Abandoned

No Baby Talk

By Georgene Rhena P. Quilaton-Tambiga

                  I just fell in love.

              His hands are so small my index finger barely fits in. His smooth pinkish skin still had traces of vernix caseosa (a white, cream cheese-like substance that acts as a skin lubricant in new born babies1).

               Yet, the most disheartening fact is that the woman who was taking care of him when I visited him was not his mother. Editha would have willingly stepped in and claimed him to be her own. But she couldn't afford to. I would have willingly done the same, myself, if only...

                Ken, this is how Editha's husband would like to call him even though the couple knows that he is there only for few precious days in both their lives.

                Ken was found in a flour sack cloth which was far from being clean, recounted Editha. His eyeballs were not white but yellow. He was so fragile yet so charming no wonder I fell in love with him. If only he could be mine but I already have one adorable two-year old hurricane to take care of at home.

                Looking at Ken teleported me to my college days when I was researching for our advocacy TV ad (which I have already mentioned in this column during the height of the issue of a baby abandoned on an airplane). My heart bled for yet another abandoned child. This time, though, the bleeding comes with an even more overwhelming realization: that in our society many children are being abandoned in so many different ways. And, no one seems to confront the question: Why?

                All right, this column has promised vis-à-vis its title that there will be "No Baby Talk," thus we talk this through maturely.

                As all know, today is no longer the age of virgin brides. Catholic priests, in fact, sometimes only laugh over the fact that brides today walk down the aisle with babies wriggling in their tummies or sons acting as ring bearers. No one can ever judge that these women are any less because they did not marry a virgin. Society can simply assume they are a bit lucky that after all they were perched on the altar to say "I do."

                For those who had been abandoned and rejected by the men of their lives, society cannot truly fathom what it is like. I toyed with the idea that maybe Ken's mother was abandoned by the man she used to adore who, in the first place, do not know about suitable contraceptives. One possibility is that the man could be married and took the mother as a mistress and left her all in distress. Married men sure know much about contraceptives but they do have hands wandering as much as their eyes.

                Second point is that the mother could be a teenager in first love and the sweetness of first romance suddenly turned sour. Being so young and incapable of making reasonable decisions, the relationship fell as the pressure of having a baby pounded upon the two foundations.

                Third point is she could have stumbled upon a handsome face one night at the bar and ended up getting pregnant the next week and she realized she did not even know his name and number.

                Well, the possibilities are endless. But all the possibilities are now swords raining down upon the small heart of Ken who is now permanently marked by our judgmental society as 'abandoned.' All the possibilities, no matter how much they speak of the mother being double crossed, cannot justify putting an infant on a literal wire to hang on to dear life.

                I told Editha, "What if the knot broke loose and Ken fell?" We both squirmed at the macabre thought.

                Now, of course, we cannot just place all blame on Ken's mother. After all, she might have been one wet mother hen put out in the rain and instinct told her that the premises of a church could provide her chick better shelter than her own arms.

                This speaks so much about how much mothers out of wedlock face the brutality of the society's judgment that so many, Ken's mom counted, choose to complete the abandonment cycle than to face the lethal eyes of a confused, conservative society.

I do not hold our society responsible, to be clear. But couldn't we at least be more tolerant if not helpful?

                I never held Ken in my arms because I had a cough. I surmise I never will. But in my heart is a place only for him and his Kuya Hurricane uttered 'Baby Ken' in approval.

1Pillitteri, A. Maternal and Child Health Nursing