Shout out to @tsboddy for being my muse on this one.
Every New Year some lady makes the news by having the first baby of the year. It’s a silly American tradition that lets some family get 15 minutes of fame for having sex 9 months earlier. Well without further ado – Congrats to Luzerne County Pennsylvania’s 2010 baby, Xavier Pope. The baby was delivered at 3:22pm on January 3rd with a weight of 7 pounds, 14 ounces. Wow!! 7 pounds!! He was heavy… Don’t mind me, I always equate baby weight to a bag of Sugar (roughly 5 pounds). Don’t Judge Me!!
Anyway, this is the 3rd baby for the mother Leda Pope. The 17 year old mother currently has a 2 and 1 year old. Screeeeech!!! Did someone say 17 year old mother? Yep, you betcha!!! This girl (she lost woman status because she’s not 21) has 3 children and is still a teenager. What is wrong with this picture? Opps…my bad. I forgot the times have changed.
We are so accustomed to our youth having babies that we don’t even think about it. We turn a blind eye to it and hope that it never touches our homes. Some of us have relatives that fall under the “Teen Mother” category. How many of us have 40 year old Great Grandmothers in our families? Can you say the word EPIDEMIC!!!
Do you know how I know that we don’t care anymore? The story was in print and online and not one word about her being too young to be a mother. As a MAN, do you know what bothered me the most about this birth? The Father, Boyfriend, Baby Daddy, Sperm Donor was not even mentioned. It was as if she became pregnant by the Immaculate Conception. This is a complete mess but who do you blame? How do you stop an epidemic when you don’t know you’re sick?
5 comments:
it saddens me that this child had no one in her life to tell her right from wrong. a teacher, a friend, another adult -- no one. so now, all four of them will suffer the consequences of the mother's actions. one would think CPS would get involved being that she is underage and clearly was so when she had the first two kids.
we have glorified teen pregnancy with jaime lynn spears, bristol palin and the like...there is more to blame here than this girl alone. society as a whole needs to take responsibility for the images that we portray to our young people...wishful thinking i know...
tsboddy - I guess CSS didn't care either. I forgot about them. After the 1st child was born something should have happened. If you think 17 with 3 is shocking imagine how old she was when the 1st child came around. I'm still wondering where the guy is that knocked her up....
I can't even pretend to be shocked anymore. When I hear girls younger than that talking about how they are on wifey status with their barely adolescent boyfriend and picking out baby names not for their dolls but for their friends' kids, I get sad. Even sadder, a lot of these girls' parents think their daughters' motherhood is cute and should be defended.
You title for the post is on point.
I grew up during a time when being a teenage mother was not a status that was one that was upheld as okay.
The times-they have changed.
labellanoire - "picking out baby names not for their dolls but for their friends' kids" ....ew that to me is a sickness. This Epidemic has taken hold of parents as well.
msladydeborah - In my Great Grandmothers Day if a woman was pregnant as a teen they would cart her off somewhere. Sometimes they might even take the baby from her and let more mature adults raise the baby. It was hush hush. The times have truly changed and shame has now turned into glorification.
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