By the time most people celebrate “the adventure ahead”, the decision to abort or not doesn’t exist anymore. It has been chosen against.
Is this actually a problem in the real world? I grew up around a lot of kids who got knocked up, and I don’t think any of them were really getting an overwhelming positive response. Indeed, I think most of them got a mix of pity and disgust from the general public, combined with the occasional wacky prof-lifer nuttery. In the best of cases, the family would gear up to support her, but this is generally in a “you gotta do what you gotta do” kind of way. I guess some of their girlfriends might be excited, but what else would you expect from someone’s girlfriends?
This came up in the thread linked by **KarlGrenze **too. I grew up in a bible-belt town where abstinence-only education was prevalent and - surprise, surprise - lots of kids ended up knocked up. I remember lots of tears, dramatic conversations in the girls washroom, days of dread over how to tell mom and dad, and girls who got kicked out of the house and ended up drifting around town. I don’t remember anyone being congratulated with open arms and rainbows and bunny rabbits, at least not by their families. Some parents eventually came around and helped out with raising the child, but I never heard of one who was particularly ecstatic about the situation right off the bat. Sure, sometimes a few of the girls friends did think it was great and were all “ooooh, you’re gonna have a cute little babbie!”. But they were probably 16 years old, and you can’t expect sane, reasonable reactions from 16 year olds, really.
Yes.
I think a few people (even sven and Meyer6 specifically) are reading something into my question that wasn’t there.
I didn’t ask “why are they congratulating her instead of calling her names?”, I asked “Why are you congratulating for something that doesn’t seem like a good thing?”. Obviously, shaming a woman in a difficult situation is a bad idea - that’s why I specifically said I would not do that.
I think Mathematics is probably right - it’s not a deep thought, it’s just a perfunctory ‘congrats!’ for someone that wanted positive reinforcement.
If you were to announce to the world “I’m pregnant!” and not one soul responded, would you not feel shamed and that your child was unwelcome?
That’s silly. My wife and I had enormous difficulty conceiving a child, to the point where we believed that we probably never would (though both of us wanted to). When we did, we were, obviously, extremely happy about it. Nonetheless, every single person who offered congratulations “made our day brighter;” why wouldn’t it? It certainly didn’t reflect any secret negative feelings about the pregnancy! Someone sharing in and acknowleding your happiness and pride about something is usually a positive thing.
Seriously, some of the responses here make me sad. If someone is happy about something, it makes no difference whether I think they should be happy about it. Maybe the circumstances won’t be ideal - maybe, in their place, I would be worried or sad or horrified - but I am not them and their feelings are not mine. I mean, I’ve seen people post on Facebook about getting jobs or participating in activities that would make me want to set myself on fire… but I congratulate them, sincerely, because they are happy and it’s not about me.
Feeling the need to tell someone that they shouldn’t be happy about something that they are happy about, for no reason other than that you wouldn’t be happy in their place, is a bit narcissistic, I think.
I understand what you’re getting at–you couldn’t pay me enough to have kids, but I express earnest joy and support for people who are having babies on a pretty regular basis. That being said, there’s a world of difference between something you personally wouldn’t enjoy and something you think is objectively a Bad Idea. I mean, would you honestly congratulate someone who was over the moon because the unemployed alcoholic who smacks her around popped the question? After all, she’s happy and it’s not about you. Could you really whomp up any kind of honest happiness about that situation?
And some pregnancies are like that. I’ve got an old/former friend from school who recently told me she’s pregnant. This pregnancy is a horrible idea. She has pretty serious psych problems that get worse during times of stress and hormonal upheaval. Given her history (and that of her mother who had very similar issues), she’s doing herself and this child a grave disservice. I saw what her childhood was like, and she gets more like her crazy-ass mother every single day. Any expression that this is in any way something positive would be a lie. The closes I could come was to smile and say I’d already heard and she must be very excited.
Insisting that everyone bubble over with joy because you’re happy with some terribly foolish, self-destructive decision you’ve made is terribly narcissistic.
