Baby

Baby black and white cat is doing well. She is now officially called Babu after the name black people call whites in Africa and it reminds of my very first trip to that continent. It was at the height of apartheid. There were benches, loos, shops and cafés everywhere Reserved for Whites. My father was kidnapped for having a show of his artwork through which the slogan in Afrikaans ran 'Slegs vir Almal'. Reserved For Everybody. Babu is, I think, the Reserved For Everybody cat.

Meanwhile, the news from the local gynecologist is not encouraging on the prospect of having the necessary drugs prescribed for breast feeding an adopted child. 'It is not natural' she says. 'Of course men can become women these days and vice versa. One can do anything but that doesn't mean it is natural' ; 'There are other ways of becoming close to your child.'; 'The cancer risks are very high' (Apparently they are no higher than taking the contraceptive pill, which I never did). Blah Blah Blah. 'IVF isn't natural' I say. 'but unfortunately we are unable to have children naturally.' My girlfriend tells me that women in hospitals here, after they have given birth, are given the choice of chocolate or vanilla flavoured formula. Breasts don't come into it. I am getting very tired of this aspect of French Life. No you can't teach (Even though I have a doctorate degree from the State University of New York I am not qualified to teach in France). No you can't breast feed. No you can't put in an environmentally sound waste water purification system and water your garden with it. No No No.

Because I may need her on my side in the future, I did not ask the gynecologist: Do you have children? Did you give birth to them naturally? How did it feel? Did you breast feed them? How did that feel?

Of course it is something about which we have to take an informed decision. It is a choice whose consequences, if we make it, we cannot know and will have to accept. "No" is disempowering and it does not help.