At least one of those statements directly contradicts what you said earlier.
I am not sure why but this thread hangs on me so bad but I felt the need to break it down. Maybe only for myself but whatever….
Is this a “real” friend or just some long lost acquaintance you keep in touch with through facebook?
A decision she made 13 years ago? I am sure we all have things we did 13 years ago that are embarrassing. A child is not an embarrassment. It is a “innocent new human being”
Do you know this for a fact? If so should she have…
A)aborted the kid?
B)adopt it out?
c)take responsibility for her actions and raise it?
Because she grew up and is now raising the kid and should expect him to do the same.
First who is “us”?
Second, some parents do that. They find jobs under the table or as soon as child support enforcement finds them they change jobs.
I think she knows that now. It was 13 years ago. Do you think MAYBE for one minute she was just venting on facebook to her “friends”?
I cannot argue with this statement.
“probably” Again, do you know that for a fact?
I have nothing to say about these facebook people as that is not what the OP was about. It was only about your friend.
Again do you know this is a fact?
I complained to a co-worker once about my lack of child support. I was married to the man and he paid support until about three years ago but they did not know that.
Are you saying that the “mistake” they made years ago by creating and keeping them was bad judgment?
I think the single parent covers the responsibility part.
Do you want a cookie?
Sincerely,
SUN, Single mother of two who have raised them to age 18 and 20 with the least amount their father could muster but who I was married to and became a deadbeat dad 15 years after the divorce.
He can not get anymore deadbeat as he is now dead, RIP Joe 10-16-1959 to 11-13-2008 at age 49 owing me over two grand.
Wow, I never saw that coming.
Well, that’s the thing, isn’t it? Or one of the things. The fact is, every single member of every single species that reproduces sexually lies to get more attractive sexual partners. Every single one, from little birds who ruffle up their feathers to look more well-fed than they are to Sally who wears makeup and Mike who shaves before going out to the bar. We’re hard wired to be on our best appearance and behavior, sometimes for months or years, until the sexual deal is sealed.
Now, apparently **nyctea **either has the restraint of St. Theresa or she’s a mind reader or she’s been exceedingly lucky. Most of us, not being so lucky, have been taken in by nature and mankind’s (and womankind’s) attempts to get laid - or simply the fact that people grow and change and act differently at 20 than at 30. (And it’s not always for the better!) It doesn’t make us stupid. It doesn’t even “make us human”. It makes us alive.
Thank you. And I absolutely agree with you (and the OP) that some people do stupid things and then are stupidly surprised when stupid things ensue. My problem wasn’t with that assertion or the annoyance with it, it was with the presumption that all single mothers with exes who won’t pay support are in that same stupid boat - a presumption which she only reinforced with subsequent posts. ‘Cause now she’s not talking about her Facebook friend, she’s talking about me. And them’s fightin’ words.
I’m also a little queasy to be told that abortion is better than life with a single parent who *wants *their baby, even if that means living modestly. I’m as pro-choice politically as they come, but when it came down to the choice for myself, it certainly did feel like choosing to kill my kid. I never, ever want to take away the right of abortion for anyone, and I completely respect that for many people, it’s not killing a child, but for me, at that time, it absolutely was. That’s an emotional truth that can’t be changed by dictionaries or medical texts. It’s my truth, and my truth only and I won’t say it applies to anyone else, but I’m just as entitled to it as you are to your truth. So for you to say I should have killed Kyle instead of raising him as well as I have while, I admit, occasionally bitching to my friends that I sorely misjudged his father’s worth as a father because I believed in him…yeah. Again, fightin’ words.
Well, there is another possibility: that you (the collective “you,” not WhyNot) thought that the crazy woman was a sexy, wild, daring rebel, at first, or that the moody, disaffected, down-on-his lucky guy was just a misunderstood sensitive artist. The things that attract us to people when we’re young and/or in love turn out to be the very things that drive us away once the hormones wear off. Is it stupid to be taken in by that? Have you deluded yourself because you found the person sexy, only to be shocked, SHOCKED when they turn out to be crazy, or a loser, after all? Maybe, and you have to own that. But I honestly think most people have done it at least once. Some of us managed not to have kids with that person, some of us didn’t. There but for the grace of god, is all I can think. I’m in no position to judge.
