Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
mag32gie - It's beyond many females comprehension that the sure-fire way of NOT getting pregnant so to NOT having the potential to abort is to keep their legs closed.
Ahem. (clearing throat) For those who missed the memo. It actually takes more than one person to get pregnant. Perhaps it's beyond males' comprehension that the only surefire way to NOT get a girl pregnant is to not to be all over her 24/7 asking when they're "finally" going to "seal their love," etc.
These onesided arguments about how girls are all at fault are apparently presented on the assumption that girls are all getting pregnant on their own. It actually takes a male too. Just letting you know because obviously, this idea is NOT getting through.
Actually, I agree with what that poster said (about motherhood not necessarily being the be-all and end-all or being a "holy" thing), and I do have a mother's heart. I love my children more than I ever thought I could love anyone. I have three sons.
BUT to say having given birth to them was some sort of magical thing that automatically brought me the most joy I could ever possibly have would be seriously narrowsighted of me. How do I know that? There are people who are childfree by choice whose greatest joys have absolutely nothing to do with procreating.
There are also people who have an abortion earlier in life, then much later, after they have their stuff together and have the mentality, the maturity, the finances and the firm relationship to give a good life to children, do have them; who, if they'd had that earlier child, would NEVER have given that child a good life. And we're not just talking financially. For those situations, having children at a positive time did turn out to be a great joy; in the reverse, for many who would have been great parents later, having a child way too early often results in no joy at all, or very little of it--for either the parent or the child. So to say it's unilaterally any woman's greatest joy is extremely inaccurate.
Also, note that while parenthood CAN bring huge, huge, huge joy (and often does--at least for me!), it also brings huge, huge, huge stresses, so it's sort of like a roller coaster. If the huge joys overwhelm the huge devastations ("I hate you!" from the mouth of a teenager, to make one example, and it's nowhere near the "worst" that can happen), then yes, you can and should be a parent. But they won't for everybody because we are all different, and it doesn't make a person wrong or bad to know she doesn't have it in her--right then, or maybe ever--to go the distance.
I love my children to pieces. They are amazing. But every living thing on earth, barring medical/biological issues or lack of opportunity, can procreate. It is not some holy grail to have a child. It's beautiful--for SOME people, and when they really, really want the child. For others, it's definitely no greatest joy. One only has to look around the real world to know that.
Wait until you start adding grandchildren to those boys.
They will make joy bells start going off in your heart.
Will it happen for everybody? Maybe not, but it can.
Yes, for me to go any further would get into another subject but I just wish that when the "choice" is laid onto the table, it would be laid out with a grandmother on one side of that table.
I wish they could know things that we know before they put themselves into the situation to begin with.
Thank you to all who replied.
Who's grandmother? What if grandma had an abortion before having your mom or dad...who wouldn't be here otherwise making "you" impossible?
You don't know what you don't know. You can't use someone elses experiences either. Every choice we make can change our destiny from that point forward, in ways that are not always obvious. If someone chooses to have kids they will live with that, good or bad. If someone chooses to abort they will live with that, good or bad. There is no blanket right or wrong here because the variables are too great to calculate.
Besides, it's beyond our capability to keep people from feeling bad about something they do in life.
I don't feel bad for you, I feel bad for the young girls that will be crying 12 years later and thought it would be over when they left the abortion clinic.
You should tell them about THAT part if you feel like being honest.
I would tell them (as if it was any of my business ) that they should count their blessings and enjoy what they have now instead of dwelling on the past....EVERYBODY makes decisions they may or may not regret.....only psychotics dwell on them.
Your "reproductive" rights tend to include forgetting that you're killing your own child in the process.
I hate lifeboat feminism, because it involves wants rights, not responsibilities. Abortion is AVOIDing responsibility for one's actions (unless raped).
You'd have a stronger argument for abortion if women had to register for the draft like I did or faced jail.
so do you hate women, dude? is betamanlet sort of like the opposite of alpha-male?
Wait until you start adding grandchildren to those boys.
They will make joy bells start going off in your heart.
Will it happen for everybody? Maybe not, but it can.
I'm sure they will make joy bells start going off in my heart. Why? Because I'm a person who does like having children and who did always want to be a mother. Joy bells don't go off for every grandparent.
My oldest son had a pregnancy "scare" last year with his former girlfriend. (He is 23 now.) I told him that whatever they did, the choice was up to them and that I would help them. It would be unbelievably selfish of me to say, "I want to feel little bells go off--so you two start down a crazy-hard road right now."
