The Blame Game

When I got pregnant at 16, a lot of my family blamed themselves.

My mother blamed herself because she had been a teen parent. My sister blamed herself because she hadn't got rid of her maternity clothes ( O.o wut?). My dad blamed himself because he clearly had not scared Anthony enough. Even one of my cousins blamed herself because she had been a teen parent and she had sort of sheltered me from it. You know who I blamed? No one. There was no blame to place in my mind.

Yes some would say I should blame my now spouse and myself, but for what? We were blessed with an amazing gift. We had attempted to prevent a pregnancy but had been unsuccessful, which we knew full well was a possibility. When we began our relationship we had a talk and we both knew that while we fully intended to use birth control and condoms(and we did) that pregnancy was always an option and that I would not abort. We began dating in November of 2005 and in March of 2006 our oldest son was conceived. A rather short amount of time, yes I know.

We never expected anyone to raise our child or support us, though I am glad for those who did help out. We were frightened yes, frightened of not being good enough, of not being able to provide enough, of doing something wrong, of screwing up our children in ways worse than our parents screwed us up. But then we realized, we all screw up our children in one way or another, get over it. Mom.. Dad.. You screwed me up. But thank you for the most part, because if you hadn't I wouldn't be me. The goal is to do as little damage as possible and accept that we all make mistakes, we all learn and grow as our children learn and grow.

Anyway, back to the blame. It hurt. A lot. Everyone was crying and angry, demanding to know if we intended to marry, or telling us we weren't allowed to get married. People who I grew up respecting were looking down their noses like I was something to be fear, because pregnancy is catching(Another post I promise). One, ONE, person told me congratulations when I broke the news to them. ONE. It broke my heart that anyone could see my baby as anything other than something to celebrate. I had a woman I didn't even know, an old old friend of our lovely neighbor tell me that my pregnancy(and therefore my baby) was not something I should be proud of. I was never proud to be a pregnant teen, I simply was a pregnant teen. My mother quickly took this crotchety old lady down a level by saying, "But you were married and pregnant at 17, you just told us that, and at least my daughter didn't kill her child." Now, while I, and my mother as well, am pro-choice this woman was a VERY big christian and is shone through that she realized what she was saying is in direct conflict with what she proclaimed to believe.

From day one I was very much about not asking for help, because if I had been an adult I could not have ran to my mothers room and asked her to hold the baby. I breastfed, my husband(then boyfriend) worked his ass off to support us. We moved out and we grew up. Just because I became pregnant as a teenager did not mean people had the right to call names and point fingers, but people sincerely believed they did.

So if you ever learn that your teenaged little sister, or daughter, or granddaughter, or niece, or cousin, or whatever, is pregnant don't treat them awfully, don't place blame, just love them because during those early months, all you want is someone to tell you congrats and bake you some cookies, feel the baby kick and help you treat your heartburn, someone to pat your back when you cry for no reason and bring you water after you have vomited for the 8th time that morning. Most of the time the father is not there, you need to be the person of support. Because everyone should have one.