Love Child

"Love child, never meant to be

Love child, (scorned by) society

Love child, always second best

Love child, different from the rest"

Written by: Diana Ross and The Supremes

Remember Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel, The Scarlett Letter? Hester Prynn was an unwed mother, banished from the small-minded town and forced to live her life on the outskirts, because she wouldn't say who the father of her child was; turns out, he was a man of cloth. She had to wear the infamous, Scarlett letter A (Adultress) at all times; the letter A resided upon her chest; burning into her heart and soul (Insert: Fire and brimstone).

Now I realize, Mr. Hawthorne's letter was published in 1850, and it was Puritan Boston, but didn't you secretly desire, no, crave Hester Prynne to put her big, girl panties on and say, "fuck that, fuck this and oh yeah, fuck you!?" Hester then would have packed up her things, to include her beautiful daughter and head out west; perhaps to California, where people are a bit more forgiving about adultress affairs with men in cloth.

I'm certainly not suggesting the poignant story should be altered to my liking either. I'm nothing like Demi Moore who played Hester Prynne in the Hollywood movie version; opting to just go ahead and change the ending because she felt her ending was much better than NT's. No offense Mrs. Ashton Kutcher, but I think Mr. Hawthorne knew exactly what he was doing when he wrote the beginning, the middle and the end.

Are you wondering why on earth I'm blogging about The Scarlett Letter and referencing lyrics to Love Child, today? I do have a point, and here it goes:

As of late, for no apparent reason, I've met a number of men that have children. Let me rephrase - these men are single, never been married men, with children. They're somewhat equivalent to Hester Prynne's lover, I suppose. The difference is that these men live in modern times, aren't usually men of cloth and they've taken responsibility for their love child, by paying child support and being involved in their children's lives. They're also not banished from society for not marrying the child's mother. These men have fathered love children (Insert: Nearly every NBA professional).

I guess there's a reason for everything, and I'm not really sure why I've run into so many men lately that fall into this category, but for some reason, I have. I'm not naive either. I've known many girl friends over the years that have dated men that have Love Children in their lives. It's strikingly odd that I've met so many love child sperm donors lately though.

Maybe it's my age; that I'm single, and that men occassionally hit on me. They don't realize what they're getting themselves into; casually offering to buy me a drink; hoping for my digits and then SHAZOOZLE!, before they know what hit them, The Neve Inquisition begins. I start digging. I dig for the grit, the details and the explicit directions; asking all kinds of questions: Who? What? Why? How? When? Tell me, tell me, tell me...pleassssse.

One said he felt duped by his then girlfriend nearly 20 years ago, after discovering she really wasn't taking birth control pills. Uh. Oh.

Another man confessed he loved the woman he was involved with, and when they both learned of her pregnancy, he felt he was simply too young to get married at that time. "You love me, but you're leaving? Huh?"

I'm not a love child. I think I might be a bit jealous of that mere detail too. Not because I think it's a fashion statement right now and everyone is doing it. But because my parents are Catholic and I'm quite sure my mom just got tired of saying, "no" one night and well, 9-10 months' later, along came Neve.

Nothing too terribly sexy about that, huh? I'd like to know that my exisitence was based on some hot, sorrid, sultry, alcohol involved, rip eachother's clothes off firework's explosion. Cigarette smoke permeating the air afterwards.

Six weeks' later, a woman sits on the toilette at home; cell phone in one hand, a pregnancy test wand held in the other; it's glowing with color; blue, or maybe it's pink. Shhhh...you can hear her whisper something into the phone, "Hi baby, how's your day? I have news - the rabbit done died."

Ciao

p.s. Select here to order the card above.