No. We're not pregnant again. I know someone who's pregnant for the first time and just found out in the past week. I also know someone who's pregnant and found out about a month ago. And I know about 12-13 girls who just finished being pregnant and now are raising little babies.It seems like babies are everywhere. Personally, I think most of that is GREEEAT! I love little ones and am enjoying mommyhood a great deal. But I read something a bit disturbing today and I thought it was worth a note:
A TIME Magazine article documented that at Gloucester High School (presumably in New York, on the coast), 18 girls of their 1,200-student school will be having babies this summer. Sixteen of those girls made a pact to get pregnant and raise their babies together. One of them even made a baby with a 24-year-old homeless man.
Here are these girls, young, still kids themselves (I mean seriously, how ridiculous was I when I was 16??!?!), wanting to get pregnant. Apparently, the nurse at the school said more girls were concerned when the pregnancy tests she administered were negative than positive!
The article went on to interview a classmate of these girls who seemed to have some insight into why these young mommies might want babies: perhaps, in a town where broken families of fishermen losing their jobs are the norm, perhaps these girls just want someone to love them unconditionally.
I've watched in amazement as so many stars and celebrities are getting pregnant and I know those are influential people....some of them will be great parents and are pregnant because they truly want to raise a child and to nurture a life. Some though, I think, likely want kids for the same reason that student stated above-they just want someone to love them. I have a dear friend who I fear wants a child for the same reason.
Are people so hungry for love they would misuse another's life to fulfill their own? The sad part is, we look for love in other people far too often...we RELY on love from other people far too often. The love these girls need, the only truly unconditional love these girls need, is the love of Christ and from Christians around them. The love these expectant babies need, coming into a world where there are already so many expectations and hopes put upon them, the love these babies need is the love of Christ.
An interesting story with no simple answers...except that Christ heals. I'm going to pray for these girls, their babies, and those lonely women and men out there hoping children will fill their lives.
Here's a link to the article if you're interested: Pregnancy Boom at Gloucester High
2 comments:
I'm currently re-reading Miller's Searching for God Knows What. I bet if he was writing the book now, he would put this in the book as a chapter. It's this weird epidemic right now.
That story is ridiculous. And they're looking at Jamie Lynn Spears, who had a baby today, at 16/17?, and they're jealous. That's INSANE!
Wow, what insight, friend. Babies and their relationships to us are truly a divine mystery to me - such a blessing to so many, like you and Tommie, and I feel certain to Kallie and Buck, and it's a joy to observe those healthy desires. But these other situations are just so strange and empty.
The thing is, babies don't stay babies, or cutie pie toddlers. They grow up and are people, human, who cannot continue to love unconditionally and usually disappoint somehow. I can't count how many of the retirees who volunteer where I work have at least a little bitterness about their children growing up and "forgetting about them," which they don't, they just move on.
As you say, only Christ can truly love us in the way that we crave with all of our being.
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