It was their choice.
Let me tell you something about being ready for children. My oldest son is 23; my two littler sons are 6 and 3. Big gap. I had my oldest son at the age of 19. I was engaged to his father. Ironically, I'm the one who broke off the relationship, just before I found out I was pregnant. I was someone who had always, always, always known she would want children. I was the 5-year-old years ago who strolled all her "babies" around in the carriage and made sure they all went to "sleep" at night with nobody's little plastic mouth under the covers because they all needed to breathe. I was the little kid who wanted to babysit before I was even 10 years old.
And yet, even with that strong urge, even with experience in diapers and crying spells (my little brother was born when I was 12 and he was my little live doll), and even with intelligence (if not education) behind me, and already holding down a full-time job, I have to say: I ruined my son's life. Ruined it. I loved him SO much. But my God. Trying to be a parent at that young age, with no support (including governmental support...none of that...remember, I was working this whole time), being exhausted ALL the time trying to make enough money to feed this little person, and then in addition having a child who had a serious, serious, serious chip on his shoulder about being the child of a single parent...oh my God.
I am telling you. Loving J nearly killed me. It nearly took all of me. Twice I contemplated going into a mental hospital because the strain was such that I was afraid I might abuse my child. I can't even describe the level of exhaustion, the level of constant fear of not being able to feed a child, the constant harassment and commentary from others about how I should have kept my legs closed, zero help from anybody, and on and on...I...can't describe it.
J turned out to have some sort of issue that was undiagnosed at the time but would have been diagnosed today, which caused him severe sensitivities, a horror of being touched, etc. and led to him imagining that his friends at school had bumped into him "on purpose," or made a loud noise "to p*ss him off," etc., etc. and made him react violently. I got calls continuously from schools for 13 years. He was kicked out of two daycares and one afterschool program. As I called doctors over and over again, sobbing, and worried about losing my job constantly over always being called away to emergency school meetings, etc., they all had the same opinion: Either I was a terrible and uncaring mother, OR I must be abusing him and that was where the violence was coming from.
So now I had to worry, too, about my son always being taken away from me.
I love J so much. So so so much. And I am a STRONG person. Seriously strong. I wouldn't place bets that other girls in my situation would have made it through, nor that they wouldn't have abused their children, made the child's life hell too.
I still think I ruined J's life. I am always telling him in little ways that I am sorry. I will always be sorry. I don't know what I could have done differently but...I'm sorry. And he's antisocial and lives alone and can't maintain relationships...he's wonderfully brilliant but I think he's miserable and I think I, and my young single motherhood, am why.
I still wouldn't have it any other way--I'd still have had J--but THAT'S ME. The next girl might not be capable. And the next child might not be capable of surviving it.
TODAY I am in my 40s. My 6-year-old has autism. I have the time, the married relationship and the resources to deal with all those issues. I CAN NOT TELL YOU WHAT A DIFFERENCE THIS HAS MADE FOR MY SECOND SON v. what I was capable (or incapable of) with my first son. I just can't tell you. I don't even know where or how to begin to compare. Because there just is no comparison.
And therefore...I am not accidentally ruining my two little boys' lives.
You just have no idea. None. You think wanting to feel happy over a grandchild is enough to coerce or guilt a young woman into a decision that you would think felt fun sometimes. You have no idea, lady, zero.
Pro-choice for me; pro-women making this incredibly, unbelievably heavy decision for themselves.
Thank you for saying that.
I just wish they knew the WHOLE story and maybe they could do something so they will not be put in the position of having to make that choice.
As far as being spared the grief, I will honestly say that for me?
The joy has far outweighed the grief and as I hobble across the floor and know I won't be around that much longer, I see their faces and it gives me my greatest joy.
do your children and grandchildren represent a sort of immortality to you? Is that why you said that knowing you won't be around much longer, seeing their faces, gives you your greatest joy?
do your children and grandchildren represent a sort of immortality to you? Is that why you said that knowing you won't be around much longer, seeing their faces, gives you your greatest joy?
Exactly. Also, creating an actual whole human being (or convincing a grown child to create or keep an actual whole human being) just to feel personal joy for a little while is...incredibly selfish. My God. I don't even know where to start with that one. I just don't know.
