This African mindset that a man must bring a child into this world in order for his name not to go into oblivion, to be sincere with you, is something I find completely absurd and ridiculous.
If you ask me, I would say only a lazy and mediocre person will possess such a mindset. After all, I don't the name of any of Martin Luther King Jr's children; neither do I know the name of any of Nelson Mandela's children. Yet, this men have left their footprints in the sands of time with such an enduring legacy.
If your name must not go into extinction when you finally leave this earth — it falls on you and you alone and not on your offsprings. They would have burdens of their own to carry, why dump yours on them?
This doesn't mean I'm against child bearing. Not at all. In fact, I want a child of my own more than anything in this world. But my purpose of having one in the future, would not be because of the continuity of my progeny or to establish some sort of legacy for myself. A man can have many sons and daughters without biologically being their father. Just keep making impact in the life of others and you'd never be short of people who look up to and depend on you.
Some men in their desperate attempt to preserving the ‘family name’, would resort to marrying another woman to bear them a child. Maybe for some reason their first wife is yet to conceive and the man is under pressure from family and friends. For others, their reason for getting another woman pregnant is so that they can have a male child to keep their names alive. How pathetic!
I see parenting as a rare privilege to mould and form another human being into the image and character of God, and not as a means to further whatever name I think I might have. Children are to be loved and cherished, not to be used as pawns in our attempt to preserve a non-existent legacy.
A man of impact is a man of many sons and daughters, and they don't have to worry about their names being extinct, because they would forever live in the hearts of many for years and years to come. According to my pastor, Daddy Ken A. Ebitere, “when you die and only your biological children are making your funeral arrangements, then you've failed in life”.
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