Sunday, December 30, 2007
I've been reading the hospital birth announcements in the newspaper again. I shouldn't. They make me sad.
In over half of the announcements where the mother and father are listed, the mother and father have different last names. That's mostly meaningless. I didn't change my name when Jay and I married. But in many of those cases in the paper, I suspect it wasn't that kind of choice.
The ones that bother me most are the one third or more where the father's name is not listed.
Repeat - one third.
It makes me sad.
.
5 comments:
Personally, I believe that all children should grow up with both parents in the same household - in the perfect world.
But I can see a few positives in the listings you described. Many of that third, represents people who may have not planned on having a child but at least they didn't decide to abort the child.
Those aren't my values, but I won't impose mine on them.
What amazes me is that they announce it. Back in my day (shoot me, I'm getting old), when things like that happened....you went off to visit an out of town relative for 9 months;)
A distant former relative sent out Christmas cards merrily announcing the fact that her 26 y/o daughter was six months pregnant and "marriage was on the slate any day now!!" What? I mean, what
One of the low points of my Ob rotation last year was delivering the baby of a 15 year-old. Her father was there, the "Baby Daddy" was there, and the new boyfriend was there. Talk about awkward, and the poor girl didn't have any female relatives there.
One of our interns had a teenage delivery the other week, and the grandmother (only in her 30's) told the delivering teen's younger sister (about age 16) that if she was lucky, she would be pregnant and deliving a baby next year. I just don't get it.
When I was doing court mediation, I met a lot of very young single teenage mothers. The way it works - you have a baby, then you get government aid to dependant children. You sign up for a few high school equivalence or community college classes, and you get more aid and your tuition paid. And you drag the guy into court, and get child support (when he's working). This is usually enough for you to move out of your parent's home and control, and then you can have a really good time.
as i get older, i don't know if i would change my last name when i get married. unless he has an awesome last name! j/k
happy new year!
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