by Rachel Ogbu

Nothing about being a baby-daddy is straight forward no matter how popular it is.

There was a time the phrase ‘born out of wedlock’ or even ‘love child’ used to send shivers down the spine. It used to be such a big deal if a girl got pregnant with the child of her lover–all hell broke loose. It was seen as a dishonour to her family and if she had male relatives, at the break of the news her lover would have been on the first bus out-of-town to save his skin.

There was a time if a single lady heard a certain single guy had kid, she took to her heels not wanting to have anything to do with it. How times change.

I am not here to judge. In fact, I like to think of myself as quite a liberal when it comes to social matters including people’s behaviour in their bedrooms… well as far as the people involved are consenting adults, I really could care less what you do in the privacy of your own home.

However, I want to draw the line on certain forms of bedroom behaviour like the one that has led to the recent surge of ‘baby daddies’. When did safe sex and being responsible become so un-cool? Why are we having ‘accidental dads’ sprouting from every corner and if on the contrary, the child was planned, then, since  when did having kids outside the structure of a family unit become so fashionable?

What time is this?

I don’t know why some men have more than one child by more than one woman and they are all single. Perhaps they are franchising or maybe they are just careless and dumb?

I understand that s**t happens, a slip, perhaps a faulty condom but after five kids with one on the way…what’s going on 2face?

I have assumed the worst, he’s allergic to condoms (this is the only logical explanation I’ve come up with). Scene two: enter Ice Prince, the popular rapper got a 20-year-old student, Bimbo Babatunde, pregnant, and she delivered a baby boy on Thursday, 1 March but he still denies it all. That’s just a typical ‘baby daddy’ right there and he’s one of many regular single guys and celebrities alike having babies with women they have no intention to marry.

Nothing about being a baby-daddy is straight forward no matter how popular it is. Many ‘baby-daddies’ became fathers through a litany of failures — failure to pay attention in sex-ed class, failure of contraceptive devices, failure of marriage.

But my question to the sisters is this: Do you have to give up your unprotected booty to these dudes?

When you go around having babies for men who are not focusing on the children they already have, then it’s a problem. When you meet a man who has three, four, or five kids with say three different women, and he is spending more time with you than with his other children as a father should; well then we have a problem.  Or you are having a child with a man who has made no emotional commitment to support you for the rest of your life, then there’s an issue.

Let’s assume everyone knows about contraception and STDs, so why do people want to have kids without settling down first. Is it just to be attached to the fame; to say: “Duh! I had 2face’s baby,” well so did 3 other women… that we know of. Perhaps for companionship for when you lose the baby daddy–you keep the kid as a consolation prize. Does anybody think of the kids at all? And, does the fear of sexually transmitted infections ever enter into the equation, in addition to possible pregnancy? I guess not.

So I draw the line with behaviours that brings into the society, children who are not properly cared for.

I know that being a ‘baby daddy’ doesn’t make anyone a bad father. But it often means having to fight harder to be a good father. It is harder than it should be to stay engaged in the lives of your children when you’re a baby-daddy especially if the relationship with their mum has ended and she’s with someone else.

The urban myth of the baby daddy as the disengaged stud running from house to house impregnating helpless maidens puts a dampening on other things one might want to achieve, it makes it harder to be seen as a serious, mature and responsible man. Why would that become a fad?