My sister my love: When cupid strikes inside a blended family

Podcasts in Kenya today are what FM radio stations were in the early 1990s. I sometimes look back and ask what was the government afraid of when they were pushed to liberalise the airwaves. We moved from a single national radio and TV station to multiple FM stations. Today, podcasts are all over the internet, providing the TV feel to a radio like conversation.

This means that podcasters must be creative in content and presentation. Real life stories can never go stale, especially in the era of “we listen but we don’t judge”. I found myself watching “Stories by Justus”, I find it unique in that Justus himself doesn’t feature and so the guest tells his story in his own way to the viewers. A young man from Kendu Bay who grew up in Kibera told his life story and I picked the intricacies of a blended family.

His mother left his father and then a step mother was brought in. She came with two children who called her auntie. May be she had them when she was very young and so they were brought up by her brothers which led to the name “auntie” instead of “mother”. Initially they would visit on weekends and during school holidays, so to this young man they were their cousins. His father also had other children with his new wife.

One of his step sisters was a year or two older and she lured him into a sexual relationship with her. The innocence of early adolescence made the sex safe until biological processes loaded his magazine. His “blanks” changed to fire power and his sister conceived. He did not even understand the magnitude of his actions. Close relatives could not even entertain the thought that he could be the father of the unborn baby, so they remained the tight siblings.

This went on until labour pains came and she was tricked to say the name of the father so that the process can fasten. I can imagine the shock in the faces of the women who were supporting her. However, I believe a nosy auntie had known this long before she revealed it. This young man reveals that the matter was hushed, nobody asked him about it and so as he grew older, he took responsibility of his daughter. She is now in high school.

A teenager is somewhere in high school yet nobody knows that her maternal grandmother is married to her paternal grandfather. Her maternal uncles and paternal uncles are siblings. This is a reality that could be waiting many blended families.

No mistake

Our mothers and older women of years gone by had a social awareness that dealt with such cases. There were cultural ways of dealing with such issues. The worst killing the child at birth after the mother had revealed the father during labour. The least was abandoning the child by the roadside to the vagaries of nature. When missionaries came, they began to pick and raise such children in a dignified setting. Their belief was no child is a mistake.

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Blenders, let me give that name to the modern day, suave parents who choose to blend their families. Blended families are where two people marry and each brings their children into the union. These children are actually not related by blood but this doesn’t mean sexual relationship between them is okay or should be normalised.

Blenders should know that one prerequisite for falling in love or developing sexual attraction to someone is proximity. When these children come together, especially when they are old enough to understand the situation, then there is a high likelihood that they may be attracted to each other romantically.

The confusion that will arise in case of conception and birth is a good reason for such relationships to be prohibited. Our forefathers did not know about genetic disadvantages of incest, their reason for prohibiting the relationships was to create order. Anyone in a relationship with any of your parents automatically becomes your parent.

It is thus important to sit the children down and elaborate that everyone in the household is now related by blood. The blood bond must be emphasised in word and deed. It means that the children must be part of relatives from both sides. The second is emphasising boundaries, it is good if funds allow to separate the sleeping quarters by gender.

Meanwhile, the two adults in the household must always be on the lookout for mischievous behaviour and unwarranted closeness. This will need great wisdom because closeness was encouraged in the first place so it must be dealt with firmly, but gently. If the two parents let things flow as they flow, then the children may just blend among themselves and create confusion.

No child is a mistake. In the eventuality that a child is born in this circumstances, then it is the responsibility of the adults in the household to make sure the child grows well protected and dignified. At the right time, this is something that should be explained to the child. If the child finds out from a nosy neighbour, then it might drop another weight of trauma.