Anna Kasafi Perkins, Contributor

Perkins

Many years ago, a Nigerian friend said to me that having children was one of the most selfish things that a person could do. This perspective was a source of an ongoing argument between us, not because I disagreed totally, but because, at the time, I felt that the statement was too broad, too accusatory, coming from a man who loved children dearly.

Yet, I know that what my friend meant was that people choose to have children for themselves, their own purposes, not for anyone else's.

PARADING AROUND

In many instances, it is true that having a child is more for our gratification than anything "more noble." I remember while I was growing up that there was a phase that some Jamaican women went through where they wanted to have a 'coolie' baby? Remember? These young women could be seen parading around with these hapless children with nary a father in sight. Those children were wanted not for themselves, but for the 'status' that they gave to their mother who was elevated for having a pretty baby.

But what of the father? He was simply an instrument by which the woman got this 'designer' baby. Do I hear echoes of a whip, a body writhing in pain and the rattle of chains?

Yet, I think my Nigerian friend would have better expressed his thoughts by saying that choosing to have a child is a very personal act, and people choose to have children for many reasons, some of them selfish, others not so selfish; many others don't choose; pregnancy follows sex and "ah soh it goh."

But there are instances where childbearing is an act of self-sacrifice and refusal to give in. This is one of the lessons I came away with while doing a course on the writings of Paolo Freire, the Brazilian liberation educator.

Freire's method involved beginning with the life experiences of the oppressed and engaging in dialogue for social change; it is in this light that our professor, a very progressive and compassion religious sister named Meg Guider, assigned us weekly films to watch and critique.

FIGHT FOR FREEDOM

As the only Caribbean person in the class and very aware of the injustice of slavery, I recommended that we watch Amistad, the story of the group of enslaved persons who rose up and took charge of the ship in which they were being transported to be sold and their struggles to win their freedom.

Huge mistake? The film left me hurt and raw and crying at the senseless cruelty and the dehumanising way the Africans were treated. But most of all I could not understand why they did not commit suicide. Why did they choose to live?

Never before or since had I felt as ashamed at being of African descent, the child of slaves. If there were one person with whom I identified in that film it was a woman who was brought up from the bowels of the ship to be 'used' and she threw herself overboard rather than submit to being violated. Why didn't the others do that? Why did they continue to live and fight in the face of a world that was so inhuman to them?

I put on a brave face and wrote and presented a marvellous Freire-like critique of the movie. I later shared my pain at watching this movie with some of my classmates and my lecturer. We went out to lunch and we talked for a long time. And the one piece of wisdom that I went away with from our conversation was that my ancestors choose not to die because they could see the seventh generation ... They could see me, Sister P, Asafa, the taxi driver on the causeway, farmer Brown, Auntie Sue, you ...

Their refusal to give in was an act of rebellion and insurrection that I have only now begun to understand. Living was an act of bravery, of defiance. Sadly, we do not honour their sacrifice and belief in the future when we degrade childbearing and childrearing by acts of selfishness and indeed short-sightedness which sees only our needs as men or women, not the needs of the child or future generations. Would they have sacrificed their lives for us to live had they seen how we have chosen to live?

MORAL QUESTIONS

So when we ask questions about where our men are or why our women continue to allow men to get out of their parenting responsibility, we are asking moral questions. When we ask questions about why women continue to barter sex for money in a fashion that dehumanises both themselves and the men they use and discard, we are challenging that distorted vision of human relationship.

When we ask questions about why women continue to use their children as weapons in their war with men, we are rejecting a distorted picture of the child.

Every child conceived naturally has two biological parents, one male, the other female. Sadly, not enough thought goes into parenting and the choice to have children. Parenting is a huge responsibility and a tremendous gift. Christians see in the act of procreation a participation in the very work of God.

Male and female responsibility begins with the choice to engage in sex, protected or unprotected, but especially unprotected sex.

Depending on where a woman is in her cycle, most acts of intercourse are open to a child being conceived. The conception and birth of a child can, therefore, not be taken lightly or left to mere chance. Childbearing and childrearing call us to acts of deep sacrifice, but also in-your-face defiance. Bring it on!

Dr. Anna Kasafi Perkins is dean of studies at St. Michael's Theological College. Dr. Perkins may be reached at perkiperks@hotmail.com.