I wasn't sure if I really wanted to write about this controversial subject. After all, it could happen to anyone, right?
Wrong!
I am not one of those parents who will let their kids run wild with the laid-back, "cool parent" attitude of "kids will be kids". Key word here is "kids". Second key word being "parents".
Q: Why do "kids" have "parents"?
A: To keep them from harm and help them make moral decisions.
My oldest daughter, at the tender age of 17, has just brought home her new high school yearbook. We sat together on the sofa and looked it over together as she pointed out to me all of her friends and those that she wished would drop off the face of the earth. What's new, right? We saw pages dedicated to NHS and Photo Club, every sport available to the teens, cheerleading, theatre, chorus, etc.
Then I couldn't believe my eyes. They had a page, an entire page, dedicated to a teen who had given birth during the year. I had heard of this particular "child" from my daughter. She apparently was going to school the entire time she was pregnant. And the 'boyfriend' was being good about it. What? I can't believe that this teen pregnancy issue has become so commonplace, so accepted, so hollywood-ized. And now it's forever immortalized in the pages of my daughter's yearbook!
Gee! Now that we know we can get pregnant and we'll make it into the yearbook, let's all do it!
I have this fear that there will be a slew of teen pregnancies through out the school. After all, they've made it look so easy. The girl holding the precious new born. And her boyfriend standing next to them. It's typical in yearbooks to list all the student's names next to their photos and then there are always a few students who didn't show up for picture day and they are listed as "Not pictured:..." So, I suppose what the yearbook crew neglected was that phrase
"Not pictured: room strewn with baby items."
"Not pictured: couple and baby on their way to the health department for free (tax-payer funded) well-child visit and free (tax-payer funded) immunizations."
"Not pictured: boyfriend losing temper with new teen mom/girlfriend when the baby won't sleep through the night."
"Not pictured: mother and father of teen mom extending their retirement plans to help support the new baby."
"Not pictured: teen mother spending grant money on on-line college classes and is unable to complete them or fails them because her "boyfriend/baby daddy" has now left her for some other 16-year-old who doesn't have stretch marks and who isn't crabby from sleep-deprivation and the teen mom now has no help at all except for her mother who can only watch the baby when she isn't working herself...."
Get the picture?
It's not glamorous. It's not easy. Your friends who say "OMG! She's sooo cute!" really have no feelings for this 'cutie' because they have never given birth (at least we hope not), therefore they are really thinking "OMG, it kind of looks like a little martian.... and I think it just pooped. How gross! What just came out of it's mouth?"
I am not going to play the blame game, because like I said, it could happen to (just about) anyone. However, I really don't believe that we (tax-payers) should be sensationalizing this issue. There are a lot of other people to consider when a new baby is brought into the world. And I think that teens are extremely self-centered and selfish when they are having unprotected sex. They need to experience the real truth.
So instead of sending a yearbook crew on an interview of the new baby's parents, maybe they should rather have published the reality of the situation as I stated a very small portion of in the above Not Pictured section.
I am extremely disgusted by the yearbook staff to have permitted this. For many reasons.
I am extremely disappointed in the new mother and father and the parents of both who allowed this to happen.
I am just really overall mad that through the TV shows that are so popular with our youth, through the dysfunctional leaders of our schools, and through the extreme lackadaisical parenting of today's teens we now have a new life in the world that the parents, the grandparents and all of tax-payers are now burdened with. And all babies deserve so much more! I absolutely do not stand for abortion. I don't want anyone to get the wrong idea. I believe that all babies born and unborn, deserve a fighting chance.
So please take what I have posted here and think about it from all aspects. I would really love to hear comments on this issue.
And thanks for being so patient with me in between my posts.... :)