You won’t find me to be one who blows sunshine up Jodi’s ass, but I have to say you’re wrong about this. Whether I agree with her or not she is always articulate and clear.
I believe you may have misread or misinterpreted what she wrote.
Yeah, actually, it is. But it’s a stupid that a HELL of a lot of us share. People who manage self-discipline, and hold off on the sex until they get to actually KNOW a person (and then maybe decide it’s not worth the fun, because they weren’t swayed by hormones), just might have the right of it.
Sure wish I’d have thought twice about some of my escapades when I was younger! 
I think a lot of you are getting WAY too caught up in what offense ** nyctea** may or may not have meant. Her OP title states “Make a stupid choice with a stupid person and you’re surprised when stupidity ensues”. Now I don’t agree that her facebook friend was exhibiting surprise, but I do agree with the basic sentiment of her title.
You can know a person for years and spend years rationalizing away their faults, thinking they’ll change, hoping it’ll get better, or believing that’s not who they REALLY are, before you finally throw in the towel. I don’t think everyone who married or had a baby with a psycho or a loser could fairly be said not to have known the person before they committed. They were likely deluding themselves, sure, but as you said, that’s human and a hell of a lot of us do it, especially if we find the person extremely sexy for some accursed reason.
Sigh, yeah, you got THAT right and then some. Boy do I know. 
Oh, absolutely! That’s part of what I meant by “grow and act differently at 20 than at 30 (and not always for the better!)” although you said it much better. And sometimes the problem is that we expect them to grow (up) and they don’t!
My ex was (is?) a hell of a talker. People always said he should be a politician, because he’s one of those guys who can have anyone eating out of his hand in minutes - bright, articulate and a perfect people person. He had a car and a credit card he made payments on and military duty he performed admirably in the first Gulf War. Even before I got pregnant, we’d sit and talk about our future together, his plans for his business, his strategy for exiting the military, my future schooling, our dream house and all that. He had a plan that sounded good to this 17 year old; even today, I’m not sure what else I should have been looking for - he was financially and apparently mentally stable with a plan for the future that meshed with mine. And when I got pregnant, he said we’d simply move our plans up a couple of years, and I believed him and agreed because he seemed so sure and happy about it. It took three years of living with my mother, and me suddenly looking around one day and going, “Hey, he’s not out of the military, his business dreams have vanished, and we don’t even have our own apartment, much less a house. What happened here?” and when I pressed him on it, he split. C’est la vie.
Was I stupid? Maybe. I’d like to think I was simply very, very inexperienced with men. That he talked a good game but had personality or mental health issues he couldn’t overcome for my sake or his son’s. Or that he simply decided we weren’t worth the effort. Would an abortion have been the better choice if I had had a crystal ball? For me, yes, possibly. I might have finished college years ago and be well into a career, instead of working dead end jobs to put food on the table. But I’d have missed out on the sheer joy, challenge and wisdom that being a mom at 18 brought me. And I rather suspect the 16 year old sitting to my right has experienced joy and passion and good things in life, too. I wouldn’t have met my current husband, my current friends, or even all of you had I chosen that other life. Would that have been better? I have no idea. But I’m pretty happy with this life, even if that makes me stupid.
I’ve been gone all day so let me make some responses, although I think this discussion has gotten way off-track.
I can see how it might appear I am saying those things, but I am not. Pit posts often make broad strokes with a broad brush, but that is just the nature of the pit post - it’s designed to be packed with vitriol by design, and sure, I embellished.
Every situation in life is unique and you can only judge them on a case-by-case basis. Of course I do not feel that “it is a more ethical choice to abort a child than to have the child if you are going to complain about the father ever, even if it is more than a decade later.” Ascribing those thoughts to me is just inflammatory… but that’s pretty typical of pit posts, right? So I don’t really think you really believe that about me – I’m sure you were just trying to illustrate your point that I seem to be being insensitive.
