Kids having kids... Never really been uncommon.

“I’m pregnant.” At seventeen, I’ve heard those words quite often. Not from a glowing family member, but from a scared, alone friend. Most of my friends are or know someone who is pregnant, and almost all of my sexually active, heterosexual friends have had at least one scare. I’ve even had a friend who has had at least one miscarriage.

I’m going to spin you the story of someone I know (an ex of mine). He’s a nice boy to his friends, but to his girlfriends, he’s a nightmare. He isn’t physically abusive – for our year and a half of dating, the only bruises I ever had from him were during Tech Week, when he’d accidentally drop something on me or hit me with it because I didn’t pay attention and move. Honest mistakes, and it’s hard not to hurt someone when you’re lugging around heavy props and such. He’s not emotionally abusive in the sense that he never really put me down (towards the end of the relationship, he started saying things that weren’t the nicest about me, but I did the same to him, too)… But he was also a Thespian, and in my school, at least, that means Drama Queen. If I ever tried to break up with him, he’d say how he wanted to kill himself, and how much of a failure he was… He was definitely able to manipulate me into feeling awful no matter what I did.

He broke up with me because I wouldn’t sleep with him (he hates condoms, and I didn’t want to have sex without them, because I didn’t want a kid). He gets into a relationship four days later and immediately starts the same stuff with his new girl. She’s pregnant now. The sad thing is, he wanted her to get pregnant so that he could keep her. He told me that it was much the same with me, except that he and I never actually got around to the semi-crucial part of intercourse.

I’m not going to lie: I pity that child. They don’t believe in abortion, and he wants to keep that baby (like I said, he wanted her to get pregnant). She won’t give it up because he doesn’t want to. So that baby’s going to be brought into a home where Daddy’s always telling Mommy he’ll kill himself if she leaves.

(They aren’t ready for that kid.)

I guess what I’m saying is that there’s certain circumstances that a child should never, ever be brought into. The unfortunate part is that it probably will be, and there’s more than one that already is.

I’m the product of a teenage pregnancy, and I’m just as insane as the next human in line. I see nothing wrong with teenage pregnancy in most surroundings, but when a child is brought into a relationship of two people, at any age, to try to salvage it… That’s wrong.

I have a friend of mine who will probably never have children. There’s something wrong with her. I pity her, because she would be a much better person to have a child right now than the two mentioned before me. Yet, the odds worked against her and with them.

This isn’t a Sex-Ed rant. This is a rant about the irresponsibility of some teenagers, who are now going to bring a child into this world, when they can barely support themselves. This had nothing to do with improper Sex-Ed at all – both knew what would happen if Tab A went into Slot B without Cover C. It’s not like he had no ability to buy condoms, because he’s older than both his girlfriend and myself, has a car and a job, and his mom doesn’t ask questions. It’s just a case of gambling and losing.

And because of it, an innocent baby will pay.