A news reporter recently suggested that women age 70 and up can remember and can speak to what it was like before abortion was legal. I sat there in my chair with my cup of tea and truly felt called upon to address the issue.
What it was like back then: I remember at age 16, a classmate had to drop out of school because she was pregnant. Not yet married, but about to have a baby in six months. The family was poor. They lived in a shoddy little cottage way down a township road between a woods and an overgrown field. My mom suggested that I should go to the baby shower because this girl was going to seriously need all the help she could get. Many classmates showed up. For me it was the first “baby shower” I had ever attended. Mom said I needed to pick out a cute outfit for the baby. We went shopping at the local “Five and Ten” which is what we used to call what today they call the dollar store.
The store offered a nice array of baby clothes. We picked out a pair of pajamas and a matching blanket. Size was of no concern. If too big, the baby would soon grow into the pajamas. We bought some cheap fancy wrapping paper, tape and a card. Soon the big day came. Mom and I got into the car and headed down that lonely township road to the shabby little cottage.
On the way, mom used the opportunity to lecture me. This, she explained, is what happens to girls who “run around.” They get “knocked up.” Mom said it with a tone of disgust. “Their lives are ruined,” she said. “They’ll spend their days changing dirty diapers.” It put a real damper on any thoughts of hanging out with boys.
We stopped at a crossroad and mom paused to remember which direction we needed to go. “She and the baby will be impoverished for the rest of their lives,” Mom stated and looked over at me with that jabbing glare of her gray eyes that she used to drive her point home. I stared out the window at the newly changing leaf color on the trees. It was a beautiful autumn day for a country drive. I hoped Melody would like the baby gifts we bought.
“That new baby will be born during a cold winter, no doubt,” Mom declared. I counted the months. They said she was already two months, seven months to go. Giving birth in May? A spring baby. It didn’t sound so bad to me. Not that I wanted a baby at age 16. I wondered who the father was. There was no talk of fathers. Babies were sent by the angels.
We parked the car and went up the worn wooden porch steps. The family, Melody’s mother and sister, welcomed us in. Friends were already there. One of them had brought a cake, others had brought sandwiches, tea and coffee. It turned into a nice little party. Everyone was happy with happy thoughts about babies and how much fun they were to cuddle next to you. The girls did not know about labor pains. Mom pointed this out as we waved good-bye.
The girls had only done some baby-sitting, they had not gotten up in the middle of the night to a screaming colic-sick baby. They had not worried about the rising price of milk. Paper diapers did not exist back then. You hand-scrapped little nuggets of joy into the toilet then scrubbed the big white cotton sheets in a wash tub. As mom drove back she frowned and shook her head. “Poor girl. Poor baby.”
I knew I would not see Melody at school any more. Back then, a pregnant girl knew too much, she might inform the others. Innocence must be maintained. Girls should never discover what they were in for, what sex was really like and what it might lead to. Our health class talked about sperm and egg, but left us to figure out how these two crossed paths.
Morality was more important for girls. A girl who had sex out of marriage was a whore. Mom knew all about it. Not that she was a whore, but just like now, some of her girlfriends back then, took a chance with sex and got pregnant. Men could run away, deny having sex, deny they committed a rape. They could shrug any moral obligation by disappearing into the military or a distant important high-paying job or college to build a career. A girl had to stay and deal with the consequences. It was not fair. It was not acceptable. And, to this day, it will not be accepted.
I remember in our high school a woman who was physically more mature than her classmates and dated guys in their late 20s. She ended up leaving for "Florida," for a couple of months in late winter of her senior year, returning with those not in the know, none the wiser.
My mother was one of those poor girls who spotted my father had a dance hall when she was 14. They were dating regularly in the spring of her senior year after she turned 17. As salutatorian of her small town class, she could have gone off to college.
Instead, she had a shotgun wedding to my father from a "bad" family of five sons. Roger and I were born on December 21 in the midst of winter living in a one room shack in a farmer's farm yard rental. Dad had to shoot rats coming in under the door from the cold. Mom having to wash two sets of cotton diapers and hang them out on the line in all kinds of weather.
Fortunately, all five of us turned out okay, I think. We never thought we were poor. Just didn't have all of those toys and candy that were quickly tossed away by other kids. We had warmth, good home cooked food, fellowship, grandparents and great values of hard work and perseverance that have carried us through all of our lives.
Ron