As a disclaimer of sorts: I think I am PMSing because I made and ate half a pan of brownies today and I have been looking at old baby pictures of Isaac and getting weepy for long stretches. Also, since this post was drafted after being snowed in alone for over 30 straight hours an is being completed on the eve of being snowed in for at least that long again, it might be influenced by a touch of cabin fever.
Lots of thoughts swirling around in my head right now. I'll try to put them out there in a way that is coherant and hopefully not (too) offensive to anyone....
I was flipping channels and stopped on a reunion special for the cast of MTV's 16 and Pregnant Teen Mom reality show. I've never watched the show. I don't generally watch MTV and I think the concept of the show sounds exploitative. Also, the reunion was being hosted by Dr. Drew who I think is a total nut.
Anyhow, it caught my eye initially because apparently one of the girls featured on the show had placed her baby for adoption. She was still featured on the show, even though she was not parenting her baby and they showed a lot of emotional footage that hooked me. For any readers that don't know, adoption was an option I considered very seriously for the duration of my pregnancy and although that was not the route I ultimately took, I have a tender and raw place in my heart for the process of adoption and specifically for birthmothers. She and her boyfriend spoke very eloquently about their decision and I was entranced.
After her segment was over they moved onto a different girl. Evidently, she is the only one who is raising her baby alone, without any involvement from the baby's father. Her clip package showed her having fights with her mother about her involvement with her baby. Apparently she was trying to date and go out with her friends too often and was always leaving her daughter behind. She spoke about how she struggled to find that balance between school and work and parenting and her wish to find a partner.
Dr. Drew asked her about her desire to find someone to be with romantically. She was obviously choked up and teary as she described that she wished she had someone to be her partner but that she was grateful to have her family as a support system. Dr. Drew of course can't leave well enough alone and continued to lay into her, "Don't you wish someone was there on your behalf? Do you think you'll ever find a partner?
She got very teary even more emotional and just shook her head very sadly. Dr. Drew decided to stop torturing her and did say something along the lines of "You deserve someone who will care about you and your daughter." She started to weep and said "I guess there is no one like that out there". And you could tell she 100% believed that she would be alone forever.
Although the intensity of the feelings this girl ( I believe her name was Farrah) are surely magnified by her young age, the feelings she expresses I think are universal for all single moms. I have felt it many, many times. A hopelessness that you will be alone forever and that you are not desirable.
Especially those of us in the pressure cooker of Mormon Culture where all you hear all the time is marriage, marriage, marriage. Where the bishop's wife pulls you aside and says that she knows this divorced girl with a car full of kids who found her spouse on the internet, so "there's still hope for you". A culture where every single lesson that has to do with marriage will have the old quotation about those are not married in this life shall have that opportunity in the next. And you feel like the teacher is staring you down and looking right into your soul as he quotes it.
Or maybe that's just me.
Although the church does take a pretty hard stance on single parenting. The official preference when an unmarried girl finds herself pregnant is that the two parents get married. When marriage is not an option then adoption is the recommended course of action. Although officially it is "an individual decision", LDSFS provides you with a million statistics that are all designed to assure you that if you chose to parent your baby you will end up living in poverty, your child will be more likely to be abused or psychologically maladjusted, you will end up on government assistance, you're denying your child priesthood blessings, and worst of all, NO ONE WILL EVER MARRY YOU. (Seriously, check out the website, I am in no way exaggerating and the stuff they give you when you are meeting with them is even worse. I'm seriously trying to stay on topic and not sidetrack this into a whole different rant about LDSFS). So yeah. You are explicitly told that you will most likely be alone and unmarryable.
And it's hard not to internalize those messages that you are undesirable and worthless because you chose to parent your child.
And my heart broke for this teen girl.
Because who is anyone to tell us that we are less worthy than other people?
Yes, it's a tough road and a terrifically lonely one. But when you find yourself in a crisis pregnancy there are no good easy options. Only terribly hard ones. But just because you made a mistake does not mean that you deserve to pay for that mistake for the rest of your life. It doesn't mean that you aren't deserving of happiness.
And I'm not putting up with those messages anymore.
So I'm declaring it officially now in my blog.
I can have it all.
I.
CAN.
HAVE.
IT.
ALL.
And anyone who tells me otherwise can go straight to hell.
