This weekend I watched the movie Juno. If you don't know what this movie is about it is a story about a 16 year old girl that ends up pregnant.

As I watched the movie it took me back in time to my own pregnancy when I was 16. As I recalled the circumstances of my own situation this feeling of great sadness came over me. My experience was much different.

In this movie things were portrayed so much different than what I experienced. I sat and wondered was this just Hollywood's glorified portrayal of the situation or had things really changed so much that it just seemed an acceptable every day occurance. I also wondered that if my situation had been more like the one portrayed in the movie how different it would have been. How different would I be today. At the age of 40 I still harbor a lot of quilt, shame and sadness which I believe it has to do with the way I was treated.

My mother was heartbroken, she cried for weeks. Her main "problem" was what was everyone was going to think. She's always been the type that worries about what the neighbors will think, what the people at church will think. She seem to base a large part of her life on appearances. She made it clear that she was embarrassed to be seen with me out in public. She even said to me once "I can't wait to have a grandchild that I can be happy/excited about".

My father, he handled it differently. My father is quiet, and looking back I never remember him being one to really display affection to us kids although I know he loves us. The day he found out I was pregnant he came to me put his arm around me and said "what's done is done and we will just take it from here".

My peers, those I went to school with, treated me like a dog. I became a target for constant harassment. In class they would throw things at me and talk loud enough so that I could hear. The one thing that stands out in my mind most was one boy saying "hasn't she ever heard of abortion?". Still to this day I can hear him clear as day. At lunch time I would be left alone sitting at the end of a lunch table and the girls nearby would thrown food at me. I've often wondered now years later what these people thought about the way they treated me and what kind of people they had become. Needless to say I never returned to any of my high school reunions to find out as the memories of it made me sick to my stomach.

My boyfriends parents ... well his father didn't ever have much to say but his mother was pure . She constantly took shots at me to beat me down. At one point she made clear that me having the baby was not what she wanted as she looked at me and with a hateful voice said "well it's to late to do anything about it now". I knew she was speaking of abortion. Later she tried to get me to give him away telling me that she knew quite a few well to do doctors that would love to have a child.

I've blocked out most memories of what I experienced and only bits and pieces remain but those that remain still bring me down if I spend to much time dwelling on them.

Today my 24 year old son is doing wonderful. He's married and has a great job. He is my best friend.

Your right Fallen1 it does seem more acceptable these days for young girls to become pregnant. It amazes me when I go to the mall or just out and see these kids pushing baby strollers or carrying a child on their hips. "Babies having babies" is what my-ex use to say.

I to became pregnant at a young age but because of the stress I put myself under I lost that child. I wonder to this day what he/she would have been like and where I would have been had I not lost it.

That is beautiful that your son has turned out as well as he has and is your best friend. You have a special bond with your son that some others may never have and that is what you can take from your experience. I understand that you still have pain from the past but look at what you have achieved and your amazing relationship you have with your son. And I hope that softens the pain from years ago for you.

I think you are a wonderful person. You have helped me tremendously. Thank you for sharing all that you have with me and here in your posts. Now go have a great day and put those unhappy memories in a box to put way up on that top shelf you can't reach and don't want to get to

Fallen1, I'm so sorry you were treated badly, glad you have a wonderful son.


I'm often furious with Hollywood for glossing over the ugliness of situations. I don't have experience with young pregnancies. My particular gripe is with their treatment of old age and Alzheimers. Hollywood will have you believe that all the elderly need is a bit of help, and they can have happy fun lives - that only evil (or occaisonally misguided) people put their parents in nursing homes. The reality is so much uglier: People who are depressed, who need a very safe environment or they will hurt themselves, People who go into rages, or get physically violent, people who cannot use the toilet themselves and need to wear diapers and be cleaned like a baby.

BTW: not trying to hijack the thread - just griping about hollywood and old age - please this one on young pregnancies.

Fallen1,

What you did, was stand up for your beliefts and you stood up to everyone and as such, you had to suffer pain along the way.

I hate as well "Hollywood Movies" they never tell reality and make things look so great that if we can relate at all to that movie with our lives then it makes us sad and think.

Why do people cut people down? Why do children make silly comments?
Because they are hurtful people and children no no better, just what they heard from their parents.

I would bet, $1000 Aus, and give it to you today, that if you went to a reunion and spoke openly to those kids at school, a lot would be telling of their kids in gaol, or left home, or they in fact had an abortion, the bond you developed with your son could very well also be, not just your nature and strength that you obviously had to get through all of that, but because you "faught for him" before he was even born...


That love is something a lot of parents would just dream of, a "friend" whom is my mate, yet he is my son.

What comes around goes around. Look at what you have, and you can collect that $1000 if you ever make that move to go to that re-union and take your son, on one arm and your man on the other, mmm that's a thought.

I can relate to what i just said to you, because i was the "ugly duckling type", that looked after nurds, teachers liked, but rebelious, and when i left school and started going out to night clubs at 17, i saw lots of those girls from school and all of a sudden they wanted to be my best friend, because i became somehow a little swan and had the best looking and most popular guy and they well grovelled lots.. It was so funny to watch....

So your class people seeing this relationship you have, would envy you to death.....

I would not be sad at all of that people are cruel but reality is "what comes around goes around", and the strong not only survive but always end up the winners......



Like you.

CW

Funny you mention that. One of the few memories I have was when he was very very little, just a few weeks old. Every time I would hold him he would look at me with this piercing stare ..... it was almost like he knew.

I'm a very deep person, think most worked that out by now. So i see things on a different level and when you told that story, all i could see was the strength of a lady whom put up with what ever she had to and protected, and faught....

I know animals are different, but i have seen it ten fold, where the injured animal is saved, and loved and the animal won't go to anyone else, just that person and the love can not be measured.

So, i also believe what they say, that a child is a child still whilst in the womb and as it grows it feels everything and "knows"....

Maybe he did. I am not a scientist, but what i do know is what i said, your love and bond together, most of your "friends" at school would not have it in the fashion that you have as "best mates"..

It would be oh mum, or not telling her things, lots...

It is a bond and i believe what well, i believe, but that's me, a bit wierd or shall i say "very spiritual".

Don't get scared everyone.

CW