<p>I am totally with Marian. I already had a few serious discussions with my girls. Do not count on me to raise their children. I’ll be the best grandmother in the world, but not a day to day care taker. If they should ever decide to have babies, they better be in a position to raise them.</p>
<p>As far as getting married, having a child is not a reason to get married. In order to get married you should be able to support your family first, and it doesn’t include government handout.</p>
<p>My sister got pregnant in senior year by the big jock on campus. My parents and his parents (Catholic) made them get married (this was pre-Roe vs Wade). She didn’t get to college until her late 40s. Thirty-five years and four children later, her husband (a failed athlete) is severely mentally ill, abusive, a drug addict fired years ago from his Catholic school teaching job for fooling around with married women, and a total mess. The children (my nieces and nephew) have had their lives ruined by this mess. Unplanned pregnancy (out-of-wedlock), severe obesity, extreme self-mutilation, chronic depression- these are just a few of their problems, besides no money or careers. </p>
<p>so, do I think teenagers should be forced into a marriage? Absolutely not. Adoption to an intact two-parent family is the better option. For all of you who say how blissful these young couples are, just wait twenty years, when they realize all their dreams were dashed, options were shut down before they even left high school.</p>
<p>No way, unless they are already emancipated and supporting themselves. 17-year-old high schoolers should be living at home with their parents. If the two kids involved are devoted to one another, one moving in with the other’s family might not be a bad idea.</p>
<p>I appreciate those of you who honestly say you would encourage your daughters to consider abortion. I would too. More than once, I bet. And if my son was the father I would bring it up with the girl and her family. </p>
<p>But I believe in – and respect – choice. If the girl decides to have the baby, I would be there for the child. Physically and financially. It would be my grandchild, child of a child I love very much. We’d muddle through, that baby, his/her dad, grandpa and me. </p>
<p>But the beauty of this choice is just that: choice.</p>
<p>My pregnant cousin married at 16 – this was in 1963. She had that baby, and then two more(!) before she graduated from high school. And she did graduate. On time. With her class. She has been married to the same man for some 45 years now. </p>
<p>Would I recommend this? Absolutely not. Can it work? Absolutely maybe!</p>
<p>I see 17 as a kind of tipping age. Before that, I’d counsel heavily for adoption (thinking that kids being kids, then mine wouldn’t even believe it was true until mid-pregnancy so abortion would be off the table). At 19 or 20, they are in charge and I’d just support whatever my kid and the other parent wanted to do. 17 and 18 are just on the cusp of being able to handle it. I started dating my H at 17. Would we still be together if we had a kid then? Probably not but maybe. It’s a really hard and individual thing, really depending on the kids as well as their families.
There is one big advantage to marrying - establishing legal ties for both parents. The one big disadvantage obviously is if you have to then sever those legal ties.</p>
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<p>I agree with katliamom.</p>
<p>I think that the questions to ask a pregnant teenager who is planning to marry is:</p>
<p>After you two are married, what will you do? Where will you live? How will you pay for housing, groceries, and other necessities? Will you both be able to finish high school? Will you be able to work? Do you have enough money to drive to work (car, insurance, gas)? Can you pay for child care?</p>
<p>If you get married before the baby is born, will our family health insurance still cover the hospital expenses? or will your husband’s job’s health insurance cover these? </p>
<p>There is the one question: do you want to be married in the eyes of your church? and then there are so many other ramifications…</p>
<p>I think that when teenagers marry, they often end up living in the home of one of their parents, and the grandparents play a large role in raising the baby for the first few years.</p>
<p>This is a difficult situation.</p>
<p>Have the baby and then give to adoptive parents. If practicable, it’s best solution.</p>
<p>^That is definitely what I would do if I were to get pregnant at 17 (which is basically a moot point now, as I turn 18 a week from tomorrow :)).</p>
<p>I’d want with all my heart to keep the baby and raise it as my own, but I would also want to give it a wonderful and comfortable life, which I can’t do as I don’t have a job and am in college. But I do know a lot of couples who desperately want a child but cannot get pregnant.</p>
<p>I would NEVER, ever, have an abortion though, and even if my parents encouraged me to I wouldn’t do it (though I do respect those of you who would for being honest, and I’m sure you would still love your children no matter what the outcome was :)). It might make sense to some, but I couldn’t live with myself knowing that I’d aborted a baby.</p>
<p>Reading this makes me glad that I am a parent of a daughter. It would truly be scary to worry about a son impregnating a girl and then having to deal with the consequences. At that point he would pretty much be held hostage into doing whatever she wanted to do.</p>
<p>Hope everyone packed lots of condoms into their son’s luggage.</p>
<p>^ I did. No kidding. Mainly to make the point – free condoms are fairly available at his college.</p>
<p>I raised this issue in another thread, recently (very recently), when a situation like this was being discussed. I will admit that few 17-year-old girls in my social circles would keep the baby, but in many ways I find the cavalier way in which it is assumed that marrying is the right thing for the teenage parents to do is more shocking. Not that it can’t work – of course it can. But the odds are fairly stacked against it. </p>
<p>Once upon a time, there was lots of legal discrimination against what were called, technically, bastards. So marriage between the parents may well have been necessary for a child’s wellbeing. But it has been at least a generation since the courts threw out the last vestiges of that.</p>
<p>Not that I would shut the door on marriage, ever, either. But I would counsel them strongly to adopt a wait-and-see attitude, rather than rush to the altar.</p>
<p>Honestly, I would be one offering to drive my daughter to the clinic for an abortion. I would just hate to see her life compromised by becoming a mother while still a child herself. Even if she didn’t want an abortion, I would encourage her to give the child up for adoption.</p>
<p>17 year olds are children. Even mature ones are still children. They have a whole lot of living to do before they are ready to marry and have babies, except perhaps a rare few. Sure, a few shotgun marriages work, but the majority don’t. I would never want my kids railroaded into an early marriage, which is why it is so important to me that we never lose the right to CHOOSE.</p>
