People call me bastard now; my mum tricked my dad

Auntie Agatha, gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com, Tel: 08054500626


Dear Agatha,

I appreciate your honesty and thoroughness in handling of issues.

I am 35 years of age, married with two children.

Recently, I discovered by accident that my mother lied to me about my paternity. According to her, her husband, my supposed father, unknown to him suffered from low sperm, which meant he could not father a child.

She got to know when in her search for the fruit of the womb, ten years after marriage, she went to see a doctor who insisted she came with her husband.

Although the husband didn’t go back for the results since he assumed like most men that his wife was the reason for their inability to have children, the doctor told her who has the problem in the union.

My mother said she didn’t tell her husband but decided to go back to her former lover.

But she also had an affair with her boss at about the time she was sleeping with her former lover. It was during that time she conceived me.

At any rate, she passed my pregnancy to her husband as she did the two others that came after me.

I really don’t know if the husband knew anything about it but recent developments show that he must have known because he by passed our mother and us to will the remaining of his two houses to his brothers.

In his will, he said much as he loved us as his own, he couldn’t forgive his adulterous wife. The property he bought for her in her name and those he gave to us before he died he left for us. According to him, even if he had a medical problem, it was not the place of his wife to take a crucial decision as she took without consulting him.

For that, he cannot forgive her.

He ended by apologising to all of us and demanded we find it in our hearts to forgive him, but pleaded we must never change our surnames because we remain his children till eternity.

He left our mother to explain what she had done.

His family members are now calling us bastards. Before he died, he had willed the family houses both in the village and in Lagos to me. He transferred his major account to me a month before he died. He also bequeathed houses to my brothers. On account of my mother’s revelation and the names his family members are calling us, do you think it wise for me to hold on to the property? Am I a bastard given the fact that she slept with two men at the time she got pregnant with me?

Should I change my surname and even if I do that whose name should I adopt as mine?

I am so destabilised by everything, I haven’t told anyone except you about what is happening to me. My wife has kept asking me what the problem is with me. It is too shameful a thing to tell her. How do I tell her that I am a bastard without bringing to ridicule the image of my mother who despite everything she has done remains very precious to me? Is my mother hiding anything? How do I make her talk? Why did the man I called and loved as father reject me in death?

Agatha, please help me because I am going insane with this problem.

B.O.





Dear B.O.

In the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, the word bastard is alien. As far as the government of this country is concerned, you are a free citizen with equal rights as any other person.

So, be rest assured that you are not a bastard. Granted, you may never have met the man who fathered you, but that doesn’t make you one, because your mother couldn’t have gotten herself pregnant. A man was responsible for donating the sperm that conceived you. No matter how close the dates are, a mother can always tell who the father of her child really is. If she weren’t sure at the time she got pregnant, something about your look and mannerism would point at the man who fathered you.

Your mother isn’t really ready to face her past, which is probably the reason she doesn’t want to tell you who your father is. Telling you would naturally move you into wanting to see him or know more about his family.

In his shoes, how would you feel if a 35-year-old man walks through your door to announce that the affair you had with his mother almost four decades ago resulted into him?

How would you handle the situation particularly if such revelation is made right in the presence of your whole family who in addition to the man had no prior knowledge of your existence?

Much as you have a right to know who your paternal family is there are certain situations in life, which no matter how clear the signage is still needs a lot of cautions and wisdom to handle.

Think of what use is finding your family now to you? Do you have the capacity to deal with the attendant rivalry, manipulations, spiritual consequences and rejections that go with this package? What precisely are you missing out on now that meeting your family would give you?

Is it the name? Would knowing the name be enough for you? The danger and problems would not come from you answering to the name but your place and existence in the family. That you exist at all is enough reason on its own for some people in the family to declare a very bitter war on you.

And who tells you the bastard label you are currently running away from now would not become a more popular word with this family who would rightly wonder where you have come after all these years?

I, more than anybody else, know the inner joy of going back to one’s roots but that root must have a very open knowledge of you from the first moments you were conceived to make your home coming beautiful. Your presence in your father’s family isn’t going to be a transient thing. It is something very permanent and life changing.

These could be your mother’s fears, the reason she may be shielding your father’s real identity from you. Deep down she isn’t too sure how those people would react and isn’t sure about your ability to deal with another round of rejections.

Her concern may be for you. She may be hiding you from being hurt and embarrassed by more people. And unless you make the effort to discuss with her as honestly and lovingly as possible, you may never understand her reasons for keeping quiet about certain decisions she took back then.

Don’t forget, right now she is feeling bad, less than a mother to you all. Even though the choice she made at that time to source children for her husband for other men to save her marriage and husband from ridicule seemed right then, later events are not only making her regretful of that decision but also casting her in very bad light.

What she thought she did to protect her husband and self from public ridicule is now turning solely to be her ridicule and shame. Nobody wants to understand the reason for her adultery. The issue then is different from what is on ground, which has made her guilty of the capital crime of adultery against the husband.

She is now left to defend her integrity to a very hostile society as well as to her children.

Putting undue pressures on her to reveal the identity of your father may lead to her death. Show her love and support to overcome this huge disgrace because no matter what, she remains the only visible family you have now.

As for your wife, tell her the truth. It would hurt her very much if she gets to find out from a secondary source, because it would appear you don’t trust her to support you or understand the situation you are going through. This is the time you need her the most to soothe the pains of rejection enveloping you.

Don’t fret over her attitude towards your mother. Only a woman can best understand the sentimental reasons women attach to very important decisions in life.

Being a woman she would understand more than you understand the sentiment behind your mother’s decision because the heart and reasoning of a woman determined to protect her home is very complex and hard to understand.

If you look at things objectively you would realise the man you knew, as father didn’t reject you at all. Yes, he was angry with his wife for not telling his the truth about his medical condition but he still made provisions for you all as his children. If it were his intention to reject all of you, he would have recovered everything he gave you all before he died. That he didn’t shows he must have loved you all dearly and his insistence you keep his name is evidence of that.

That he didn’t use his knowledge of your paternity to disinherit you all is further proof that this man loved you and your siblings as his own. If he didn’t, he would have retrieved everything he gave you before his death.

Forget whatever his family is saying. Even if you were his biological children, they would still have fought and called you names given the advantage you all enjoy in his will.

Besides, under the law, those property has been willed to you so you have exclusive rights over them.

And having been given birth to and grew up in his house, he is more of your father than any other man can ever be. He was there from your very first moments in life. He not only invested his money but also his emotions and time in making you the person you are today.

Forget what any other person is saying and look at the evidence of love this man showed you and your siblings to know who your father really is. Consider his investment of love, support, care and friendship on you all when next you feel bad. Apart from asking your mother to tell you the truth, did he ever give you the impression that he isn’t your father? Gratefulness comes from a heart of grace. He left you all very comfortable. Those two houses he gave to his brothers, he did to protect you all from evil manipulations and not from any malice on his part.

At times like this, you need to look for strength in the house and presence of God who sees and knows our conclusions from the beginning.

Good luck.