Is it? I don’t think so. It’s a potential baby but it isn’t a separate being until a lot more time has gone by. It’s the same old song here – I don’t believe that an early pregnancy is a baby – while others argue that it is a separate human life.
Reprise, I’m glad the news was good and I’m glad we live in a country where choice is legal :). I was involved with Children by Choice in Qld in the Bjelke Petersen years where women had to go to NSW and some of the stories would break your heart. Of course there was the time the daughter of a high ranking National politician turned up needing to exercise her choice
reprise.
i have much respect for your position.
whatever happens you are doing the best for YOUR DAUGHTER.
that makes you both a great mother and a principled human being.
i hope that things turn out well for you both.
keep us informed.
we’ll be thinking of you.
Can I vote for worst parent of the year? I have a candidate. She puts her 15yr daughter on birth control pills and after an accident thanks the Lord that she missed the bullet and goes on with her life. Isn’t there a law that prohibits minors from buying contraceptives? Should there be? Pregnancy is only one of the risk of a sexual active 15 year old. Is she going to post about an AIDS test before long?
Polycarp,
Are your prayers directed at her passing this test or wising up or what? I pray she doesn’t have anymore children to raise.
So the answer would be just to not let her be on contraceptives, right? Because she’d almost certainly stop having sex if she did that.
**
[medical guy]Nope and nope. Physicians can advise teenagers about and prescribe contraceptives without the parents’ consent. Around here, she can get them at her local health department free of charge (or at least significantly discounted) without their consent as well.[/medical guy]
I have a feeling that since reprise has such an open relationship with her daughter in this regard, she has been able to provide her with plenty of information about STDs and how to prevent them. This puts her daughter a cut above the 15-year-old herd, let me assure you.
What would the best mother of the year have done in this situation? Locked her child in her room until she agrees not to have sex? Refuse to discuss the subject?
Beatledave and Gomez,
My position on abortion should not be central to this thread. A mother allows her 15 yr daughter to be sexually active and then is only concerned about the possibility of her having an abortion.
My position btw is that abortion is killing. So the decision should be based on balancing the death of the baby to the results of its being born. So reasons like “I dont want to be pregnant at this family function this summer so I will kill this baby and get pregnant next year” might be harder to justify. Now the reason that the birth would ruin a teenagers life and possibly her mother’s life might have some consideration.
Under my definition then the time of the abortion is irrelevant. So that does bring up interesting points , perhaps in a future thread.
Back to this OP.
If someone is doing something to themselves that you dont agree with then you are called judgemental if you speak out against it. But what is it called when they are inadversely affecting a dependent’s life? I can’t describe my reaction to this mother without being called out into the pit. Maybe Polycarp should pray for me too.
I would never have an abortion, the thought wouldn’t even cross my mind. I just can’t see myself killing a baby,and thats how I think of it because eventually that would have born and would have been a baby if you wouldn’t have killed it. But there are different circustances, I don’t expect anyone to “not just have sex” because thats not going to happen, and I think it would be better for someone to get an abortion, rather then to end up abusing it. Or someone that was raped and got pregnant, I could understand why they would have an abortion also, I think it depends on the situation, I don’t think that people should use it as a form of birth control. So I’m pro-choice, yet I am not pro-abortion, I would recommend having the baby, but would understand if someone didn’t
You want a law against minors buying birth control? Oh, that’s smart. You think they’re not going to have sex just because they don’t have access to the Pill? They’re going to do whatever they please, and they’ll be taking greater risks. Reprise has informed us that her daughter is in a relationship, and not sleeping around, so your comment about AIDS is only justified if you would make it about an adult having a monogamous sexual relationship. I’m impressed that she’s been so understanding. Many parents would bury their heads in the sand and deny what’s going on, which helps no one. I’m also impressed that Reprise’s daughter feels comfortable asking her Mum for help getting birth control, and for advice when she thought she was pregnant. Many kids don’t have a parent who will deal with this kind of thing in an understanding manner.
Wise up. You tell your daughter not to have sex - she does anyway. You set a curfew, monitor her movements - and she ditches school to go off with the boyfriend. If they’ve made up their minds that this is what they want to do, you’ve got Buckley’s own chance of stopping it. The best thing you can do is let your child know you’re always there, and help them when you can!
I’m sure your milage may vary, but most kids don’t wait for parently consent before having sex.
Reprise, thanks for the info. I was not aware that the injection is unsuitable for teens who are still growing, and as I said, I don’t know anything about the inplant. It’s a shame those methods don’t work for teens.
Actually I guess I had a pretty good mom, because I did listen to her and I didn’t start having sex until I was ready for the responsibilities that come along with it. And I wasn’t 15, you need to have control over your kids and my mom had control over me. I’m glad she did to because I dont’ know what I would do if I had a kid at 15 years old
While I wouldn’t necessarily vote with justinh, I did notice this:
Which sounds very much like a careful examination of the risks involved in any form of contraception for a 15 year old, ending in the conclusion that she will just go on doing what has almost led to a situation she agonized over - and an offhand dismissal of the quaint, antiquated, ridiculous idea that a 15 year old should not be having sex!
Does anyone not share this idea that teen-age pregnancy is something that just happens, like lightning? Do you really feel you have no say in your daughter’s life?
AND WHERE IS THE BOYFRIEND?
