was another guy cheering the same boy with even much more gusto. He turned to look at him and the guy looked like Col. Mugyenyi. And he was a carbon copy of his son!
The next day, he ordered a paternity test and the results said there was a 99.9% chance that he was not the biological father of this child, Kisekka Market. The real owner was backed by documents and he was the same guy that was cheering his son.
After that raging mad Connaro decided to do the unthinkable. He did not copy the traders in Kisekka Market. He did not call for a demonstration, he did not give ultimatums and he did not fight the Police.
He just forgave everyone and disappointed the Utoda Kiboko Squad, which was warming up to quell his upraising. He just pleaded to remain the father of the footballer, albeit not the owner, the position he still occupies as I write.
How many of you would do that? Men rarely throw parties when they discover that the children they were raring have no biological connection with them. They know that fatherhood has a social construct but if that genetics component cannot be figured out, it is like being stabbed in the heart. And women know as much, so they rarely want to rock their husbands’ waters. The men look after children who are not theirs unaware that the land title is not in the lands department.
And this is more common than corruption. Researchers from the University of Oklahoma discovered that about 3.7% of dads in the US are looking after someone else’s child unknowingly. It may not seem like a lot until you do the math.
The US census of 2005 showed about 28 million fathers with a child under 18. That meant over a million Americans were looking after some other man’s child.
With the same statistics, applied to our population, about 300,000 men are raising a child they do not know belongs to another man. That is one in 25 dads.
I counted us in office and discovered that my neighbour could actually be raising another man’s child! I turned and looked at him but he kept typing away at his computer, unaware of the fact that his child may actually not be his. Poor guy!
And the President insists the election laws will not change. This means that in a country where a DNA test costs several cows, we may never know if the animals we rear are goats or sheep.
The problem for many men is jealousy. We all know our wives have had battle experiences, perhaps superseding our own. But we sweep such a possibility to the back of our minds and walk with heads raised high like we are the only conquerors of the colonies that we have.
Then comes the bastard. Everytime you look at that child, you see a tangible example of your wife’s physical intimacy with another person. So intimate, they decided to have a child together.
And if the child is younger than the marriage, it means the wife cheated on you (which may mean you are not a performer), refused to erase the footsteps (which may mean she did not mind if you left her or not) and decided to keep the photocopy of her lover (which may mean she loves him more than you).
That is why many men would not mind raising a stranger’s child, but not their wives. They even think the man will retain a sexual visa to tour their wetlands when they are not looking.
Evolution studies have proved that males are designed to care deeply about who their children are.
The natural explanation is that men do not find it reproductively beneficial to invest all their resources in an offspring who is not carrying on their genetic line. In the nonhuman model, males will even kill offspring that is not theirs.
Of course children are innocent and deserve all the love they can get. But in reality, it does take a special man to raise another’s child. But it is possible.
From the Biblical Joseph to Kampala’s market vendors whose markets have been sold off. My hat is off my head for all of you who discovered that your children belong to someone else, and you still do not mind.
It is absolutely a beautiful thing to love and care for another man’s child or children born through your wife and call them your children. If anything, it takes a real man to do that even when the children are physical reminders of her infidelity, vote of no confidence and corruption.
I have got nothing but respect for them. And I hereby dedicate today’s column to you.
hbainemigisha@newvision.co.ug