It’s all about sex baby…

Not long ago Mom asked me “what is this “we”, “they”? I don’t understand what people are talking about anymore”. Hmmmmm, well here “we” go explaining this to the 85 year old who pretty much accepts people as people regardless of race, gender or politically correct label. The dive begins by explaining it’s kind of the opposite to how you grew up, and to some extent how I grew up too. In your day scandal was kept in one family as much as possible, so when your daughter got pregnant her child became yours or was given to another family member who couldn’t have children and that child became a daughter or son to someone who wasn’t the real biological parent. When I was in high school if a girl got pregnant she just disappeared? She may have come back and no one knew what happened and either there was an abortion or adoption, often outside the family. Today that girl goes to her high school graduation pregnant and is part of the school community as well as her and her sperm donor’s family. They all sit down and figure out what works for “them”. That is just a little review of scandal connected to sex.

I wanted to bring home the scandal idea a little deeper and more personally. I took her back to a story she told me while we were back in the old country one year. We were in her home town of Omisalj and sitting under the clock tower, unwinding. She nudges me and nods towards a man crossing the square; one of the local drunks. This was a guy we often stopped and talked to with polite and pleasant exchanges. Well this was the day I would learn their family story.

It was his mother that had had an affair with one of the other local men which resulted in a pregnancy, however she never told anyone she was pregnant rather she said she had a tumor. ( Yes, this is the beginning of many contextual questions that flowed from my mouth like “what?”, “how?”, “when was this again?”… ) I’m going to continue with the straight goods while your mind catches up to the shift in time outlook on this story as no doubt mind did.

Back to the tumor. The day comes that the tumor is to be removed and she must go to the city to give birth to it — Rijeka is about an hour drive in todays time but then it would have been a boat trip and more than an overnight stay. This story just keeps getting better. As luck would have it the priest ended up in the city and goes to the hospital to visit members of the flock. He sees the doctor and asks how the operation went? The answer he gets is “Great!!, it’s a boy”. Hmmmmm, well the scandal ensued and now everyone knew the tumor was a pregnancy. The solution to covering up scandal = keep it in the family. In this case it meant the son-in-law was the one she had an affair with NOT the other guy, who was the real bio-father! Bet her daughter felt great about that one ehe?

They end up sending the boy to New York to grow up with family there. They pay for his education and he becomes a good man contributing to society and protected from the truth. Until the day comes that someone from Omisalj goes to New York and sees him mistaking him for his half brother, the son of his bio-dad. Since, he is the spitting image of the biological father it all comes to the surface regardless of all efforts to not come clean!— as they say the truth always comes out.

So after reminiscing about that story we talked about the “gay” family friends, more like the children of family friends who were gay. We talked about how some have children and nice that she gave them $ for the babies education regardless of them being children of gay couples and being confused as to how the biology worked there. That’s when the explanation of he, she, we, and they came into play through the lens of identity.

“Basically Mom all those scandals we talked about were connected to choices people made, from Croatia to New York to Vancouver, the children resulting from the scandals had no choice. Those children are the offspring of those people and “who” they are is what is being talked about in the he, she, we, they conversation. It is not about choice but who your identity is. Does that make sense?”

Mom’s response, “No. I don’t need to know who sleeps with who. People are people.”

There you have it folks — Happy Thanksgiving!