“You Are NOT The Father!”

While sitting here at my PC, I usually have the television on while I write. After Y & R goes off, television just becomes a flickering in the background and I don’t really pay much attention to it. Today, I ended up on the channel that plays “Maury Povich” and of course, it was one of his noted DNA  shows (does he cover any other topic?). I was struck today by how out of control our young people are…let me explain.

All of the guests were under the age of 25 it seems, and all of them—Black, white; male, female—come on that stage yelling and screaming and cussing, mad at the world that there would be questions. The ignorance and lack of common sense was overwhelming. Lending even more to this travesty was the presence of grandmothers and mothers, there to call the young lady a “tramp” or “whore” or to say that the guy was a “loser” and a ”lowlife” who wasn’t taking care of his responsibilities. And listening to the young mother compare the child’s nose to the supposed father’s nose, or the baby’s toes to the alleged’s toes, all the while yelling, “they have the same _____ (insert your own appendage here)” is heartbreaking.

video credit: originally uploaded to YouTube on Snoop66049

I used to watch these shows and laugh. I am no longer laughing. Maybe my view of the world has become bigger and wider; maybe I realize now that it is no longer about these young women running off the stage in tears when they discover what they already know: the young man they had pointed out and brought on the show with them is NOT the father. Maybe I realize that it’s not about the young man standing there, in all his bravado, yelling “I told you that baby wasn’t mine!” or whatever. Maybe I realize that the weeping and crying backstage is contrived and that this is a television show that puts on these snippets for folks so they can laugh at other folks lives, while their own are in shambles. But the real victims in these situations are the babies, those who are left with a single mother that is just a child herself.

I watched Maury for about 20 minutes before I had to change the channel. I couldn’t stand to bear witness any longer to the mess. I find it hard to understand the reasoning behind going on a show like this to find out the DNA results. Is it for the 15 minutes of fame? Or is it because they truly want some closure? I’m afraid we will never know…

Have faith…