Teenage Pregnancy, 16 Years Later

Overheard in a supermarket checkout line:

TEENAGE GIRL 1:  Yeah, so mom says to me, "You're going out again?  How come you get to have all this fun?  When do I get to have any fun?  What happened to my fun?"

TEENAGE GIRL 2:  * Snort *  Well, her motherly duties kind of get in the way of fun, don't they?

TEENAGE GIRL 1:  Yeah!  That's what I told her!  I said, "You had plenty of fun before.  That's how you ended up with me.  Teenage pregnancy's a bitch, isn't it, mom?"

There's something very strange and backwards about this, the product of misbehavior lecturing the miscreant about their mistakes.  I don't really think anyone comes out looking good.

Back when I was in high school, we had so many pregnant students that the home economics class on "childhood development" ran a day care service so the new mothers would have a place to park their babies while they earned their diploma. 

The "honors" kids didn't really talk about this much.  Diapers and feeding schedules were so alien to college applications and class rank worries that they might as well have existed in a separate universe.

But in retrospect, the program is a nice community gesture.  Cape Cod might have a teenage pregnancy problem (to go along with the heroin problem and the gang problems), but at least we try to take care of our babies' babies. 

It was a little strange to consider I could have gone to high school with this bitchy girl's mother, though.  I've officially hit that age where I can tell a teenager: "I'm old enough to be your father."

And I'm happy about it.  Don't think I'd go back under any circumstances.

So maybe I'll go to the mall and throw my weight around some.