Ladies and gentlemen, we have trolls. Well, perhaps not trolls in the classic sense, but definitely comments that disregard the intelligence of women and girls. My post, “Nice Girls Get Pregnant Too, Okay,” has had a lot of attention recently and it’s only expected that I’d have an asshat or two feel the need to comment.
Kelly thinks that the negative stigma attached to teen pregnancy served to discourage other kids. I think Kelly’s heart is in the right place, but her response still pisses me off.
Jan thinks I am “damaged” and that we could all teach men a lesson if we just stopped having babies all together, since it is only men who want babies and we are used and abused into serving as incubators for their party gifts. Jan is an asshat with a male consipiracy complex.
I think both of these comments are generally simplistic and discard the intelligence of women. I feel that both commenters think I am promoting the ease in which young girls can get pregnant. This is certainly not the case. But young girls are people first and their rights are important to me. Having my own rights stomped on made this a personal issue for me. In my school, quietly aborting was probably the unspoken preference since then no one else had to deal with the girl or her pregnancy. But she had to deal with it and her rights are important to me too. Preparing young girls for their sexuality is a sane, realistic way of helping her become a responsible woman. If she is already pregnant, she is still a woman and she still needs this preparation. Her rights, her emotions, her body, as well as legal issues and politics that affect her due to her gender are of supreme importance. To deny the fact that she is a thinking human is insane. All I ask is that we respect women and girls as people, not statistics.
Without further ado, I give you Kelly’s comment and my response. After that I will give you Jan’s two comments and my response.
I invite you to share how you feel in the comments below.
Comment by Kelly
Harpy, sorry that you were marginalized in high school. I hope you and your child are both doing well. However, it’s simply not in society’s best interests to have single teenaged moms. There used to be a stigma to teenage pregnancy, and it served to discourage other teenagers from ending up that way. I find it sad that schools “are cool with the pregnant seniors thing.†It’s not cool. It’s regretable.
My response
Kelly, I find it interesting you think the stigma of teenage pregnancy served to discourage other teenagers. Because it doesn’t.
There was huge stigma at my very conservative, farm country school and in a class of 56, I know of nine girls who got pregnant. I also think it’s a weird statement to make that you think it’s not in society’s best interest to have single teenaged moms and that stigma would somehow be a good way to reduce this. I would much rather serve to lift up girls in general, giving them the tools to grow up in the way THEY choose instead of stigmatizing them.
I don’t think a teenage mom is necessarily bad for society. I was one. I’m 29 now, with two children, and I’m married with a Masters degree and a job that allows me to fulfill my intellectual and parental needs. I’m hardly a drain on society and I never have been. Yes, being a teen parent could increase your chance of needing help. But, I don’t think the problem is the teen pregnancy, I think it’s a larger societal problem that deals more with poverty and education.
Don’t be sorry I was marginalized. It made me stronger but it certainly didn’t dissuade others from doing it. All marginalization and attaching a stigma to teen pregnancy does is increase abortions, because girls don’t feel free to tell their elders, carry a pregnancy to term, and parent. Abortion is a hard decision to make as it is, but doing it because you will lose your education is just sad.
Schools that may be “cool with the pregnant senior thing†are not schools that glamorize teen moms as you seem to suggest. They are dealing with a realistic issue and serving their students the best way they can. I could have used a real parenting or breastfeeding class instead of what I received. I could have used calculus instead of what I got.
I’m sorry you think that serving teen parents in a real way instead of marginalizing them is regrettable. That’s sad for you, really. For the young women and men, it’s necessary. Deal with the larger societal problems and you also help with teen pregnancy. Teens who get pregnant deal with the consequences the best they can, they know the problems they deal with better than you could ever understand. Help them or leave them alone, but don’t marginalize. It certainly doesn’t serve as a warning to others and it’s naive and simplistic to think it does.
Comment by Jan VanDenBerg
Why is it considered “feminist†to make it easier for girls to do something which directly benefits a man (the baby daddy, who now has progeny), which will PROBABLY mess her up financially and socially for the rest of her life and puts a child at risk of an inadequate rearing?
