bad idea pregnancies

[curlcoat]

@MandaJo

No. I am not going to say I wish my family member didn’t exist. That has nothing to do with not bad talking my SISTER, it’s that I won’t suggest I resent their existence. It’s the kid. Not the sister, the kid.

I give up - no matter how I word it, you insist on making it look like resenting a “family member”.

You are moving goalposts. Earlier, you said you weren’t talking about what people say to the mother-to-be, but what they say to you about the pregnancy. You don’t understand why that always seem so positive. Which are we talking about?

We are talking about people who act like each and every pregnancy is a blessing, no matter what the circumstances are. What people say to me doesn’t come into it.

How do you know that that wasn’t the case?

Because we believed my friend - OK I’m tired of that, lets call her Lisa since I’m watching the Simpsons. We believed Lisa when she came home and told us what had happened.

No, YOU are childless-by-choice. So your friend may well have talked to you with the part of her that wanted to give the baby up and to her mother with the part of her that wanted to keep the baby. And then, when faced with your disapproval over her choice, she put the responsibility on her mom.

Well, for one thing it wasn’t just me Lisa talked to - it’s been a long time, but I’m pretty sure she never talked to me alone about it. Also, back then I wasn’t childfree, I was child neutral; I may have even been still assuming that at some point I’d be having kids myself. Finally, Lisa came to the decision of adopting the baby out herself before she discussed it with us. She was smart enough to take a look at her life and realize the baby would be better off with adoptive parents, her mistake was in thinking she would be allowed to make that decision.

Unless you are close enough to a woman that she stays in the bathroom while you take a shit, I would assume that when she tells you she is pregnant she has 100% made up her mind to keep the baby. Prior to that choice, no woman I have ever known would have discussed the issue with anyone they weren’t extraordinarily close to.

Um, you do know that pregnancy cannot be safely hidden, right? So if a woman has decided to adopt the baby out, there are going to be strangers who know that she is pregnant, never mind co-workers, friends and family. So at some point the subject is going to come up, and the assumption IME is always that the pregnancy is wanted and the baby looked forward to, and the world is sunshine, butterflies, bunnies and rainbows.

Because it’s too late. You have to look at the situation as it is: the baby is coming. It’s a fact. You might as well concentrate on the positive to give the baby the best possible chance of being successful, and being treated as a gift and a joy seems a better foundation than having every adult sighing and shaking their head at the very thought of your existence.

Which doesn’t mean you go about celebrating the pregnancy. Minors should not be allowed to make the decision to keep a baby. Women who have children they can’t support or have abused prior children or are on drugs that will affect the fetus shouldn’t be allowed to keep a baby, tho for some bizarre reason the law says they can have as many babies as they want. But at the very least, the vast middle ground between “being treated as a gift and a joy” or “having every adult sighing and shaking their head at the very thought of your existence” should be used. Quit celebrating and supporting the poor choices, which you don’t seem to understand is a completely different thing than the baby itself.

That close friend or relative should say something to the girl. They shouldn’t say anything to you about the girl. That would be petty, ugly gossip about something that is too big to be gossiped about.

I have said nothing about petty, ugly gossip.

And I’d view it as a person. Maybe a person I felt really sorry for, but a person.

You don’t seem to be able to separate the mother from the baby.

I am sorry for that. But I don’t see how you’re relationship with your father would have been better if he’d been sure to air his resentment far and wide, so that everyone knew he felt you were a bad idea.

Why do you keep bringing this up? I have said zero about airing anything far and wide, or ugly gossip.

And maybe they do. But only very privately. The fact that you are rarely included in these conversations doesn’t mean they don’t happen.

I think I’m going to give up on you. I keep making things clear and you keep coming back to things I haven’t even said. I’ll try one more time -

A female of the human species becomes pregnant. It is obvious to anyone who knows her at all that this is not a good idea, so she should abort or adopt. Reasons could be things like severe lack of money, poor treatment of existing children, interruption of education or just plain growing up, abusive partner, etc. Why then do most people greet the news of this pregnancy with celebration? Do they not care about the baby to be at all?