One ‘jacket’, two ‘jackets’ …

The fruit of a man’s loins is seen by many as the ultimate symbol of manhood — proof of his virility. So for many men who have been forced to come to terms with the fact that the children they thought were theirs really are not, the blow can be devastating.

Tyrone, 47, said his happiness at having the perfect family was cut short when he found out that he had been given what Jamaicans call a ‘jacket’. The revelation has eroded his trust in women, and caused him to doubt everything he has known for years as fact.

“I remember the day when my wife told me she was pregnant with our first child. I was the happiest man on Earth. I called everyone I knew telling them the good news. When my son was born and I saw him for the first time, my knees buckled. I couldn’t believe that I had created life, my mini me,” he said.

He said as time passed his love for the child grew.

“Whenever he got sick it was as if I was feeling all his pain. By the time we had our second child, a girl, I was a pro at being a good daddy. But the relationship with my wife fell apart, and by the time my son was 10 his mother and I got a divorce but that never stopped us from having a great father-son relationship.”

He said a few years ago he got the opportunity to migrate and decided that he wanted his children with him.

“The mother didn’t have a problem with it, but only wanted me to file for my daughter. I found it strange and we would argue about it constantly. And then one day she sent me an e-mail that shattered my life. She told me that my son of 16 years was not mine. Three years later, I’m still in shock. I still love him and treat him no differently. He comes to visit me all the time and I’m trying to get him in college here.”

For Ryan, it was a double blow, as only one of three children were proved to be his when he also sought to file for his family.

“I never suspected a thing,” he said. “To make things worse, the children were teenagers when I found out, and the blow was devastating to every one of us.”

He said his wife had cheated during the years he was out of the country on the farm work programme, and he never once suspected that she would have wronged him.

“I have always heard stories about these types of things but never thought it would have happened to me,” said Tyrone.

“I have forgiven his mother, but forgetting is another story.”

Regarding legal redress for fathers who may want to do things like recover funds spent over the years, attorney Margarette Macaulay said a mother who wilfully gives any information which she knows to be false, or which she does not reasonably believe to be true to the registrar for the purposes of registering a birth, shall be guilty of an offence and on summary conviction before a resident magistrate, be liable to pay a fine or serve a term of imprisonment.

There is also nothing in common law preventing a father from suing such a mother for monies spent if it is proved that she wilfully and knowingly falsely registered a child  and received monies towards that child, Macaulay said.