"If you lay down and make a baby, stand up and be a daddy!" - Dr Farrah Gray.

That quote was in a Facebook post I saw a couple days ago by my very bright friend and former student Dorraine Reid. First thing that hit me [because I'm weird like that] was a question of whether it should be 'lie down' or 'lay down'. But that's not the point. I got the point. And well, it got me musing.

My initial, idle, tongue-in-cheek response was 'then, suppose is stand up dem stand up and dweet?" And I extended the joke by advising her that from what I gather, such boring positions were no longer so fashionable. She threw me the obligatory LOL, but continued her point. "Even if dem stand up and mek di baby, dem still lay 'it' down on some female" she retorted, "so they should stand up and be a daddy."

Is serious things she talking. Fun and Joke aside, she's straight up correct. It's a point well worth repeating. We all know the story and we can each cite at least one example of the men who only 'stand up' readily, when they're about to lay it down. And then, when pregnancy emerges they 'lay low' or leave town.

Sad part of that 'absent father' story though, is that it's part of a cycle. You see, many of those men are very likely not even consciously refusing to be daddy. Many are unable, for a variety of reasons, to really and truly 'be a daddy'. No, I'm not trying to provide excuses for 'deadbeat dads' here, but the objective reality is that there are usually several unfortunate 'reasons'. For one, there are those who just don't have a clue, partly because they grew up without any immediate or positive example of what it means to be a father.

In fact, many young boys are growing up in this Caribbean without enough healthy examples of what it means to be a man. Crucially also, we have no real marker that a boy can share with elders or family members; no 'rite of passage' to guide boys in their transition into manhood.

Think 'bout this. In terms of sex and reproductive biology, how does a boy even know when he is 'becoming a man'? Look here nuh, big man talk; like many boys growing up, I actually discovered my body's ability to produce sperms purely by accident, via an innocent combination of dreams, imaginations and nocturnal emissions. But I couldn't tell anybody. How about you? I hear that some boys also get a grip on that discovery by taking them self in hand. However, the method of discovery, most boys deal with it alone.

I recently had the pleasure and privilege of reading a new, soon-to-be-officially launched book called Celebrating Me - a celebratory coming of age story for girls by Colleen Wint. A great read for boys, girls, men and women, it's a refreshing, entertaining and well written story, about the escapades during a girl's discovery that she is, well, 'coming of age'.

After reading Colleen's book, I reflected again, on a very disruptive thought that I once shared with some friends who all thought I was crazy. I told them I wished that like girls, boys had 'periods' or something like that. In fact, I sometimes wish women could impregnate men too.

I'm crazy, right? Yeah, but think about it. When a girl has her first period, some elder invariably gets involved. Parents have to help her, and show her what to do. And, that's when she usually gets 'the talk'. She also now has to start marking dates etc. She immediately has to start being more responsible about her body. Boys and men have nothing like that. Mi nuh know, but maybe if boys had periods we'd be more careful about sex. And if men could get pregnant maybe they'd be less inclined to run from parenting responsibilities.

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