20SomethingMom chronicles of a young mom

Attitudes About Young ParenthoodPosted by admin on June 17th, 2009

I  follow a high-traffic parenting blog called Motherlode, from The New York Times.  Recently, the author and her readers have been discussing and responding to the predicament of a 22-year-old who found out she’s pregnant.  She’s unmarried and recently got accepted to a competitive graduate program.  Her boyfriend is not in the picture.  She wrote to get feedback about whether she should choose to raise the child, give it up for adoption, or get an abortion.

After hearing from more than 700 readers, and discussing the issue with her friends and family, the young woman decided to abort the baby.

I am pro-choice, with no reservations.  But, I have some issues with the way that her story (and the one I recently saw on MTV’s new show 16 and Pregnant) was presented and approached.  It is not the parameters of the decision that I disagree with, but the framework in which it was placed.

As a 22-year-old who went through the ups and downs of pregnancy, a budding relationship, and a new baby while in college, I fully comprehend the intricacy of finding oneself at the intersection of all these facets of life.  I never once questioned whether or not I would keep my child, because I was in a happy relationship and I desperately wanted to be a mother.  I know that not everyone is so lucky, nor has a web of support like I had to get through the endless days of sleep deprivation.

However, the group of parents who did everything in the so-called correct order (college, career, marriage, house, baby) need to pass a tad less judgment on those who make different choices, or fall into a different set of circumstances.  Some of the people who responded to this woman were downright pretentious.  With a tone of disdain, and twenty years of hindsight, they spoke to her as though she were a child who should know better.  How dare she neglect to use birth control?  How dare she jeopardize the future of America by birthing a child out of wedlock?  How dare she count on the support of her school, her parents, her government in raising a baby?  (But,*gasp*, she will be a murderer if she chooses not to.)

Sure, they raise valid points.  It is tough to go it alone.  Society is not nice to single mothers.  Maybe her life will be simpler, fit more easily into a mold, if she chooses to give up this child.

Guess what?  Society’s not nice to young parents in general.  Even if this woman were married, and lived next door to her parents, she would have gotten the same answers.  People who waited to have children are uncomfortable with the idea of challenging that norm.  They wonder what will become of the world if more and more people begin sacrificing school for parenthood, career for family…

Where will the money come from?

I realize I’m generalizing here — about both older parents and young ones.  From my perspective, sitting at the bottom of this parental food chain, though, I see self-righteousness raining down on me, and on this conflicted woman of the hour, every time I look up.  Those who presume to have it all together tend to look at the young ones and say (think): How will they handle it?  They don’t even have health insurance.  That poor child. And later: What do you mean, he’s not in preschool yet?  He doesn’t have his own bedroom?

There was a time, not too long ago, when parents did not plan their children like they plan for retirement.  They didn’t space them out the ideal number of years, and have a perfectly painted bedroom awaiting each newborn.  They did not stick embryos in a petri dish and fiddle with their eye color.  Most importantly, they were not outraged by their teenagers’ hormone flux, and prepared them to be parents AKA normal reproductive humans, rather than bombarding them with scary tales of an STD-ridden life post-virginity.  Our grandparents’ lives may not have been easy, but most found them rewarding on a daily basis instead of at some indeterminate point on the horizon.

We need to let go of the notion that prioritizing family, especially at a young, threateningly fertile age, is uncivilized.  Not everyone who starts a family in his/her late teens or early twenties is afflicted by society’s ills.  This is what we chose, not what we deal with because it landed in our laps.

We all change diapers and give baths, whether we are 22 or 42.  We do not all use protection religiously, though we may lie about it vehemently.

This particular woman’s story did not prompt much pondering about how we can change our attitudes (and hence the future of impregnated twentysomethings), but made people indignant about finding some way to give to her or other women in her position.  All I can say is: you don’t get it.  What is subsidized childcare or free formula going to give this woman, or her baby, in the end?  If she is well-fed, yet completely alone in her struggle, we may as well have patted her on the head and shoved her into the lion’s den.  The child and its needs are not what would test her the most; a lack of emotional support from her community would.  It is those things that cannot be spent or eaten which drive us into despair.

We young ‘uns do not need handouts and advice, or charitable activism.  We need love and cameraderie, to sense that we are not alone in our nap time frustrations and our moments of joy.  Let’s stop making young parents feel as though they are undeserving, and help them get ready to bring their tiny bundles home to tiny bassinets in tiny apartments.

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