| Author: | Bwire wa Bwire | ISBN: | 9781370631490 |
| Publisher: | Bwire wa Bwire | Publication: | January 12, 2018 |
| Imprint: | Smashwords Edition | Language: | English |
| Author: | Bwire wa Bwire |
| ISBN: | 9781370631490 |
| Publisher: | Bwire wa Bwire |
| Publication: | January 12, 2018 |
| Imprint: | Smashwords Edition |
| Language: | English |
The song “Anything Like Me” by American country singer Brad Paisley epitomizes the universal craving for a male offspring, especially by fathers. When he went with his wife to check on the sex of the child they were expecting, he at first didn’t care about what the sex of child would be saying “as long as he or she was healthy”. “But then the doctor pointed to a corner of the screen” and asked him that he hopes “he knows what that means.” He realized his wife was carrying a baby boy and immediately he began all imagining what the boy would grow up to be, from a toddler up to the time when he will be grown up and leaves home.
This craving for a male offspring is the basis of My Son, My Heir, a novel set in Kenya and Uganda mainly during the later part of the 20th century. That time doctors were not able to scan and establish the sex of the baby a mother was expecting, as they do today.
The novel itself was conceived from actual incidences which I witnessed. I had a friend whose wife had given him only daughters and then she went to deliver their fourth child. The following day I innocently asked my friend what child his wife had delivered this time. M friend, with a lot of vehemence uttered “ANOTHER GIRL.” I was taken aback.
Almost two years later, I bumped into this friend in a night club dancing away with abandon after midnight. My friend was not one who frequented nightclubs, so I was astonished to see him there at such a time. When I asked what the matter was with him, he replied, “I HAVE LEFT A MAN IN THE HOUSE” A watchman the author asked innocently. “NO NOT A WATCHMAN. MY WIFE GAVE BIRTH TO A BABY BOY YESTERDAY AND HE IS NOW IN CHARGE OF ALL THOSE WOMEN IN THE HOUSE. I CAN AFFORD TO BE OUT.
This sent me imagining what tensions must have been in my friend’s house as a result of the wife giving birth to only daughters. Especially his wife, who must have hard it rough as she was the one giving birth to only daughters.
I visualized frequent quarrels in their bedroom at night when the daughters have gone to bed. At the end I imagined that he came up with a threat for divorce if the wife again gave birth to another daughter when she became pregnant. I imagined that in desperation she could collude with a medic at her maternity hospital and arrange a baby switch to appease my friend who was desperately in need of a baby boy.
The song “Anything Like Me” by American country singer Brad Paisley epitomizes the universal craving for a male offspring, especially by fathers. When he went with his wife to check on the sex of the child they were expecting, he at first didn’t care about what the sex of child would be saying “as long as he or she was healthy”. “But then the doctor pointed to a corner of the screen” and asked him that he hopes “he knows what that means.” He realized his wife was carrying a baby boy and immediately he began all imagining what the boy would grow up to be, from a toddler up to the time when he will be grown up and leaves home.
This craving for a male offspring is the basis of My Son, My Heir, a novel set in Kenya and Uganda mainly during the later part of the 20th century. That time doctors were not able to scan and establish the sex of the baby a mother was expecting, as they do today.
The novel itself was conceived from actual incidences which I witnessed. I had a friend whose wife had given him only daughters and then she went to deliver their fourth child. The following day I innocently asked my friend what child his wife had delivered this time. M friend, with a lot of vehemence uttered “ANOTHER GIRL.” I was taken aback.
Almost two years later, I bumped into this friend in a night club dancing away with abandon after midnight. My friend was not one who frequented nightclubs, so I was astonished to see him there at such a time. When I asked what the matter was with him, he replied, “I HAVE LEFT A MAN IN THE HOUSE” A watchman the author asked innocently. “NO NOT A WATCHMAN. MY WIFE GAVE BIRTH TO A BABY BOY YESTERDAY AND HE IS NOW IN CHARGE OF ALL THOSE WOMEN IN THE HOUSE. I CAN AFFORD TO BE OUT.
This sent me imagining what tensions must have been in my friend’s house as a result of the wife giving birth to only daughters. Especially his wife, who must have hard it rough as she was the one giving birth to only daughters.
I visualized frequent quarrels in their bedroom at night when the daughters have gone to bed. At the end I imagined that he came up with a threat for divorce if the wife again gave birth to another daughter when she became pregnant. I imagined that in desperation she could collude with a medic at her maternity hospital and arrange a baby switch to appease my friend who was desperately in need of a baby boy.