You get your joy for a few years while you "hobble around," OP, then you die and...well, you're done with all that, aren't you? But the child is living the rest of his or her life. If we ALL made decisions to keep children or to encourage our children to have grandchildren based on our own selfishness this way, well, holy cow. All I know is I sure wouldn't want to be the child who was born exclusively to make someone happy. Anyone. That is NO responsibility for any child, ever.
It's just the depths of selfishness and amazingly unbelievable.
You know, I hear a lot of people say to childfree people, "It's selfish not to ever have a child." I feel the opposite (and me a parent, mind you!): one of the LEAST selfish things a person can do is realize his or her potential for taking care of another being for decades, and decide against it because he or she realizes the child would ultimately pay the price since it's not all Gerber commercials and giggles. It is very, very unselfish, and very mature, to realize what one is physically and emotionally capable of, and what one is not, and to give up "the happy bells" parts in a bigger realization of the whole picture.
And it's the depths of selfishness (IMO) to put another human being on this planet solely to give oneself the occasional smile.
Exactly. Also, creating an actual whole human being (or convincing a grown child to create or keep an actual whole human being) just to feel personal joy for a little while is...incredibly selfish. My God. I don't even know where to start with that one. I just don't know.
You get your joy for a few years while you "hobble around," OP, then you die and...well, you're done with all that, aren't you? But the child is living the rest of his or her life. If we ALL made decisions to keep children or to encourage our children to have grandchildren based on our own selfishness this way, well, holy cow. All I know is I sure wouldn't want to be the child who was born exclusively to make someone happy. Anyone. That is NO responsibility for any child, ever.
It's just the depths of selfishness and amazingly unbelievable.
You know, I hear a lot of people say to childfree people, "It's selfish not to ever have a child." I feel the opposite (and me a parent, mind you!): one of the LEAST selfish things a person can do is realize his or her potential for taking care of another being for decades, and decide against it because he or she realizes the child would ultimately pay the price since it's not all Gerber commercials and giggles. It is very, very unselfish, and very mature, to realize what one is physically and emotionally capable of, and what one is not, and to give up "the happy bells" parts in a bigger realization of the whole picture.
And it's the depths of selfishness (IMO) to put another human being on this planet solely to give oneself the occasional smile.
this whole idealized version of parenting in this thread sounds very much like a masculine imagining done by people active in the anti-abortion movement.....masculine people......to try to sway young, gullible girls and women......with a little fear of guilt and regret thrown in for good measure.......or basically just FEAR.
Actually, I agree with what that poster said (about motherhood not necessarily being the be-all and end-all or being a "holy" thing), and I do have a mother's heart. I love my children more than I ever thought I could love anyone. I have three sons.
BUT to say having given birth to them was some sort of magical thing that automatically brought me the most joy I could ever possibly have would be seriously narrowsighted of me. How do I know that? There are people who are childfree by choice whose greatest joys have absolutely nothing to do with procreating.
There are also people who have an abortion earlier in life, then much later, after they have their stuff together and have the mentality, the maturity, the finances and the firm relationship to give a good life to children, do have them; who, if they'd had that earlier child, would NEVER have given that child a good life. And we're not just talking financially. For those situations, having children at a positive time did turn out to be a great joy; in the reverse, for many who would have been great parents later, having a child way too early often results in no joy at all, or very little of it--for either the parent or the child. So to say it's unilaterally any woman's greatest joy is extremely inaccurate.
Also, note that while parenthood CAN bring huge, huge, huge joy (and often does--at least for me!), it also brings huge, huge, huge stresses, so it's sort of like a roller coaster. If the huge joys overwhelm the huge devastations ("I hate you!" from the mouth of a teenager, to make one example, and it's nowhere near the "worst" that can happen), then yes, you can and should be a parent. But they won't for everybody because we are all different, and it doesn't make a person wrong or bad to know she doesn't have it in her--right then, or maybe ever--to go the distance.
I love my children to pieces. They are amazing. But every living thing on earth, barring medical/biological issues or lack of opportunity, can procreate. It is not some holy grail to have a child. It's beautiful--for SOME people, and when they really, really want the child. For others, it's definitely no greatest joy. One only has to look around the real world to know that.
Great post!
And wouldn't it be nice if more young girls listen to YOUR words instead of being told by others how noble, how gloriously, perfectly wonderful having a baby is....maybe if they got SOUND, PRACTICAL advice they wouldn't be so inlcined to get pregnant.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
- It's beyond many females comprehension that the sure-fire way of NOT getting pregnant so to NOT having the potential to abort is to keep their legs closed.
