Eavesdropping

I overheard a conversation today that shook me harder than I've been shaken in awhile.

Keith, Garrett, and I went to eat supper tonight at a pizza place in a small town (not our small town, but one not too far from here). We were the only ones in the dining room until about halfway through our meal and then in walked 3 teenaged girls. (Garrett called one of them Christie-my youngest sister's name, but that's beside the point.) I wasn't intending to listen to their conversation but they were talking so loudly that it was hard not to hear them. To make this a little more understandable I'll give them nicknames: bleach blonde girl, brunette girl, and regular blonde girl.

Bleach blonde: (out of the blue) I'm pregnant.
Brunette: What? No way, you're joking, seriously?
Regular blonde: She's serious.
Brunette: How far along are you?
Bleach: 5 weeks.
Brunette: Do your parents know?
Bleach: Yeah, they know.
Brunette: I thought I was pregnant a few months ago, but I went to the doctor and he said I wasn't.

As much as I would like to say that this conversation was spoken very seriously and with a lot of emotion, that wasn't the case. The girls acted as if they were discussing the weather. Like it was no big deal that one was pregnant and the other recently had a pregnancy scare. Oh, and did I mention these girls were probably all of 17 years old? 17!! What do we know at 17? Not much, certainly not enough to be getting pregnant and talking flippantly about it. Trust me, I'm not naive, I do realize that there are girls out there who are much younger than 17 and having babies, teenage pregnancy is not a new occurance, I realize this. What just completely boggles my mind is how nonchalant this conversation was. How these girls have not one single clue of the gravity of their situation. She holds the life of a child in her body and does not realize the rollercoaster that she's about to embark on.

Pregnancy is hard, newborn babies are 1000 times harder, doing this all without a spouse has to be the hardest. And let's just say that she and the father were to get married before this baby is born (which I am wholeheartedly against in most situations...), marriage is really hard as well! I can't even imagine getting married and 2 to 5 months later having a baby, all at the very young age of 17. Talk about some major life changes! Keith and I were married for 3 years before Garrett was born. If it had been any less time, one of us probably would have murdered the other one during those early weeks/months of no sleep, constant crying (me and Garrett), pretty much the death of our previous life of "married couple with no kids". It was a chaotic and scary time, but obviously we made it through and are better for it. However we were in a committed relationship that wasn't based on a child. What kind of chance do these young teen mothers have?

I'm sure you're wondering how exactly this conversation shook me so hard. I think it was because I was actually hearing real, live teenagers discussing what would have been a gigantic fear of mine (had I been sexually active before getting married, which I wasn't) and acting as if it was no big deal. 10 years ago when I was in high school I do not remember any girls in our school getting pregnant. Maybe they did and I wasn't aware of it, but it certainly wasn't part of the locker room conversations if things like this were going on. I'm sure that if these girls existed in my high school they kept it quiet and private as best as possible. They did not go around spreading the news to the diners at the local pizza parlor.

And what will teenagers be like 10 years from now? This is my biggest fear because 10 years from this August, my baby boy will officially become a teenager. What will high school be like for him? Will 50% of the girls be pregnant, will 99.99% of the kids be sexually active? How many will have STD's? It's so scary to think that I will voluntarily hand over my child to possibly be in and among these situations. With these thoughts it certainly makes homeschooling very appealing. I won't do it unless it's absolutely necessary, but it makes it appealing.

When we got into the truck to head home after our pizza, I immediately asked Keith if he had heard what I heard. He hadn't, so I filled him in. He was just as shocked as I was. Our first question was why the father of this baby (and the other possible baby that brunette girl mentioned) was never discussed. I think if I was a teen and a fellow teen told me she was pregnant, one of my first questions would be who the father was. Of course they could possibly both have steady boyfriends, but even then I would want to know what the boyfriend's response was when he heard that the other girl was pregnant. But the father was never even mentioned. Keith and I immediately began discussing what we could do as parents to somehow help prevent this situation from ever being a reality in our household 15 years from now. It's just so scary and I pray that being involved in church and being around other Christian teens will help to keep our kids strong.

Our future generations need our prayers now more than ever.