Colour my world…

A couple of years ago in the US I  came across a social campaign whose goal was to protect teenagers from unwanted pregnancies. The idea was to equip a teenage girl with an “8-month pregnancy” – to make her conscious how hard it is to carry a pregnancy to term. With the emphasis on “hard”. It’s not a fruit of love, no new member of our family whom we would expect with longing and care. Only the burden to carry around. Heavy. Something you would like to shake off.

The proposed remedy was contraception. You swallow, wash down, and you become amazingly light.

So there are less and less children. And the sight of a woman carrying a baby under her heart – more and more seldom.

So if I’m the lucky one, I have to show it. So then came the fashion of showing your “bellyful” of a child. There are the photo sessions of the belly growing with each phase of pregnancy (it’s 2/3 of the whole business now, the rest remains still reserved for weddings) and belly castings. You can exhibit the cast then at home (it’s about USD 900 to have it painted and varnished to a shine) or take part in an artistic session of decorating it with patterns to hang it then in your baby’s bedroom.

Is it just a fashion or is it a cry for respect for motherhood, respect for life? Do the women, reduced by men to the role of gratifiers of their needs, wish to enjoy to the full the natural destiny of their bodies? Or is the baby still just the means to “get something” just for myself? For me, regardless of the answer, it’s a bit shocking. How do you think?

Fr. Jay