I was reading through columns as an excuse not to grade, and this one hit me like a punch in the gut.
Today is the day I was born. It is also the day that my birth mother, without ever being given the chance to hold me, placed me for adoption, a decision that I know was...let's say "highly influenced" by her father. I am and always have been happy about where and by whom I was raised, but after learning more about my birth parents, I can't ignore that today is also the anniversary of someone's else's pain. So I confess that I am even less inclined than I normally would be to try to see things from the LW's perspective.
Okay, enough about me.
Back when I still hung out on Booju_newju on LJ, when teen pregnancy came up, there were always a handful of people insisting that their daughter would damn well have and abortion or place the child for adoption. When asked, "and how would you go about enforcing that," things got either vague or scarily authoritarian (like, drag them to the clinic authoritarian), or an assumption that if the daughter had the baby, the parents could place the infant for adoption without their mother's consent. If pressed, eventually some would admit that they would simply throw their daughters out of the house.
I bring this up, because my question is: what does the LW think the parents should have done? The baby is coming. Should it not have a nice room, or be cared for, because of the circumstances of its conception? Should Susan have been thrown out of the house. I mean, the pregnancy has happened. What does LW think her sister should have done? And that's leaving aside the bit about her ow "impressionable daughters," because please.
(Also, go LW's sister for standing her ground and choosing not to deal with the LW's attitude.)
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Today is the day I was born. It is also the day that my birth mother, without ever being given the chance to hold me, placed me for adoption, a decision that I know was...let's say "highly influenced" by her father. I am and always have been happy about where and by whom I was raised, but after learning more about my birth parents, I can't ignore that today is also the anniversary of someone's else's pain. So I confess that I am even less inclined than I normally would be to try to see things from the LW's perspective.
Okay, enough about me.
Back when I still hung out on Booju_newju on LJ, when teen pregnancy came up, there were always a handful of people insisting that their daughter would damn well have and abortion or place the child for adoption. When asked, "and how would you go about enforcing that," things got either vague or scarily authoritarian (like, drag them to the clinic authoritarian), or an assumption that if the daughter had the baby, the parents could place the infant for adoption without their mother's consent. If pressed, eventually some would admit that they would simply throw their daughters out of the house.
I bring this up, because my question is: what does the LW think the parents should have done? The baby is coming. Should it not have a nice room, or be cared for, because of the circumstances of its conception? Should Susan have been thrown out of the house. I mean, the pregnancy has happened. What does LW think her sister should have done? And that's leaving aside the bit about her ow "impressionable daughters," because please.
(Also, go LW's sister for standing her ground and choosing not to deal with the LW's attitude.)