Teen pregnancy — it is absolutely clear in the data — leads to lifetime lower income, higher rates of poverty, lower educational attainment, higher rates of crime by the child and so on and on. It’s perfectly clear. Teen pregnancy is rightly considered a social ill. This is due to the fact that childcare costs a lot and young girls do not make a lot of money. Someone is getting free ride (the father). You close off options for the girl and destroy her freedom of movement. In most cases, it is the parents of the girl who fill the gap, but at other times, it has to be the government picking up the tab for the errant father. It’s not the expense of it to the public that is the problem, it is the reduced life chances for both the girl and the child.
Get yourself clear on this, THE GIRL HERSELF IS DAMAGED.
And, she has been damaged BY A MAN for the BENEFIT of that MAN.
A man is getting a HUGE IMPORTANT SIGNIFICANT GIFT from a woman who has his child and invests thousands and thousands of hours of valuable time into rearing that child, which is physically HALF HIM. It is as though you are sacrificing your life to put food in HIS mouth and to feed and help HIM. You are giving up your options in order to wipe HIS face, comfort HIM, protect and aid HIM. A woman who does that for a man without getting anything in return from him is a STUPID DUPE. She has been USED.
Use birth control or get an abortion or give the child to someone who has the resources to send it to the best schools. Are you really in a position to do right by that child? NO!!!!
It is unfair to the mother and it is unfair to the child and it is NOT a right which should be fought for — the right to be used and abused??
I’ll be damned the day I fight for a “feminism†which is fighting against social rules which are designed to protect young girls from being USED BY SELFISH MEN.
This all makes NO SENSE. Men are just laughing all the way to the bank at the stupidity of girls to actually “fight†for the “right†to be used by them in this abusive, uncaring, selfish, destructive manner.
Ending up with a child is NOT appropriate “punishment†on a girl for having had sex, which is why the anti-abortion crowd want these young girls to have these babies — they think it will stop them having sex. I don’t give a darn if they have sex. But it gets me riled to see them having babies.
Men want children. They want progeny. They want to procreate. They get a big ego thrill out of it. It’s a basic biological drive. Men yearn for children.
WHY SHOULD THEY GET ALL THAT FOR NOTHING????
Make the bastards pay!! Make them help you!! Make them support you or abort their baby!!! Make them contribute and participate and if they won’t REFUSE TO BEAR THEIR CHILD!! Use birth control, get an abortion or give the baby up for adoption.
The right to destroy yourself for the benefit of some man who doesn’t care enough to contribute and the right to bear children into inadequate, underfunded and permanently stunting environments (being raised in poverty by a very young mother) which drag you into years of financial struggle and limited options is NOT a “right†for which anyone with any sense is going to fight.
You are “fighting†for the “right†to allow yourself to be used and cheated out of your most valuable asset – your time and your energy and your life. I’m not going to help you.
Jan VanDenBerg
Comment 2 by Jan VanDenBerg
Never forget — all men want babies all the time — they just don’t want to have anything to do with taking care of them.
That’s the reason for all those ridiculous lies they put out about it being WOMEN who want kids. LIES LIES LIES
Don’t give them something that valuable for free!!
Make the bastards pay up front or don’t have THEIR children. And you don’t have to be abstinent to get there either — that’s what modern medical science is for.
NO KIDS. That will finally get their attention. That’s when men will start treating women with some respect.
Jan VanDenBerg
My response
Jan,
Sweetie, I don’t know what man hurt you but I’m sorry you feel this way. But it doesn’t sound like you were a teen mom. You don’t seem to have been there like I have.
I don’t agree. Line for line, I don’t agree with you. I don’t need to get myself straight on this. I was that pregnant teen and I am not damaged. The father of my children didn’t get a free gift (as you so oddly call my children), since he is an able father who financially contributes. I wasn’t used. My uterus is mine. That’s why choice is important, I CHOSE to have my children. I did. Don’t ignore the intelligence of women by saying they are a pawn in the evil schemes of men. The “no kids†stance you have is ignorant and simplistic at best.
I have sense and I have been there, and I will continue to fight for the rights of teen mothers. I will fight for their rights because like it or not, they’re women. Human beings. Not statistics.
Again, please, share how you feel about this issue.
