I would love to be the Dad from Juno. I'll tell you right now. I wouldn't be. I'd be the tempted-to-smack-my-kid parent if my teenage daughter waltzed into the house and dropped that kind of bomb. The difference between me and the mother of a Detroit teenager who is now in protective custody? I said tempted.
It's one of the worries that comes with parenting a girl; as sexist as that may be. Parents worry about their daughters getting pregnant. They worry about their sons crashing a car. And the failure earlier this month of California's (oft over-looked of late) Prop 4 ballot measure that would have required doctors to contact a teen's parents before providing her with an abortion, pointed to more parents' admission that their kids' futures are out of their hands once the sperm hits the egg.
But it doesn't mean parents are making it any easier on their kids. In the Detroit case, the girl initially told police she'd discovered the newborn when a cat pulled at a trash bag in the garbage near her home. She later admitted she was afraid of her mother's reaction to the truth - and with good reason. The mother is facing assault charges after allegedly beating the girl for concealing her pregnancy. The girl and her baby are in the hands of protective services.
Her daughter's future really is out of her hands now. Or maybe it was before the girl got pregnant? Because teens are going to have sex, and unfortunately, on occasion, that sex will lead to pregnancy. But the parent whose kid is that scared of telling her parents that she's got a baby on the way probably hasn't had a frank discussion about much with Mom and Dad in recent years. It seems like a mom who reacts to a daughter's dilemma with her fists is setting herself up to be disappointed somewhere down the line.
Image: Amazon
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