There is a culturally appropriate response to a pregnancy announcement, which is to congratulate the expectant parents and offer your best wishes. When people deviate from the standard, culturally appropriate response, whether by saying something else or not saying anything at all, the only way to interpret that is as disapproval.
No one needs to bubble over with joy that they don’t feel. It’s the third grade answer: if you can’t say anything nice, say nothing at all.
In any event, in most cases, you (generic you, not specific you) probably don’t know as much about a person’s situation as you think you do.
Exceptions are made for relationships where you are close enough to the person in question to know their situation extremely well and where your opinion is valued and desired. But even in such a case, you address your concerns privately. You don’t dump on their decision in a public forum, because that accomplishes nothing other than being hurtful.
Where do you draw the line? There’s nothing that says that people who plan pregnancies are automatically proficient at planning. Plenty of people have really dumb plans.
Well, I’m a dude, so I imagine there would be a lot of responses if I announced I was pregnant 
I think CrazyCatLady said it more eloquently than I: “Insisting that everyone bubble over with joy because you’re happy with some terribly foolish, self-destructive decision you’ve made is terribly narcissistic.”
It’s good that you have enough certainty about every other life to decide which decisions are foolish and self-destructive.
Personally, I don’t know that much about other people’s lives, and don’t feel qualified to accurately judge the impact of their decisions on those lives. That woman who’s going to have her unplanned child is going to have plenty to deal with. I may be sad that some of her future prospects have dimmed, sad that she’s going to have financial problems. But if she’s happy about her choice, then I’m glad she at least has that going for her… because speaking as someone who was raised by parents who dropped out of college to do it, and who had no money and who didn’t plan for me, but who were happy to have me and treated me accordingly, I think that matters most of all.
And if for some reason I can’t be glad that she’s happy? Then I’m going to keep it to my damn self, unless she’s my sister or my best friend or someone where my intervention in her life would be vaguely appropriate.
Exactly zero people in this thread have advocated berating the poor girl for their decision - everyone that thinks it’s a bad idea would keep to themselves. I’m not sure why sentiment above keeps being tacked on to people’s posts, because it feels like I’m being chastised for something I would not do.
OK. Fine. So ignore that last part.
What about the rest?
While it’s vacuously true that I don’t know 100% of every other person’s total life situation, and it’s likewise true that not all ‘bad situation’ pregnancies turn out to be a bad situation, that doesn’t mean someone can’t look at a situation and say “man, who thinks this is a good idea and it deserves congratulations?”
I know people upthread have stated “well, every child should be welcomed into the world - they didn’t pick their circumstances”. And that’s true but not really relevant. It’s like when someone says “I would rather we didn’t send troops into combat in this situation” and someone responds “What!? you don’t think we should support the troops!?”. That response does not logically follow from the initial statement - you can support the troops and not the war they’re dying in pointlessly. Likewise, you can support the child once it’s born but not think that the pregnancy in any way deserves congratulations because it’s an objectively bad move.
You say that like it’s a bad thing. Choosing to have a child under bad circumstances is something we should want people to feel ashamed about. Letting them know the child is unwelcomed is in my opinion only fair.
So imagine you announced that you were becoming a father, and no one said anything. Total silence. That wouldn’t strike you as shaming?
You say “No one should shame these people”, but giving them the silent treatment IS shaming.
The OP has specifically and repeatedly claimed he doesn’t want to shame people or let them know the child is unwelcome.
Yeah, that would work a treat…except for this kind of attitude.
This sounds an awful lot like I have to say something, and that something had better be NICE, goddammit. Or else I’m a horrible asshole.
That’s why people squeal congratulations!!!111!!! no matter what. Peer pressure dictates that if you’re not sufficiently enthused about a baby or marriage, regardless of the circumstances, you suck and are a horrible, rude, shaming person.
No, it would not. Maybe it’s just me. I would be mildly surprised, but by the time I’m posting to facebook anyone whose opinion I care about I’ve already told in person. (That is exactly what I did last time.) So if nobody said anything I would just shrug it off and assume I posted at a weird time or nobody really cared. And really, nobody caring outside of me and my family is fine with me - it’s not their kid.
Edit: And thank you for responding to ZPG Zealot far more eloquently than I would have.