i saw this on kottke a little earlier.
a group of teen girls in a massachusetts city made a pack to get pregnant and raise their children together. right now there are 17 girls, most of whom are below the age of 16, that apparently became pregnant on purpose. in desperation one of the girls found a 24 year old homeless man to get her pregnant. the school authorities and parents are trying to figure out how to handle this. i love one student’s answer to the school doctor and nurse’s decision to giving out contraceptives as a means of preventing this (which i don’t personally have an issue with but that’s for a different post). the student said “that won’t do much to solve the issue of teens wanting to get pregnant.”
in my opinion, the one of the saddest things from the article is the reasons the girls are getting pregnant. one of the teen mom’s said “they’re so excited to finally have someone to love them unconditionally” but then went on to explain “it’s hard to feel loved when an infant is screaming to be fed at 3 a.m.” first it’s sad that these girls feel that they’ve never been loved unconditionally. secondly, it’s sad that they want to have a child just to meet their own needs for love. anybody whose had kids knows that they are inherently selfish. having a child is no something from which you receive a ton of unconditional love, instead its a situation where hopefully you learn to love someone else as unconditionally as possible. you learn to love a child when he is screaming at you, or throwing a tantrum, or being rebellious. hopefully you learn to express this love in a manner that reminds the child that she is loved but at the same time teaches her that your love wants to push her into becoming a better human.
these girls are probably in for a rude awakening.
