"No matter what anybody says about my being a father, they have no idea how I am with my kids. That's my number one priority - my children." - Kevin Federline in Life and Style
Kevin has followed the grammatical rule that requires a possessive pronoun or the possessive form of a noun to precede a gerund when a person or thing is associated with it.
In the first sentence, the gerund "being" is part of the gerund phrase "being a father." Kevin correctly used the possessive pronoun "my" before the gerund phrase. He did not say, "me being a father," which would have been incorrect.
Nice work, Kevin!
Kevin's statement features syntax that is extremely common in informal speech and writing but has yet to become acceptable according to the rules of standard American English. The lack of a gender-neutral singular personal pronoun in the English language often creates a problem: when the antecedent (in this case, the indefinite pronoun "anybody") is singular, agreement with the pronoun that refers to it requires the use of the awkward "he or she" or the gender-restrictive "he" or "she." (Read more about singular antecedents and plural pronoun referents.) One way to avoid this situation is to use a plural antecedent.
This version of Kevin's statement avoids this error in pronoun/antecedent agreement:
"No matter what people say about my being a father, they have no idea how I am with my kids. That's my number one priority - my children."
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