She’s Having a Baby

Towards the end of last May, I noticed my drug dealin’ neighbors and their eldest son’s girlfriend’s family all hugging and having a kumbaya session in their front yard.

I said to Joe, “Hey, I bet the girlfriend’s pregnant!”

Joe said, “Nah!”

Fast forward to August. I noticed she was wearing a baggy shirt. She’s tall and thin, so she usually wears tight clothes. I thought baggy was a bit unusual.

I said to Joe, “Hey, I wonder if the girlfriend’s pregnant!”

“Nah,” Joe said.

I finally got my confirmation the other afternoon. She was walking in their driveway with her boyfriend. She was wearing a tight shirt and I got a good look at her balloon-like belly.

Yeah, she’s pregnant.

I’d say about six to seven months.

She’s a junior in high school, probably 16 years old.

He’s a sophomore. He’s 15 years old.

Isn’t it lovely?

She’s from a middle class family. Her dad is a teacher and her mother works, too, but I’m not sure what she does. They live in a nice home, drive new cars, and seem to love their children. I think she has an older sister.

She’s very pretty, and like I said, tall and thin, wears great clothes. I can kind of tell by my few interactions with her that she doesn’t hear the word “no” very often. She seems rather spoiled to me.

I have no clue how the asshole boy next door ended up with her, but there it is. Even last year, when they were 14 and 15, she spent the night at his house. It must have been OK with her parents, because her dad would pick her up the next morning!

I’m not sure if he was allowed to spend the night at her house, but who knows?

I’ve often thought by watching them that it was more her into the relationship than him. He probably thinks he’s a continual supply of easy sex, whereas I wonder if she thought this was a real relationship.

They would break up, get back together, and then break up again.

I might have mentioned in OD, but not sure if did or not, that I did see him hitting her and then throwing her into a snow bank last winter. It was in the afternoon, right in front his house, and they were fighting.

I started to call 911, but Joe stopped me. He was almost hysterical, saying it wasn’t our business, blah, blah, blah, and because he was so upset, he was almost shaking, so I didn’t call.

By that time, their fight had ended and they were walking down the sidewalk.

I’ve always have regretted not calling. I wonder if I would have called, whether that would have made a difference or not.

If I ever see anything like that again, I will call. No doubt about it.

So she is having a baby. At 16 years old.

And she’ll get to watch her girlfriends go high school events without worrying about getting a babysitter. She’ll watch them go to college, graduate, get good jobs, marry a great guy, and then have a family which they can support without going on welfare.

She’ll be at in an ill kept apartment with a screaming baby, a worthless jobless boyfriend and wonder, “What happened?”

I guess I believe in this day and age, with sex so openly discussed and birth control so readily available, why would anyone get pregnant by accident?

If I had a teenaged girl and she was in a relationship. I wouldn’t be blind about it – I would get her on birth control, even if she wasn’t in a relationship.

I know it’s difficult for parents to think of their children as sexual beings, but they are, and it’s best to take action.

I gave my son the condoms lecture until I was blue in the face. It’s so important for kids to finish high school and then get a good post-secondary education in this era of technological advances.

And kids have their whole lives ahead of them, especially their 20s, to have fun, try new things, fail, and be successful. It’s so much harder to do that as a teenaged mom and dad.

I was so sad when I saw her and her belly the other afternoon. I was so hoping that I was wrong.