Making a choice is something that you must take responsibility for and ownership of. My partner and I decided not to get married, yet. We love this phase of our lives, living together with our precious Butterball.

Believe me when I say that being unmarried has not deterred us from trying hard through those tough moments. In fact, we are closer than ever because of the times that can rip you apart. We are soul mates and life partners. It does not mean that we are not committed, lazy or lack values. It does mean that we have prioritised having Butterball over everything else.

Our choice has challenged a lot of people. My 98 year old Nonna was not one of them; she was ecstactic that we found each other and were bringing her great grandchild in this world. It is funny to admit that the people that were challenged of our choice were those from my generation.

The moment…

“Your child is a bastard. Aren’t you Italian? Aren’t you Greek? How could your parents let you do this?”

Those were the sentences that were said to me when I was eight months pregnant. Granted, there was no malice behind her words. She just was curious. I, on the otherhand, was shocked. I laughed it off, but it did make me think, is the term bastard still used or still relevant?

Bastard is a dirty word

When I got home that night, I told my partner. He just said not to worry about it and I made efforts not to. But why is it still amongst my pregnancy memories? With my great efforts of fobbing it off, it actually did hurt deep down. When I would feel Butterball’s kicks, tumbles and turns, it hurt me to think that someone so tiny and innocent could have such a disgusting label.

Please, call me names, call my partner names, label our relationship if you must, but keep your dirty words away from our Butterball.