The Consequences of Shame

Earlier this week the Single Father’s Association of Trinidad & Tobago released data which resulted in a headline that read, “Not the Father, Association says tests reveal 1 in 3 men not the biological parent.” The headline, like many in today’s media landscape was designed to drive clicks and comments. People read headlines, decide on their position and maybe if they care enough will read an entire article. Knee jerk reactions on X and Instagram to the headline concluded that “the data pool is biased.”

Two days later another media outlet interviewed the President of the Association, under the headline, “Feeles: Paternity survey reflects badly on women.” My first thought was, AND MEN. The results, however flawed the collection process, are a reflection of us and our choices. It is clear to me that as a society, we use shame to control people, outcomes and drive ‘bacchanalish’ conversations.

Author and one of the leading researchers of shame, Brene Brown, writes in her book, Daring Greatly, ‘Shame breeds fear. It crushes our tolerance for vulnerability, thereby killing engagement, innovation, creativity, productivity and trust.’

As a woman, I imagine pregnancy itself to be a vulnerable state - far less for being uncertain about the father. In a conservative society like ours, judgement is passed on women who have sex for money, who have sex for fun, women who sleep with multiple men and those who get pregnant outside of marriage. This is especially true if the man does not stay and the woman in question has children for multiple men. Under those conditions, it would be near impossible to declare uncertainty over who the father is. Our society demonises uncertainty, and thus our laws and the family court system reinforces the shame that comes with not knowing. I say this because there has never been a mandatory requirement, nor was it common practice that paternity be verified before a man is ordered to pay maintenance. As a result there are men paying maintenance and bonding with children for years because they believed that the child/children in question are biologically theirs. 

It was an editorial choice to not lead with this reality or the practical suggestion embedded in paragraph thirteen of the article, that the Chief Justice issue a practice order requiring DNA confirmation before maintenance decisions are made. 

A guy friend insisted, “Family court off the bat is skewed into not taking men seriously to begin with, so we create problems that we then have to fix years later.” I am sure he is not the only man who feels that way.  Quite wrongfully I think, society presumes that all woman want to be mothers, or can be good mothers. One commentator on X pointed out recently, “Men have always had the privilege of walking away from the consequences of their decision, leaving women with all the responsibility as primary caretakers.” I am of the firm belief that there are mothers who hate their children, who feel incredibly inconvenienced by them, but prefer not to deal with the shame and or judgement of giving up a child or walking away. 

There is unimagined pain, trauma, and financial consequences that result from only verifying a child’s paternity after the fact. On X, a man described Trinidad & Tobago as the land of horn and bacchanal. That reality is not reflected in our laws.  As a society we prefer to assume that the woman and the man in question must know because our conservative underbelly insists on monogamy and protected intercourse as the default setting. 

The streets say otherwise of course and that reality is reflected in popular dancehall/zess music with lyrics like “You have a girl but I like you more, done with your girl and you could get this raw,’  and ‘Beg who you bulling.’

In the same book, Brown writes, ‘In shame-prone cultures, where parents, leaders and administrators consciously or unconsciously encourage people to connect their self-worth to what they produce, I see disengagement, blame, gossip, stagnation, favouritism, and a total dearth of creativity and innovation.’ 

Like it or not, there is a lot of Trinidad and Tobago in what Brene sees. We still don’t teach sexual education in schools and the Division of Health in Tobago recently announced ahead of their Carnival festivities that they were seeing in an uptick in all STI infections. 

Personally for me, there is no shame in sex, or the enjoyment of it as long as there is expressed consent and no laws are being broken. That said, it is long past time that we legalise abortion, improve access to family planning including counseling and yes teach young men that having unprotected sex is a choice, with LASTING consequences for all of us when they eschew the responsibilities of fatherhood.