ONE-NIGHT-STAND THAT GOT YOU - BABIES
The difference between sexual pleasure of about 15 minutes and its consequences can be so huge one has to question nature for this disproportionate drive. Yet reasonable men, women, even some Rev. fathers and incestuous acts only realize the risk and blemish after the fact. The cost of child bearing for anyone is a sentence of 25 years if the child decides to go to college. Taking on such enormous responsibility from 15 minutes pleasure may not be mind boggling after all, if we give preference to nature's propensity to procreate; in a legal and civilized way.
Some of us always wonder what the prostitutes, victims of holy men and incest tell their kids. We are not talking here about baby-mamas or baby-daddies. Many prostitutes see themselves like any other career oriented men and women dodging married life responsibilities, preferring to remain spinsters or bachelors longer so that they can pamper themselves with all the money they save. Others may want to build nests to buy houses for future families to be comfortable. If we cannot keep our joy-sticks inside our pants or the ladies missed their pills, we pass blame.
Young men and women meet in a variety of places in most cosmopolitan areas including cyber café, night clubs but also in churches and mosques for the older ones. Regulars at these places may see one another frequently. While it may be acceptable to get into a relationship with those that meet one another in churches and mosques, it is less so in night clubs. Places of worship may be sober in their reflection towards life if the leader is sane, cyber café are trendy in vogue but getting involved with someone in night clubs carry all the risk of one night stand.
We also know there are intentional one night stand either with a rich man to take care of family or beautiful woman to call the mother of our children. A famous mogul, as others, had several children with different women and took good care of their kid or kids as long as they subjected themselves to DNA test. On the other hand are women that go after a man for one night stand denying a poor man the right to fatherhood. Some of us wondered out loud how often those Mormon, royals, chiefs and the rich sleep with so many women that give birth to all their kids.
There are some children from broken homes, others from single family homes and those from one night stand whose parents never contemplated a relationship. African children usually have a family since it takes the whole village to raise a child but the hustling and bustling city culture have stretched individual family to a limit trying to cope with the nuclear members. Suburbs life tries to replace cities that fragmented the civil behavior, to the disadvantage of many poor kids.
When we see children flocking to the cities to take care of themselves without any ties with a family, we suspect a runaway but many may also be rejected children out of different social stigma that may not be presentable back home. Children of prostitutes evade childhood friends at home. Hardly would one come out and say they are products of one night stand if they know. Africans do not usually reject innocent children born into the community through no fault of theirs. But as economic condition of many families deteriorates, merciful parents dwindle.
Thought the chances of acceptability in the extended families may be low it is also false to think good relationships never come out of one night stand. When you fall in love with someone at the night club and it gets serious, both companions would rather tell friends and families that they first met somewhere else. By the same token, if one night stand fling was so good that it blossomed into greater prospect for a relationship, none of the partners would want to admit that it was a one night stand that got them a child.
The better advice is that no matter whom you sleep with, look before you jump in case you get stuck. Some of us have heard about the story of meeting someone where the light was dim only to turn out that was not our type. You do not want to wake up in the arms of a brute, some “beauty” pepper, grandmother or a grandfather with no prospect or further contacts. In other words, it is easy to mix one night stand with getting drunk or high. In some humiliating cases; one of you may cry date rape. It's never about us but from someone's experience.
The age of high school kids has gone down from what it was in those days when teenagers and those in their twenties share the same classrooms. So it was not uncommon in those days to have classmates that might have got someone pregnant just by doing it once; like a one night stand. Even in those days, we made fun of them. The boys may change schools while the girls usually drop out for life. Unfortunately, it still happens today but girls can go back to school.
By the time we recount young men and women sexual activities in the colleges, most people have a story. A few young men and women usually stand out as a topic most of us remember. As difficult as it is to predict human behavior, you never know which of the boys would marry which of the girls. Those that are predictable are no surprises. So when they complain about who they end up with, one wonders if everyone knew about that one, he or she should have known better. Why complain about marrying that flirt from school?
Children born out of these flings are usually passed on to grandmother that most of the children know as mum while they know their mother as aunties. This also happens even in the cases of matured men and women that want to have grandmother take care of their children. So we carry the notion of - it takes a village to raise a child - into cities and cosmopolitan areas.
Consequently, the responsibilities of inadequate preparation to child bearing and child rearing are increasingly falling on the shoulders of grandparents. Even when the full participants of these brief relationships or one night stand deny responsibilities, we find the grandparents accepting the same and taking the children into custody. So when you see grandparents with babies, they are not miracle of birth, those babies belong to their sexually active children.