Growing up, I was often told how much I looked like my father. Even as an adult, when people met me for the first time, they would often take one look at me and guess correctly whose daughter I was. I used to wonder whether my mom felt bad that I didn’t look more like her. It’s not like I look nothing like her, of course - just that I get more comments regarding my resemblance to my father than to her.

I delivered my first child just eight weeks ago - an adorable little boy. As expected, everyone that sees the baby comments on who he looks like. My relatives have all been claiming random features as their own. One cousin claims that my son has her knees!

While I was still pregnant, I used to wish our baby would be a tiny copy-and-paste of my husband - and that’s exactly what I got! As much as this is exactly what I had hoped for, now that he is born, I find myself searching his face for some semblance of my own. What makes me do this? Is it pride? Some sort of biological need to pass on my genes?

Whatever the case, I want to do for him, what my mother did for me: not to pass on my looks, necessarily, but to pass on my values. To teach him how to live in this world, to interact with society, to eventually be able to take care of himself. I want people to recognise him as my son, because of the way I raise him. How honoured I would feel if someone in the future, recognising some positive characteristics in him, were to say, "Oh, you are definitely Akaliza’s boy!”

sansdoutemag@gmail.com