The Pregnancy Pact

I watched The Pregnancy Pact with interest last night. This is a made-for-TV movie about 18 teenagers deciding to get pregnant in Gloucester, MA. I recognized lots of the magical thinking that the girls expressed: Our babies will be so cute and we will dress them up alike and spend our days in the park playing with them together...and they will love us..True Naomi is older than them but at 18, still very much a teenager and quite an immature one at that. Of course the movie showed the side effects of their pregnancies: pissed off parents, disappearing boyfriends, labor that actually hurt (who knew?), ugly preemies, babies that would not shut up. And then the blame game: whose fault was it that these girls thought that getting pregnant was a good life choice? No access to contraceptives was raised though these girls really wanted to get pregnant so that would not have helped. It might have helped their impregnators. Too much time was spent discussing whether providing contraceptives was giving the kids permission to have sex. Also magical thinking on the parents' part thinking that their little sweeties would never..never have a sexual urge and of course their sweeties wouldn't want to burst that bubble.
Also these girls by and large, did not see a future for themselves beyond motherhood so why not get an early start on it?

For the record, Ms. Naomi was provided with contraceptives, several career paths that could prevent her from being mired in poverty and the means to follow up with that. Occasionally she would test the waters asking me what would I do if she came to me pregnant. I should have said 'shoot you' but instead told her I would be very sad as I would think that would be something that she could not handle and it would make hers (and MINE!!!) lives very difficult.

Pain: We had dinner last night with Josh and Julia as a reward for dealing with Sunny last weekend. Julia shared that Naomi thinks she wants to have 'natural childbirth' as that's what 'good mothers' have. More magical thinking. When I was driving her to her blood test, she went on and on how much the blood sample was going to hurt (don't get cancer sweetie!)and how afraid she was. I used to take the kids to every science museum I could find-not much appreciated by them. But Josh remembers a display stating that men and boys have more pain receptors than girls and women so that women in general could endure more pain. To show this, they had some very cold handles you could grasp and time how long you could endure it. After several trials, Shanna lasted way longer than he did, which annoyed him at the time as they were very competitive.

I think people really vary in their tolerance of cold hands. If it is less than 50, even if he will be in a car most of the time, Steve wears these huge gloves suitable for the arctic taking them on and off repeatedly so he have dexterity when he needs it. All I can think when I see this is Toughen up, Buttercup.I never wear gloves unless it is less than 20. Even then, I will take them off after I have run more than a mile.

While we were eating, Josh received a text that his good friend's younger brother just earned an Olympic berth in ice dancing coming in 3rd place at the Nationals in Spokane. The family had rented accommodations in Vancouver in anticipation of this and has asked Josh to come along. I would if I were him. But as I keep finding out every day, my kids are not me.

It is raining outside now, the warmest day since November. I will work out at the Y. It took me into the first week of May last year to have run as many miles as I have run so far this month. I am tired. More tutoring scheduled for Naomi today as was yesterday. I wish I could somehow transfer how quickly I learn to her.Yep I know that I sound like I am really full of myself but that's what I have; I learn facts quickly. I am not pretty, not patient, not terribly athletic, not neat, not especially sweet..but I'm your girl for Trivial Pursuit.