This morning, a woman claiming to be the mother of the abandoned baby turned herself in to the district attorney. You can read about it here. She's still in her late teens. At one time, she was somebody's baby and maybe she still is.
Someday my baby will be that age and it's up to me to raise her in a way that, hopefully, she will not end up in a situation like this -- desperate and frightened and alone. I hope that she will always be comfortable with me and with her father and feel that she can tell us anything. I hope that her choices in life wouldn't allow her to be in this situation to begin with. But that's just hope.
I don't imagine many parents want to see their teenage child having a baby and I can't imagine many teens want to see themselves on the verge of parenthood. Yet it happens all the time. If this wasn't a circumstance we could use as an advocate for abstinence first and not abstinence only, I don't know what would be. Unfortunately, we cannot control our children's actions and that starts way back when an infant turns their head away from peas but opens wide for peaches.
If we don't teach kids what else is out there to protect themselves from sexually transmitted diseases or to prevent themselves from unwanted pregnancies, how can we expect them to know? We all know peer pressure is strong in teens -- we all lived through those years, we should know. If the teen decides not to choose abstinence and that's the only thing taught, you will end up in a less-than-desirable situation. Your baby will have a baby. Or your baby will come home with herpes.
No thanks.
As parents, it's our responsibility to make sure we present the facts then hope that we've guided our children throughout their lives in such a way that they'll make good decisions. If there's one thing that we should have learned back with that spoonful of strained peas, you can't make your child do or not do anything they haven't decided upon themselves.