And as regards use of the term “sympathy” - it strikes me as highly appropriate, especially in light of the tone of the OP. Your daughter came very close to doing something stupid, irresponsible, and even dangerous. Fifteen-year-olds who are too young to be on contraception are too young to be pregnant. Therefore, they are too young to be having sex.
If she continues to act as she has - and you continue to dismiss it as “oh well - children will be having sex no matter what - thank God I am so enlightened as to stick to my pro-choice principles even when my daughter’s future is on the line” and look for pats on the back for consistency -
It looks from here as if you are going to need the practice in helping her out after she screws her life up again.
Whatever1,
This is good example of the arguments I see for a lot of problems. It’s the “What can you do?” argument. Kids are going to have sex so pass out condoms at JR high. Kids are going to drink so have them do it at your house. Kids are going to do drugs so lets make them legal. People are going to get AIDS so lets find a cure.
Let me add that I’m speaking from personal experience.
At 15, I wasn’t having sex, but I was all but. I was drinking, smoking and hanging out with various unsavoury friends. My parents were good parents, but at 15 I was a cross between a b***h from hell and an angelic-looking, well-mannered girl living a double life. If I couldn’t charm, lie or deceive my way through, then I’d turn on the big guns and threaten all kinds of things to get my own way. Usually, manipulating my parents into thinking I was doing the right thing meant they’d relax and cut me some slack - and then I’d use it to totally cut loose. If I did it right, they didn’t find out. When they did find out, I’d use a mixture of lies and the truth to prevent them understanding the full extent of what was happening. My parents don’t have a clue what I got up to, despite having fairly good supervision most of the time. You can’t be there 24 hours a day, and you can’t shackle your adolescent to your body.
I used my local church’s Youth Group meetings to sneak off with my boyfriend. Sure, they’re supervised meetings - if you don’t waltz out the door seconds after arriving. Once, I climbed out my bedroom window in the middle of the night to meet a boy. I nearly got caught, so I never did it again, but that didn’t stop me scheming other ways to escape the 'rents. We knew which venues advertised that they had supervision but weren’t well supervised, and we’d get permission to go there. We’d cut classes and go to the pub. We would sneak off to boy’s houses at lunch time - most of the students lived close to the school, and some had working parents. The rest of the time I’d throw tantrums about not being trusted and having no freedom. My parents thought I was participating in their plan of “show us you can be trusted and we’ll trust you” but I was using elaborate lies to cover up the fact that I wasn’t being the obedient daughter they thought I was.
Looking back, I’m reminded of scenes in movies where a sweet innocent creature is revealed to be a nasty horrible monster and suddenly transforms and shows it’s teeth and roars and carries on - that was me. I put on a show of being a sweet and innocent teenager, but when I was busted, I would turn into a screaming raging creatures that nightmares are made of.
All this is very off the topic, but I hope it explains my attitude that you can’t stop kids from doing the wrong thing. You can only hope you have their trust and that they are honest with you. So it’s not a good thing that a 15 year old is having sex, but she’s made that choice and is at least being honest with her mother instead of being a deceptive and sneaky little creature like I was, or like my friends were. I’m just lucky that I didn’t wind up a teenage mother - and it’s totally down to luck and nothing to do with good planning in my case.
Cazzle,
That is my point. You were not an angle but you had to be careful so that it limited your exposure to bad situations. Now what would have happened if your parents would have said “take this pill and tell us if you think its not working”?
A parent can be there all the time, if not in body then in spirit.
That’s not the same claim, though. You said that it’s not a baby unless the mother decides to keep it. In other words, even if two pregnancies are equally advanced in time, one women could be carrying a baby and one wouldn’t. It all depends on the mother’s intent.
Personally, I find that notion rather difficult to swallow, and I can’t think of any empirical evidence for that claim.
(In addition, I think there’s ample evidence that the fetus is a separate being, albeit physically connected to the mother. It does, after all, have its own brain, heartbeat, circulatory system, and so forth. 50% of the time, it even has the opposite gender.)
FWIW, I don’t share that idea either. I base that on my own personal experience, and those of several people I know.
There certainly are teenagers who will have sex, no matter what. There are also teenagers who have sex reluctantly, because they feel that it is socially demanded of them. Then there are individuals who are willing to resist such foolish temptations, in part due to parental guidance.
I’ve spoken on this topic at various schools and youth detention centers. Y’know what? I think there are a lot more teens in the second and third categories than most people think.
Shodan the fact that you even asked this question tells me that you haven’t bothered to read the thread. I have repeatedly stated even if my daughter’s boyfriend were to walk out in the event of her being pregnant (which he wouldn’t anyway, but that’s beside the point) his extremely large and incredibly close family would still support her in what ever decision she made. Not once have I said that I believed either her boyfriend or his family wouldn’t be there every step of the way to support her. Even if I went off my head and threw her out of the house if she was pregnant, I’ll absolutely guarantee that not only her boyfriend’s parents, but also the aunties and the uncles and the grandparents would have offered her any support whatsoever which she needed or wanted.
ABTW. Where did I ever “thank the Lord”? You do know that I’m an agnostic, don’t you? You do also know that I spent 10 years of my life working in the field of HIV/AIDS education?
It’s been said already, but I’ll just reiterate it. If you want to vote me the world’s worst parent, then the Pit is available.