Well, if you can’t support the child without additional income (child support), and the father cannot financially support the child, then who is going to support the child? Is it ethical or unethical to create a new human being whom you cannot support? Just wondering.
Only a woman can decide for herself if she has the strength and resources to be a single parent. For me, I carefully weighed the pros and cons and unfortunately I could not do it and chose to have an abortion. I love children and want them someday when I have the necessary means to support it the best I can. I honestly admire women – like you, and even the one in the OP – who have the strength and ability to raise children on their own. But too often I see women making a decision based only on emotion and who do not consider certain harsh realities, and they end up not being able to do it satisfactorily, and the children suffer. And this is what I have a problem with.
This is a long one, but I’ll do my best!
The latter.
The child is not an embarrassment – the guy she chose to father her child is an embarrassment. In fact, I am embarrassed of some of the guys I have dated in the past too.
No, I extrapolated it from the information she gave – I found it to be a more probable scenario that the guy was always a loser than that he used to be a really promising guy, with a college degree and a great job and a loving personality, who had something really bad happen to him so that 13 years later, the most he can pay is $10… Maybe I am wrong, if so, my apologies.
All of the above are viable options. I am glad that women in this country have a variety of options. I cannot dictate what she should do – I can only say what I would do, and that would depend on my particular circumstances at the time.
You cannot expect anyone to do anything in life. You can only control yourself and what you do. It is really foolish to expect a zebra to change its stripes. The kind of man that would not love and support his child is probably deeply flawed and is probably irredeemable. Men who can abandon their kids like this are truly despicable.
“Us” is the audience of the Facebook post.
I am sure that there are some cases of that. In fact I personally know of one scumbag father who hides his income to do just that. However, I think it is probably prohibitively difficult for men to do this on a large scale – very difficult to find employers willing to pay under the table, and difficult for men to easily find a new job every time the state finds out about their current job. I think it is much much easier to just pay child support than to go through such scheme.
Yes I think she was venting. I also vent about problems that I created myself through my own stupidity.
See my answer above. I don’t know anything for a fact. I am guilty of generalizing to her things that I have seen other friends and acquaintances do with alarming frequency.
Having an unplanned pregnancy is irresponsible (and yes, I am guilty of being irresponsible in the past). Making a baby with a partner who has no means to support a child is irresponsible. Making a baby when you do not have the means to support it is irresponsible.
However, the fact that she kept the kid and raised him to be a (presumably) healthy and well-adjusted teenager is responsible and admirable. She managed to make the best out of a tough situation. Kudos to her.
Yes please, I love cookies 
Women wallowing in self-made drama? I’m shocked!
Thank you for coming back to straighten things out, nyctea scandiaca. These last two more nuanced, clear and well thought out posts are far more in line with the **nyctea **I know and love. I feel like you finally heard me and understand how I felt personally attacked, and that we don’t really disagree as much as it looked like on the first couple of pages. I believe you that it was Pit broad brushing and I’ll pull my panties outta my crack now.
And I’m sorry I swore at you, I really am. That was not good behavior, and I really regret it. Not because of the stupid rules, but because it wasn’t fair. Your POST may have been those things I called you, but you are not. I apologize for saying that.
Maybe it’s more a case of “have a few drinks with a stupid person and you’re surprised when penis ensues.” That can happen to anyone.
((((((WhyNot)))))))
I’m glad that you and others pointed out some of the errors in my thinking! And I am glad you saw through some of my obligatory exaggerated pit post vitriol. I know that some of my comments were really callous. I do try to always look at both sides – and sometimes I need help from people like you to do that! – and people who know me personally know that I have a very very soft heart in real life. If I were to run into my Facebook friend and talk to her face-to-face, I would probably spend hours commiserating with her about her kid’s jerk father, and telling her how much I admire the job she has done with her son.