Try keeping your shoes out of your mouth, Delroy
THE HEATED paternity leave conversation brings to mind one of Yogi Berra’s notorious faux pas “Feels like Déjà vu all over again”.
As usual, the subject has been analysed to death. This is a modern proclivity, especially whenever it involves man/woman relationships and more so when there’s a hint of sex detected. We just love to talk about other people’s affairs. So, naturally, examples of foot-in-mouth disease abound, including local poster boy Delroy Chuck.
Addressing a justice ministry child diversion sensitisation session in MoBay, Chuck solemnly warned: “If you want paternity leave, you must be living with the mother for a few months before birth. If it’s your wife – no problem. If it’s your girlfriend, then you can’t come and say, ‘It’s my child and, therefore, I’m entitled to paternity leave’, and you not living with the mother. You would be getting paternity leave to do what? Visit her every day?”
For those of you previously fearful of trying, THIS is how to insert both feet (in shoes) in your mouth while simultaneously chewing gum, brushing teeth and walking.
Let’s try to get a grip on all this salacious saliva. Delroy, how’d you define a “few months”? Would three months suffice? Four? Five? Can the father move out AFTER birth? As an allegedly bright chap, why can’t you understand fatherhood and residential address aren’t mutually exclusive? Some fathers live with baby-mothers. Some even marry them, despite warnings that the food most destructive of female sex drive is wedding cake. Some live elsewhere. Some live with another babymother. Some live with two.
They’re ALL fathers. Many who don’t live in the same hemisphere as the mother make better fathers than some who live with the babymother. Men don’t have to live with women to make babies. They don’t have to live with anybody to be good fathers. So let go of this artificial nonsense about “living with the mother for a few months before birth”.
What the warra warra do you mean if it’s my girlfriend I can’t say “It’s my child and, therefore, I’m entitled to paternity leave’, and you not living with the mother”? Delroy, it IS my child. Why’d my address matter? Have you any idea how many loving parents live separately (often with grandparents) because they can’t afford to live together? Do you live in Jamaica?
THIRD FOOT IN MOUTH
Only biology prevented Delroy from Chucking a third foot in: “All I’m saying is, fathers in
Jamaica need to take responsibility for children they fathered. It’s just unfair for mothers to struggle with these children, and all fathers believe that they are to do is to send a money. That’s not enough.”
Even if it’s an accurate characterisation of today’s fathers (it isn’t), what the bejeezus has this to do with paternity leave? Delroy, do you think denying paternity leave will make irresponsible fathers responsible?
FACT: Irresponsible fathers and irresponsible mothers exist. Has it occurred to you that sending prospective fathers on paternity leave might not only encourage more responsibility but also give mothers leverage to insist on it?
But, by then, Delroy was in full flight and all reason had fled: “Most of these children need love and attention, and if those children had love and attention, they wouldn’t be at the corner with the gangs becoming criminals, causing us to have this programme of