<p>Someone close to me got pregnant when she was 17. When her mother found out, her mother was so excited. Next thing you know, the father would be moving in with them, the grandmother would raise the baby, everyone would live happily ever after. The pregnant girl was not ready to be a mother, and even her mom’s eagerness to help was not enough to make her so. She quietly got an abortion & told her mother that she miscarried. She has told me that she would have preferred to have given the baby up for adoption, but her mother would not have allowed it. She lives with guilt to this day, because she did not want to have an abortion - she felt that her mom backed her into a corner & it was the only way out - to save her own life.</p>
<p>I thought of this as I was listening to the reports on Palin. Suddenly, two young people have thousands of adults cheering them on to parenthood & marriage. How scary it must be! I saw the young man’s web page (myspace or facebook) this morning on tv - he had said he didn’t want kids. The site has been taken down. The question remains in my mind, though: Is he a willing participant in all of this? Is she? Is it fair to them to be trotted out before the nation? If I was 17 or 18, I’d be mortified - backed into a corner - terrified - and so many other things. I am not saying anything political - I just raise these questions as I would for any other young people going through this (I used to yell at the tv to leave Jamie Lynn Spears alone when she went to the mall near her not-Hollywood-home!).</p>
<p>I would hope my daughter would get an abortion but I would help her raise the baby if she decided to keep it. I’d have a very hard time with her giving it up for adoption. Even as the grandmother I would always worry if the child was okay. No way would I encourage my daughter to marry the father. Seeing how this scenario has played out with some other families I know I’d encourage my daughter to give the baby our family name, keep the babydaddy off the birth certificate and not take a dime from him. We’d handle things, but I hope we never have to face it.</p>
<p>I am pro-choice; what this means is that I respect other people’s right to choose. But the more I think about this issue, the more I am troubled over abortion.<br>
I believe that abortions should be safe and rare (HRC and Obama both say the same thing). “Rare” is an important qualification for me. I would rather that my child carry the baby to term and give the child up for adoption rather than treat the pregnancy as an inconvenience that needs to be eliminated. Would I always wonder whether my grandchild was safe, happy, etc…? Yes. But I do not think abortions should be available to prevent me or some other parent from being discomforted. Having a baby would certainly disrupt a 17-year old life. But plenty of other events do, as well, such as having mono (for real!), getting into an accident, and so forth.
As I said, I believe in choice; that is very important to me. Still, one of the things that I attract me to Obama is his cultural conservatism. This discussion is underlining for me how culturally conservative I am!</p>
<p>marite- I would also counsel my D away from abortion- I am not sure if adoption would be the option or becoming a mom at a young age.</p>
<p>tom:</p>
<p>I don’t know what I would advise, either. I have met some American couples who adopted children from another country: Korea, Cambodia, Vietnam, the PRC, Colombia, etc… Some were single professional women; some were older couples who might not have passed an adoption test at home. I also know Some gay couples who have adopted children (including Doug Hattaway who was HRC’s spokesman and his partner). So, for a teenager with an uncertain future, giving up a child would be an act of love, not abandonment. But who knows what individuals might feel at the moment of birth?</p>
<p>There is no way to know for sure unless it actually happens. That is one situation I will be pleased to avoid learning about firsthand.</p>
<p>My cousin chose her baby’s parents - not a private adoption, but the agency let her interview some couples. She has a large family, so she chose a couple who already had a child. She wanted her baby to have at least one sibling. But I know another young woman who just couldn’t let go when it was time to do so - she ended up keeping the baby. I have known others who aborted, some with guilt - others without guilt. In the end, there is no right answer, often even for the one who is faced with the situation & makes the decision.</p>
<p>“In the end, there is no right answer, often even for the one who is faced with the situation & makes the decision.”</p>
<p>This is so true and phrased so well. Choosing to continue or end a pregnancy is a highly personal decision and not always a decision that would stay the same in different stages of life. Yet it is a decision that I believe should always be made by the girl/woman that is faced with the situation.</p>
<p>I am surprised that some would encourage abortion over adoption because they would always wonder/worry about their grandchild as he/she was being raised by someone else. Is it less worrisome to think that, after your daughter had an abortion, your grandchild is “safely dead?” </p>
<p>Each child is a unique individual, not a commodity that can be replaced with another child later, when it is more convenient. </p>
<p>If you think a teenage pregnancy would ruin your daughter’s life, it probably will. </p>
<p>If you think that a child can grow up to do great things in the world, that probably will happen, too. (I’m thinking of Obama, and what it must have been like for his mother to tell her parents she was pregnant back in '60/61. . .)</p>
<p>Of six single mothers I know personally, 2 married the father after a year or two, one married another man several years later, one gave her child up for adoption and finished college (she had been raped–obviously marriage was not an option). Two had quickie weddings–but those two were already engaged and planned to marry within a year or so. All of these mothers were Catholics, and from talking to them or their moms, I learned that the church doesn’t encourage quick marriage in the event of pregnancy (“shotgun weddings”)–unless the couple is already engaged and wants to move up the wedding date. Couples were asked to prepare for marriage if that was their desire AFTER the child was born. In one case the priest actually refused to marry the couple–because the father was an addict and did not have the makings of a good husband/father. (He disappeared before the baby was born). I think the marriage question can only be answered if you know the couple and their relationship. There are 17yo girls who are very mature. It’s the 18yo guys I’d wonder more about, though some of them do OK. I have 4 daughters. Early marriage is not what I have in mind for them, but if one of them did get pregnant, I would not encourage abortion. I would help her in whatever way she needed according to her situation.</p>