Mike in Real Life

Recently, as in on Christmas Eve, my wife’s 19 year old step-sister told her mother that she was, “later than she had ever been.”  This prompted a Christmas day trip to Walgreens, the purchase of a pregnancy test, a positive result from that, trip to the doctor, blood test, and another positive result.  Yay!  Another pregnant teen.

What to do about all of this?  Well, I have not voiced my opinion, because I know how it will go over, but in my opinion?  Get rid of it.  She is still early in the pregnancy, due August 20th, she works at a grocery store working less than 20 hours a week, when I asked her mother what the father thought she said, “Well, he doesn’t take care of the two he has,” and the living area of the house they all (being father-in-law, his wife, her daughter) live in is no bigger than the conference room where I work.  Not a single room of the house, mind you, but the entire living area of the house: 2 bedrooms, living room, and kitchen.  The girl needs to go get some of this:

or go visit Mr. Doctor with the “rusty coat hanger,” as it were.

Of course, when my step-mother-in-law was talking to my mother-in-law, she commented that this is all god’s will, or some sort of crazy crap like that.  Personally?  I blame it on abject stupidity, but we will get to that in a minute.  Ok, so, I am an atheist.  I make no bones about it.  God (gods) does (do) not exist, is (are) a man made construct, and in my opinion is (are) an antiquated idea that is no longer needed in today’s society and promotes poor ideas of morality while not allowing people to think freely.  I could say more, but we will save that for later.  So, with this whole idea that it is god’s will, does that mean that her daughter did not have the ability to not have sex with worthless loser boy with no job because it was pre-ordained by god?  Does that mean that, even though they did have sex, because of god’s will they would not use any form of protection?  If, like she seems to think, god willed her daughter to not think about the consequences of her actions and maybe try to prevent it, then couldn’t it also be seen that god willed man to create methods of abortion and therefore it is god’s will that we perform them?  Yeah, I know, a crazy thought.  It’s a test, right?  The devil created abortion and god is punishing you when you don’t listen to what he has to say about abstinence only and therefore you must totally fuck up your life in every way possible.

Of course, one of the big problems we have in this country are the abstinence only sex education policies in a lot of the schools, which is the result of the religious people trying to run the country (don’t think we are moving towards an oligarchy?  Faith Based Initiatives).  When we have policies like abstinence only, we end up with people like the kids in Florida who think that a shot of Mountain Dew will stop pregnancy. What kind of insanity is that, exactly?  Yes, I will admit that the only sure fire way to prevent pregnancy is to not have sex (or just do anal).  But you know what?  People are going to do it, so you should at least practice safer sex.  Sometimes, even when you take all possible precaution, it can still happen, like with my wife’s cousin.  She is on the pill, they use condoms, that leaves a .1% chance of getting pregnant.  Guess what?  That girl needs to go buy some Powerball tickets, because she is pregnant.  Luckily, though, she is with a great guy who is going to be a wonderful dad, they both have decent jobs, so all is well for her.  Still, though, if you are going to have sex, and teens are going to have sex – it is a fact of life, then please, practice it the safest way you can with condoms and other contraceptives.  We don’t need more children becoming burdens on me.  I don’t want to support their screw ups.

Personally, I see this as my wife’s step-sister’s mulligan.  A do over, if you will.  A chance to correct what she did wrong for awhile, get her head on straight, and start leading a more productive life, instead of a way for her to ruin it completely with a child she is both too immature to raise and unable to financially support.