The Meaning of Fatherhood

What rights does a person have at the moment of conception? According to US law, none. No rights are accorded to a human person until some unspecified "other" time, and various rights accrue throughout a person's life. A baby just born has the right to life; a child slightly older has the right to an education. A late teen acquires the right to vote. But at conception -- nothing.

We (our society, myself included) tend to think about this lack of rights in terms of the children who do not survive until birth. However, I recently read an article that made me consider how our conceptions of pregnancy, pre-born children, and parenthood affect children once they are born and have grown into adults.

According to modern thought, the decision to have a child is one made by a man and a woman that affects a man and a woman. The decision to carry through with a pregnancy is one made by a woman and is her own private decision. Other people, of course, can express their loving care and concern, but ultimately, it is her decision, free from coercion.

These lines of thought forget one other key player in the scenario : the child being conceived. Most Americans know at least the basics of how this debate goes if we are talking about abortion. But, as Jared Yee brings up in the above-linked article, we're only starting to consider what this means if the child is born and grows up.

When woman uses a sperm bank, according to Yee, she and the donor enter a contractual relationship. As in an adoption, the man can keep his identity anonymous or allow for some sort of contact at a later date. This contract insures the conception of a human person... who, years later, may decide that she really wants to know who her father is. Now, she is caught by two effects of our modern ideas of conception: her rights as a pre-born child, at the moment of conception, and the definition and role of a father.

Her "father" is a man who entered a contractual relationship with her mother (likely without ever meeting her). Now, not only are we dealing with who has control over whose rights, but also what constitutes fatherhood. Is a man who donated sperm a father?

Biologically, he is. Half her DNA comes from him. Her never having met him doesn't necessarily preclude his fatherhood. If a person's father dies before her birth, that man might still be considered father. Does his lack of relationship with her mother influence his fatherhood? A divorced father can still retain fatherhood, despite severing ties to his child's mother. Or is it his decision to have nothing to do with the child? Is that where fatherhood ends? Do we consider the child "his" child? What about if a father abandoned his child -- do we consider that child his?

I am posing many questions to which I have very few answers. It all tangles up with our changing ideas of family, gender, personhood, and responsibility, and I am trying very hard, and failing very soundly, to sort it all out. It's all a tangled mess right now, which might, in the end, be the truth of the matter.

Surprise!

I have a roommate! Two, actually, if you count the cat. Cara (yes, pseudonym -- my regular readers are getting good at picking up on those, I'm sure) arrived Sunday evening. After spending the morning out on the Chickahominy River (I just wanted to write that name. It's awesome.), I turned severely pink and went out to get aspirin and attend the 5pm Mass. (My face and shoulders matched my blouse; I was very coordinated.) When I arrived home, I had a roommate!

I knew it first by the car parked where I normally parked, then by the cat that greeted me at the front door. Finally, I met Cara herself, in the middle of organizing her room and preparing to start law school the next morning.

My house is no longer oddly quiet; another person and a cat bring just the right amount of life to the place. For example, we could eat dinner together today, always a great activity.

Beads On Call - Busted Halo

I regularly read the Catholic online magazine Busted Halo. [Stylistic question : Do you need italics for an online magazine? My guess is yes, but I've never checked.] This article hit home for me -- the author's relationship with the rosary sounds like my own, and I like the bit at the very end too, about prayer habits changing. So click the link and read more than just my sneak peak here.

Beads On Call - Busted Halo: "Many people find comfort in praying a daily rosary. No matter what else changes in their lives, that circle of beads is a regular, dependable, soothing part of their normal routine.

I am not one of those people.

It’s not that I dislike the rosary. On the contrary, it’s been the catalyst for some of the most powerful spiritual experiences of my adult life. But though I’ve tried to make it part of my regular routine, somehow I can never quite keep it going. That could be a failure on my part — of imagination, or dedication, or timing — but I think it’s more likely that the rosary is, at this point in my life, simply filling a different role. It’s not my daily prayer practice, but something equally essential to spiritual health: the ritual I turn to in times of crippling fear, anxiety or grief..."

Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte

More of an Idiot: Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte: "Yes, I am fairly certain that most, if not all, of my fellow-bloggers have read this novel, and I hope a good chunk of my readership as well. I am also fairly certain that almost everyone who reads this novel develops a strong opinion of it, and I might be risking my often-in-jeopardy literary neck by offering my own view. But here goes.

First, in case you haven't read it, Wuthering Heights picks up the age-old question of nature-versus-nurture in the form of several very twisted love stories. The action centers around Heathcliff, a foundling child of mixed race, who enters the Earnshaw household. The older sibling, Hindley Earnshaw, hates him; Catherine, the younger, loves him. However, for various reasons, she chooses not to marry him, but the pretty-boy Edgar Linton instead. From there, the novel spirals into Heathcliff's elaborate machinations of vengeance.

I'm not sure what Bronte was thinking when she wrote the novel, but the narrative point of view is unusual, to say the least. A complete outsider (Lockwood) narrates the novel, but the housekeeper tells him the story that really constitutes the plot. However, she did not witness every event in the story, so she gives Lockwood long monologues from other characters... It is story veiled in story veiled in story and presents the dilemma of the unreliable narrator ad absurdum.

