Reply #93

2) The tattoo/cigarette/pot comparison doesn't work. This is the natural biological outcome of a natural biological function. It's on the parents as long as she's a minor. It's no different than if she got cancer or an inflamed appendix.

3) Speaking of on-the-parents: let this be a lesson; if you don't want to raise grandkids or pay for them, you might want to discuss something more reality based than abstinence. $2.00 probably would have solved this problem.

4) Assuming that what the girl said was true, I get what the parents were trying to do. Make the kid work two jobs and take away perqs to welcome their daughter to the wonderful world of single motherhood. Sorry parents, wrong answer, IMHO. Here is what I would do instead: a) make her give up the name of dad, and sue/negotiate for paternity/child support; b) immediately dual enroll my daughter in Community College and a GED program c) get her into a line of studies that will get her a job with benefits in 2 years or less d) now that we're not kidding ourselves about her being abstinent, get her on birth control. Their object should be to get her to realistic self-sufficiency.

5) There are worse things in life than having a kid young. She could have been injured or killed in a car wreck; OD'd; been raped (hmy understanding is that is not how she became pregnant); attempted suicide; or any one of the thousands of other bad things that happen to young women. Her life will be hard, but she's far from the first woman to have a baby at 16. The parents will be far from the first to have a grand kid from their high school aged daughter. The parents have a choice now: they can throw this whole burden on their daughter, or they can try their hand at being grandparents. Personally, I hope they can heal their family and learn to love their grandkid.