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Culture of disowning children must cease
2007-04-24 09:57:45
By Editor
Last week, the newsroom of The Guardian Limited played host to two guests who touched off a chord of pity and pain amongst the staff.
The agony transcended the compound of the company, however, and embraced our readers, to whom we relayed the sad and sickening news relating to the guests.
The pair comprised a mother and her hapless baby daughter, who is facially deformed and in urgent need of surgery.
Surgery would give the face a relatively pleasant outlook, but the critical aspect is that the girl`s condition has been progressively deteriorating, meaning that her very life hangs in the balance should appropriate medical intervention be belated or doesn`t materialise.
The mother was appealing to well-wishers to rush to her baby`s, and by extension, her aid, with cash donations to foot medical expenses.
It is bad enough for a poor mother, a father, a couple or whoever is close to someone needing assistance of whatever form, to seek help from others - both those who are financially better-endowed, or those not in that category, but are nonetheless driven by pity and compassion.
Regarding the mother and baby in question, however, the story is both shocking and revolting.
The mother, who no sane person would have cause to suspect she was lying, revealed that her partner had abandoned the pair after noticing that the offspring was deformed.
She pointed out that the man had volunteered love and companionship throughout the period of her pregnancy, indicating that he, alongside her, was anxiously awaiting the arrival of the sweet angel, which is how babies are characterised with good reason.
The father`s indifference that followed the angel`s arrival, is clearly related to her condition being presumably negative, due to her deformity.
That is not an isolated case, and that`s why it deeply shocks and upsets us, plus people of goodwill, broadly.
Cases are legion, of initially loving husbands who turn hostile and even beastly when their wives deliver babies who are either deformed in their infancy or develop mental or physical disorders later.
Quite many originally happy wives have been transformed into a highly miserable lot after undergoing the nasty experience of being thrown out of matrimonial homes, on account of delivering `wrong` children.
By the warped definition of the husbands or fathers - in set-ups in which marriages aren`t applicable - wrong children include cripples and those sporting other forms of physical deformities, the deaf and dumb, the mentally retarded ones, and those with albinism.
Sheer logic dictates that it takes two to tango, and that, therefore, any baby - the test-tube variety constitute a very tiny proportion -- is a product of
Biological liaison between a man and a woman.
A baby, then, put liberally, is owned by two people of different sex. The logic is thus glaringly turned upside down when a father disowns the baby.
What is particularly sickening is that some of the culprits invoke historical evidence that is virtually meaningless and illogical, such as that over the generations, no-one in the man`s family was ever a cripple or a mentally retarded person.
The situation causes rifts within the immediate and distant families, such as when a woman driven out of her matrimonial home seeks refuge in the home of her parents, to which she was part before marriage.
The relationship between the in-laws and the woman`s husband naturally turns sour.
On top of that, the victimised women suffer enormous emotional stress over being abandoned by their co-parents and initiating fund-raising drives to fend for and educate their children, or to facilitate surgery.
It is almost unbelievable, but it`s true, that amongst the culprits are highly educated, and thus otherwise considerably enlightened men with above-average financial and related means.
But on the broader plane, the culture of rejecting, undermining and despising physically disabled people is very much prevalent.
This, plus the `sub-culture` of disowning and rejecting children whose physical condition is not of their own wish, must be fought hard against. For it is inhuman and beastly.
And come to think of it, it is more than beastly, because by and large, animals do not subscribe to that - should we call it human ? -culture.
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