Baffled neil

Someone I know, who has a heart of gold and probably the size of her chest cavity, does a lot of charity work with a Buddhist group. One day, over lunch, she amused us with some stories from the group's social charity, which includes monthly financial assistance for the really needy. One particular story deserves some attention here, methinks.

The gist of it - there was a widow with several young children, for whom they provided a monthly allowance to help her make ends meet. After some time, they discovered she had remarried and was pregnant. Reassessing the case, they had to change their form of assistance to foodstuff, because the new husband was a drug addict, and had a tendency for domestic violence. If they gave her money, he would probably not hesistate to beat her to get it to feed his habit.

At this point in the story, my jaw dropped nearly to my clavicles - I didn't actually measure how far my jaw dropped, but someone else pointed at me and laughed really loudly "Just look at her!" and that alone should be good enough indication of just how shocked I was. I simply couldn't understand!

They couldn't understand it too - I was told - and they won't try to understand. Human behaviour is complex. The choices people make are even more so. Perhaps she'd wanted a man to lean on, to depend on, they said, perhaps she wasn't aware of his drug habit before she married him. Perhaps.

Well, ladies, just let me say this - do not delude yourselves into believing that if a man marries you, he will sincerely love and care for your children. Sure, there are (lots of?) exceptions, you could probably quote me several - but men in general are just not made that way. It's biological, it's nature, it's survival instincts, to feel no inclination towards offsprings not their own. They are the least dependable if your objective is to obtain more love for your fatherless children. At least, that is the impression I got, having lived in this world thus long.

Some may not understand my way of thinking, just like how I'd never understand she who accepted into her and her children's lives, a drug addict.