First Comes Love, Then Comes Marraige, Then Comes the Wife with a Baby Carraige..

 

ring-francog

..Or maybe not.  Now a days it seems to be "first comes the baby carriage, then maybe love, and you're lucky if you get the marriage."  Lately I've been wondering if I've been a little too harsh or brutal in my judgment towards unwed mothers.  I guess because I regret that I was one, I've been sulking in my own pond of guilt and frustration from my choices and now, I'm wondering if It's starting to make me bitter and too judgmental. 

Being a female myself, I've always assumed that all women wanted to be respected and loved, find their prince charming, be married to him, have children and live in a big house with a white picket fence. I just assumed this was the "American Dream!" But lately, it seems that more and more women are being promiscuous, having child after child out of wedlock, not really standing for anything but this, and being proud of it.   I've always felt it was wrong or shameful for women to be promiscuous and have children on "accident" or out of wedlock and society used to shun it too but today, the high amount of sympathy, help and praise that teenage and unwed mothers are generating, causes me to wonder.  

Lately I've been feeling a bit judged, ridiculed and teased because I only have one child (I did so, with a combination of the depo provera shot and abstinence), while others, some married, some not, have more. I had my first child out of wedlock and the amount of shame I felt from doing so along with the hard work it took to take care of him (his father and I split, so he never really helped) was enough to make me stop there. I vowed to never have kids again, until I found my prince charming and got married.  

In today's culture it's become a "fashion" to be pregnant, with or without a husband.  And as I look around at the females who have multiple children, without husbands, they seem to make it look "hip" or cool.  I look at them, with stress, sadness, and pain in my eyes, from raising my own child alone, and I simply can't understand why they're not feeling it too.  Heck, I even look at married women in two parent homes,with children, thinking how hard and expensive it is to raise kids. Yet, some single women still continue to have child after child. I fear that they are making it appear too easy and glamorous that very young girls and teenagers are starting to have and want children without being married.  Today I overheard a 12 year old girl tell her friends that she wanted her first child when she was about 16. Apparently she was influenced by another young girl ,16 or 19, who had a child or was already pregnant.  All I could think about was my own experience and how so..sorry I felt for her thinking it was gonna be so.. easy.

So, I wonder is it just me who's had a rough experience with childbearing and that it's easier for others?  Is it because I have a conscience or religion that I feel bad for having a child out of wedlock and other people don't?  Is it just part of our instinct to procreate, without a husband, like animals, just for the sole purpose of continuing our species?  And for those of us who do wait, and  for those who've waited too long for love and marriage before procreating, are we just torturing ourselves? I mean, it's not like a huge lightening bolt comes out of the sky and strikes down those of us who don't wait.  If it does, they never share this story with other people, especially younger kids and maybe they should, in order to help them or save them from thinking it's just a game!