The following is a story that DC person Barry Stevens tells
in the documentary Anonymous Father’s Day. It is actually one of his DC
sibling’s stories but his name was not mentioned so I cannot credit him with
it. Why am I relaying it here (in my very badly worded style, from memory)?
Because I have seen more people respond to this analogy more than any other,
such that they say “I think I understand your position a little better now.”
A couple are expecting
their first baby, the woman is heavily pregnant, but because she has some time
to go before the baby is due they have taken an overseas holiday. While they
are overseas the baby decides it is going to arrive early so the couple head
off to the hospital. It is a modern hospital with a good reputation. The baby
is delivered successfully without problems, and the couple are naturally very
happy. To give them a moment to recover, the nurse takes the baby away to the
nursery.
After a while the
couple ask the nurse “Can we have our baby now please?”
The nurse replies “OK
I’ll bring ‘A’ baby now for you.”
Startled the couple
say “Excuse us, we would like OUR baby.”
To which the nurse
replies “That is not how we do it here. We just bring any baby from the
nursery. But don’t worry all the babies here are extremely healthy, all from
good backgrounds, they will love you and you will it, everything will be fine.”
But of course it isn’t
fine. There is something very wrong with that. So if it is possible to see how
there could be a problem with that, then why is it so hard to see that there is
something wrong with denying us the same thing.
And that is knowledge of our genetic parents and heritage.
The perspective is just reversed (from that of the child rather than from that
of a parent).
I am sure I haven’t told it as well as Barry did but
hopefully you get the point. Or perhaps you might like to watch Anonymous
Father’s Day and hear it properly.
