Did you know that the term "single" has nothing to do with marriage? It refers to a person's relational status. Apparently, teens and young adults who have had a regular "hook-up" (defined: boyfriend/girlfriend situation for more than a week) do not consider themselves to be "single". This was news to me. It was news to the 19 year girl I was talking with that anyone who is not married is single. She had never heard that before.
The conversation started with her statement, "I have five friends who are pregnant and all but two of them are under 18." She said this so matter of factly I was stunned. I asked her what she thought about that, and she replied, "What do you mean?" I asked her if she had any thoughts, feelings, or opinions on the news that five of her teenage girlfriends are single and pregnant. That's when she told me that two of them were not single. I asked how long they'd been married, and she said, "Oh, they're not." Slightly confused, I asked, "How is it that they are not married and not single?"
"They have boyfriends!" She said, obviously frustrated that I could be so...slow. Trying to get back to the question at hand, I again asked her what she thought about her pregnant teenage single freinds. She said, "I don't know...glad I'm not [pregnant], I guess."
There is an entire population of kids heading for adulthood with this frame of mind. The uphill battle for their hearts and minds is made all the more difficult when we literally speak different languages.
I wish that you had further discussed with this young woman, what her five pregnant friends intend to do with their pregnancy. Will they go for babies or terminate the pregnancy, by wilful abortion. If they choose to have babies, do they have resources (physical, emotional, financial etc) to bring up children.
ReplyDeleteYes, there were so many issues that were brought up by this young woman. The whole situation was frankly astonishing to me.
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