Healing mens� relationships

by Letters Editor · January 3, 2013

From Jenny Knobel, Cape Town

At last a senior Church official� (Cardinal Wilfrid Napier in his columns in The Southern Cross) has put the whole issue of men and their relationships on the table, for therein lies the chance to bring healing to much of our society.

“Then we wonder why that child grows up not knowing who they are, not knowing how to relate to family life and to children of their own.”�(CNS photo/Debbie Hill)

It has saddened me no end that unwanted pregnancy has become a women�s issue, where men are neither acknowledged nor made to feel welcome.

Fingers are pointed by women to the detriment of that relationship and the unborn child�s whole life.

A child is sentenced to death (abortion) or thrown from carer to carer, not knowing the joy of who his/her parents are or even having the right to enjoy their company in a family or experiencing only very negative emotions about his/her very existence.

Then we wonder why that child grows up not knowing who they are, not knowing how to relate to family life and to children of their own.

The cardinal�s proposal to deal with these issues among men needs to be mirrored by women�s organisations so that extraneous female persons (extended family, neighbours and others) learn to mind their own business and that there is such a thing as respect for family relationships and allowing a couple to be a family, to sort out how they envisage forming a family.

Men have been allowed to have fleeting relationships in this type of scenario and then been made to move on as though there is no place for them there and have nothing further to contribute to the relationship to make it more durable.

This is seen in the migrant labour system and among very conservative people where parents protect their sons when they have fathered a child out of wedlock while the woman�s family ban him from further contact with the woman by their behaviour. Anything to put a very sanitised face on a messy situation.

As my father used to say, the eleventh commandment is the one we all obey: Thou shalt not be found out.

All strength to the cardinal in his endeavours because his biggest battle will be to get men to view themselves in a different light and women to let go of their prejudices.