Education...

"Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world."
~ Nelson Mandela

 

Over the past week I have witnessed myself being judgemental...and that judgement went in several directions...

1. I met a young woman who is now in her mid 30's...her daughter is graduating from high school this year...this is such an exciting time in both of their lives...and yet her Mother knows that this is the beginning of letting go so that her daughter's wings will completely unfurl. Her daughter is a good student...well adjusted...and her Mother is college educated...and her Mother was only 16 years old when she was born...I applaud her for making the decision to keep her child...I applaud her for making a life for the two of them (she has other children also)...

2. I talked to a grandmother...a grandmother and grandfather who are raising their grandson. Their daughter gave birth when she was 15 years old...she decided that she would keep her son...but things got hectic fast as any Mother knows...there are sleepless nights...YOU no longer come first...so you don't get to go to the parties and the movies with your friends, anymore...and it became overwhelming for her...she ran away, leaving her son in her parents care...she entrusted him legally to them to raise...and now after 7 years she has decided that she wants him back...she has enjoyed all the fun times of celebrating with her son...but she has left all the work to her parents...So, where do I stand on this? I applaud the grandparents for stepping in and stepping up to a situation that they had hoped would be different...and this is their daughter...but now 7 years later should she be able to come in and take a child from the only stable home he has ever known? I can honestly say that I do not think so...but that now is in the hands of the court system...and my heart breaks for all of them.

3. I met a 14 year old girl who was strolling a baby, on a beautiful Spring day...a darling baby, and I could not help but stop them and coo over her...I assumed that this young girl was this babies sister...I assumed wrong...this child was all decked out in the latest Nike shoes...the perfect outfit...looking more like a little doll than a child...I asked her how she liked being a Mother...her reply struck me as that of a 14 year old girl..."I love being a Mother...I love dressing her up and taking her out and showing her off"...She said her parents help her take care of the baby because she could not do this on her own...HUMMM...makes me wonder which way it will turn out...like #1 or #2....

No two situations are the same...which made me think about education...

The Day After pill is now available for girls over the counter at 14 years old....and now condoms line the shelves at the grocery store...and in bathroom machines...birth control is readily available in some schools...there are classes in school where  girls and boys are given a computerized doll that they have to take care of...the baby cries and needs attention like a real baby, and if you don't meet its needs somehow it is recorded...and yet all kids know this is just a doll...this is not real life. The worse thing that happens is that you fail the class if you don't properly take care of the doll.

Education...the cornerstone of life in some ways...parenthood cannot be taught...it is something I believe that comes with being strong enough and old enough to allow another human being to come before our self...now, that does not have an age limit...it could be that a 14 year old has that capability...I have met some 30 year olds' who still don't have it....

I remember when I was a junior in high school we had a class called Hygiene...it was there that we were given the "facts of life" with a series of movies and class discussions about reproduction...I remember that I wrote a paper on how I thought that premartial sex was wrong...and yet a year later I was pregnant...what I do not remember about that class was anyone telling me about taking precautions...about what the choices might be if you became pregnant...about the sacrifices that a parent must make for their children...

I thought about my own experience with talking to my children about the heart break that I carried because I entrusted my first born...I talked to them about the importance of "safe" sex...because we all know the reality of our teenagers having sex...I thought about talking to the girls who were pregnant when I was in my 20's and how adoption was a wonderful option to their unplanned pregnancy (I dislike the phrase "unwanted pregnacy") and yet it was a decision that should come about because that is what they really want in their hearts, because there were long term emotions that they would deal with that came along with that decision. I thought about how perhaps when the school is teaching this "parenting" class perhaps they might get a hold of a local organization that consists of "searchers"...birthmothers..adoptees who are looking for the missing piece of their lives and the long term effect that has had on them...

No two situations are the same...but education seems to be the key.