I don't like stories told through third-party narrators. I don't like stories where I don't identify with, like, or respect any of the characters. I don't like stories about hatred or vengeance. And if I picked some adjectives to describe the novel, they would be dark, twisted, annoying, and boring. So, logically, I should really hate Wuthering Heights. Yet, I don't. I enjoyed it the first time I read it, four years ago, and I enjoyed it this time, and I have no idea why."

BFFers

My move into a new house meant that once again I got to rearrange my room and the way I keep things. In St. Louis, I ended up creating a "prayer corner" -- a shelf where I arranged various prayerful and holy objects from images to rosaries to books. My black trunk has acquired such a display function here.

As a prayer corner -- or table -- or shrine of sorts -- it is very Catholic. On one side Mary holds baby Jesus; on the other, she embraces her dead Son. Saints Anthony of Padua, Vincent de Paul, Frances Xavier Cabrini, and Gerard Majella keep me company from their prayer cards. Besides His images with His mother, Jesus is depicted as the Good Shepherd, the Sacred Heart, and the Divine Mercy.

From other places in the room, Mary smiles at her infant Son and Christ Crucified hands on the cross. St. Vincent and St. Louis de Merillac poke out of random corners, along with St. Teresa of Avila. These images are interspersed with photographs. Wendy and I smiling on the bridge at graduation. One of my best friends' senior picture from high school. A group of CCMers at the candlelight ceremony. My beloved apartment from senior year. A trio of friends from freshmen year and at graduation. The Six Pack.

I love it. It is the finest depiction of the Communion of Saints I ever could imagine. One of the most beautiful parts of my Church is the way it recognizes our interdependency. I have all these images -- I wear St. Vincent, St. Therese Liseaux, and Our Lady around my neck -- not because they are cool decorations. I have them because they matter to my life. They form a part of my Church which is a body, and we are as integral to each other as my hand and arm are to each other.

They are a part of me and so I talk to them, I share my life with them, I ask them to pray for me. And physical reminders of them crop up in my life, the same way that I kept a For Better or For Worse comic that reminds me of my family, a key chain that reminds me of my dog bones team, a crocheted "love-mite" that reminds me of Meemaw, and a strange, grass-skirted hula-hooping man that reminds me of friends from Youth Group. They are physical symbols for my physical self.

And my friends, those in this world and those in the Church triumphant keep my company and smile down at me in my room, making the space alive, vibrant, beautiful.

On Writing, Stephen King

More of an Idiot: On Writing, Stephen King: "My little sister loaned me this book, and I am very upset about having to give it back. Stephen King abandoned horror fiction for the length of one book to write about writing. His detour resulted in an accessible, fun-to-read book that covers a variety of topics. The book is part autobiography, part grammar and stylistic lesson, part rant on pet-peeves, and part advice to aspiring writers.

Having read it, I am disappointed that King writes in a genre that I don't enjoy, because I enjoyed his writing and wanted to read more than this short book. He didn't give any advice that I haven't heard, but he wrote it in a way that I liked to hear. If you write fiction, you should read this book; it is inspiring, entertaining, and helpful, a pretty good combination of traits."

Week One

I came home last night firmly intending to update my faithful readers as to the state of my life. Then a series of violent thunderstorms came through the 'burg and knocked the power out. As the wind picked up, I half expected to hear tornado sirens and had to remind myself that 1) there are no tornado sirens on the east coast and 2) there aren't tornadoes here. Since I have very little to do with no power after the sun has gone down, I went to bed at nine and only found out this morning that apparently there were "microbursts" -- mini-tornadoes.

Today, however, the weather has held beautifully, and so I can update. I started work on Monday, and the first couple days were a whirlwind of new names and faces as I met all the people from the parish who work in the Parish Center with me. I also met some of the adult people who help out CCM. Some of them I knew; some faces were familiar, though I'd never met them formally; and some were completely new. The list of new acquaintances includes the new pastor, the Monsignor.

With my head still spinning from these introductions, I spent most of Wednesday working on mailings for Freshmen letter-writing. For those who don't know, we try to welcome all our freshmen ahead of time with a hand-written letter and some information about CCM. Plus, every job a college student or recent college grad does needs must incorporate mailings, so this was fulfilling an obligation.

Thursday I headed into Richmond for a meeting of campus ministers. I found, to my delight, that between retreats, service trips, and familial connections I already knew most of them. I felt more at ease during my first meeting among them than I ever did at any of the teacher meetings I attended last year. Best of all, Thursday evening, I came home to dinner with a good friend from college.

Today, the development director (well, I'm not sure what her title is, but that sounds good) came back from vacation, so I have an office buddy now. She, her daughter, and I went on some epic adventures to clear out our office, clean out the Catacombs (CCM social room), and organize the printer room. Our most epic adventure took us into the attic of the Parish Center, where we traversed creaking and bending plywood to store odds and ends that did not belong on the couches in our office.

In conclusion, my office feels much more like my own space after today. I have space, my own peculiar method of organization and plenty of sticky notes. What more do I need in life, other than students?