So I’m watching this show called The Secret Life of the American Teenager (I know). The main plot point is that a 15 yo girl gets pregnant, and the show revolves around how she deals with it.
Surprisingly, most of the adults in her life are deathly opposed to abortion, and many are opposed to adoption. Obviously this show isn’t even a little realistic, but it got me to thinking about how most parents would react in this social situation.
Mine would without a doubt tell me to abort (and I’m sure that’s what I would also want to do). It’s absolutely NOT ALLOWED for a girl in our community to give birth at that age (really, at any age out of wedlock it would be considered shameful but less so if the individual is a settled adult).
Men: what would your parents counsel the girl you (hypothetically) got pregnant to do, if they had a say?
My mother got pregnant with me at 17, and that would definitely have influenced things.
She would have made it clear that the decision was mine, but that if I chose to have and keep the baby like she did, it would make my life a lot harder in many many ways.
Not a hypothetical for me. I was slightly pregnant at graduation - still not showing, but I knew it and Mom knew it.
She tried very hard to talk me into an abortion. She tried the social persuasion: “But what will people think?!”, the economic persuasion: “It’s so expensive to raise a child!”, the educational persuasion: “It’s going to be goddamned hard to get your college education with a brat at the breast!”, even the medical persuasion: “You took Provera in your second week, that causes birth defects, do you want a deformed baby?!”
What made me disregard all of these (which were all actually pretty accurate arguments), stubborn teenager that I was, was her coup de grace, though: “Look, if you want a baby that bad, just get an abortion now, marry your boyfriend and get pregnant again!”
That spoke volumes. It told me that, whatever logical arguments she was making, the real reason she wanted to talk me into an abortion was that she didn’t want to be known as the mother of a teenaged single mother. I found that pretty abhorrent, and I still do.
I refused the abortion mostly out of stupid teenaged stubborness and self-righteousness. Wouldn’t even consider adoption, mostly because I secretly didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life and was terrified about going away to college anyhow. Having a baby meant I could stay home, safe and sound, and go to community college.
If I’d have been sexually active as a teen and gotten pregnant, I’d have been disowned while expecting to have the child and raise it. All for religious reasons, mind you. I’m 42 now and still don’t know if my mother would be over something like that.
Maybe? It’s by the same producer as 7th Heaven, so probably. Even if it is a Christian show though, is the Christian community against adoption? Also, some of the adults (like the protagonist’s dad) are decidedly not Christian and still against abortion.
It’s a terrible, awful show and I have no idea why I watch it.
If my daughter ever gets pregnant at that age, I will probably counsel her to abort.
If my son ever gets a girl pregnant at that age, I would hope that the girl would abort. If she asked my opinion on the matter, I would tell her that and explain why (finances, added responsibilities, difficulties, etc.); however, I would also counsel my son that he could encourage the girl to do whatever he wanted, but ultimately, she would decide and that he would have to live with her decision.
For what it’s worth, I watch an equally awful show: Teen Mom. I’m both fascinated and repulsed by it, and may keep copies of it to show my children when they get old enough.
My mother used to have a bumper sticker on her car that said “It’s a child, not a choice.” So yeah, I’m not sure if she’d advise me to keep the kid or to give it up for adoption. I picked adoption, because I’d like to thing she’d have some sense were the situation to arise in real, actual life.
Well, when I was a teenager and got pregnant, the assumption was that I would have the kid and raise it. Which I did, both times. When my 20 year old daughter got pregnant, I counselled her to abort, or adopt. Instead, she kept my grandson.
Love my grandson, but if I could go back in time I would still suggest the same things.
Drop out, marry the guy, and make a bunch more. Without their blessing, encouragement, assistance or support. They were of the “you play, you pay” school of thought.
Years later, they were talking to some other couple from their church, whose teenaged daughter had gotten pregnant. The parents took in the BF and let the daughter and BF raise the baby in their home. They provided room, board, daycare, etc., so the two kids could finish high school and go to college. That was the arrangement – they’d all live together as an extended family until the kids were able to get jobs and support themselves and their kid. Marriage was not forced, nor expected.
My stepmom started daydreaming about another world in which “If you’d gotten pregnant in high school, I’d like to think that’s what we would have done…”
I snickered under my breath and thought of the terrifying, threatening lectures I’d gotten on chastity and morality and what an evil, nasty, despicable slut I’d be if I so much as french-kissed a boy before marriage and I knew she was deeply into some fantasy where she was another person. No way in hell my parents would have been the least bit supportive. They’d have tried to convince me what a terrible person I was and how I deserved the agonizing punishment of having to raise my own kid.
Is it any wonder that I do not want them as an adult?
Well, my mother’s a Catholic, but kind of a weird one. For instance, she’s extremely pro-birth control and got me on the pill when I was 16. Still, I think abortion might be drawing the line for her, so probably she would have encouraged me to keep it or put it up for adoption.
My dad’s not hardcore about it, but he’s Catholic. Mom is not. They would have supported whatever decision I/we made, but would have strongly suggested raising the child. Luckily, I was never in this situation.
I don’t know either. I was 15 in 1975. I’m thinking my options would have been limited. My parents were sensible people, I think they would have helped me to make a decision I was comfortable with.