You make a good point. I’m not sure that I entirely agree with you, but there is something to be said for it and I’ll except that as a fair criticism.

Because members of the communities I have served tell me they need people to show up. And if we wait for the perfectly enlightened and flawlessly sensitive to appear, then another generation of kids will go without the support my fellow workers, and my own eyes, tell me they need. By all means, criticize those of us who show up when we make mistakes. But let the communities we serve tell us when they don’t want our involvement any more.

I agree wholeheartedly. And I think that it’s extremely important to not patronize in the opposite direction, either, by assuming that a teenage girl having a baby couldn’t have possibly made that decision on her own. We don’t have to like the decision — in fact, I don’t — but we also can’t assume that it wasn’t a decision.

And I have to ask you, as a teacher, if you think that this piece is at all appropriate. Because I personally find it rather appalling that he would act supportive for a girl when she’s standing there in front of him and then lament WHAT HAS SHE DONE??? in a national paper once she’s not. Isn’t that patronizing and downright insulting?

Just to respond to above, I’ve also been able to do aid work in South America and I was an Anthropology major as an undergrad. I remember (now this just an snippet, not based on an extensive feminist ethnography), but I remember once in the Amazon when I was with a group of college women and we got to visit with some indigenous women without any men around (ours/theirs–any men)…it was great. Anyway, we were just sharing aspects of our lives and the day to day. At one point, one of the older women asked me how old I was (by the way, just for full disclosure, we had a translator–also female–because their Spanish was pretty limited and my grasp of their dialect non-existent). Anyway, I told her 22 (then, I’m in my later 20’s now). Then she and many of the other women/girls wanted to know if I had babies (or if any of us had babies); we answered no. They wanted to know if we wanted babies–some said yes, some said someday, some said not at all. They wanted to know how we kept the “men away from us”? Not having babies until they wanted to have babies would be nice! Particularly interested? The younger women.

Why I’m sharing this story is that life-ways are not always one’s values, but what opportunities one has. Many of these indigenous women would have LOVED to not have babies young, but they did–because in their own words they couldn’t keep the men away from them. Its really important NOT TO PATRONIZE indigenous women and women from other cultures and to put their lifeways on a pedestal as if they represent choices freely made. Cultural conditions dictate all of our lives.

Also, you mention, “If you’re going to mourn anything, you should mourn the cultural conditions that lead to teen pregnancy, and the fact that in very many cases, our society has failed them.” I get what you mean–of course I mourn the cultural conditions that lead to teen pregnancy, but AS A TEACHER, I have before me and individual human life–a young woman who has shared her writing with me, who has expressed her opinions about a poem or a book with me–someone who is not just a product of the culture before–and I MOURN her loss of young adulthood free of parental responsibilities. I CANNOT ABANDON her emotionally, coldly, as yet another symptom of a system gone wrong because I know her and care for her. I’m not slut shaming; I’m not blaming her more than the boy (though I probably don’t know him–he’s probably 25 or older!) I think that in the bloggersphere–or in any writing endeavor (and I’m also a writer, so I’m faulting myself here too); we can lose individuals in policy–in the big picture. Since I have individuals that I can specifically call to mind, its harder for me to do that and its harder for me to indict the male teacher and his lament–yes it might be awkward and it doesn’t come from a place of informed feminist critique let alone a racially sensitive place (though I would also argue that some people confuse racial sensitivity with reinforcing stereotypes).

My point: I have to mourn BOTH! Both our cultural conditions and those individuals I come into contact with.

And, honestly, while I appreciate men who understand that bodily integrety is sacred, I generally don’t care about a male opinion regarding abortion. If you are physically incapable of experiencing pregnancy, then you get no say in what women do once pregnancy has occurred. I would certainly take Mr. KMP’s opinions to heart and consider them, but ultimately, those decisions are mine, b/c it’s my body. Luckily, Mr. KMP is one of those enlightened men, and he gets that.

My problem isn’t that I don’t want white men in the conversation. Please, enlightened males, come in! I have several male commenters here, even some that occasionally disagree with me and engage in debate, and we get along fine. It’s about respect. My problem is that I don’t want white men in the conversation who are only going to claim that they know better how to deal with a pregnancy better than women — particularly actually pregnant women — do.

And personally, I agree that it’s best to wait to have children. But I have also been brought up in a culture that teaches this, so who knows how I would feel if I was raised with different values and views on life. I don’t think that it’s fair or safe to automatically assume that our cultural values are better. And it’s even less fair and less safe to pretend that even if they were better, they would apply to everyone. They wouldn’t. And they don’t apply to most young, poor black mothers.

If you’re going to mourn anything, you should mourn the cultural conditions that lead to teen pregnancy, and the fact that in very many cases, our society has failed them. But these teen girls did not fail us, and all of the “what have you done???” talk is absolute bullshit and only gives us an excuse to ignore the problem because hey, they chose this.

As for the case of the 11-year-old girl, I agree that what happened to her was tragic and abusive on several levels. But I also know that it’s not the norm, and the girl in that example is not who Okun is talking about and she was not who I was talking about, either. I was talking about the importance of choice, and if anything that case only proves my point.

We have both felt deeply saddened by the accidental pregnancies of our students and by the brain-washing of the religious right (and their media empires) that makes damn sure that every young woman would feel properly shamed by the idea of abortion.

The teacher profiled brings up some damn useful points and just because HE happens to be a man and white doesn’t make them invalid. We have to invite men INTO these conversations, not shame them away due to their anatomy.

Although, I think that we should have universal health-care, universal access to reproductive care including contraception and abortion, universal day-care, paid maternity/ paternity leave, public transportation, and a living wage for EVERY JOB–I also think his point that there is something seriously wrong with missing out on part of your childhood when one becomes a parent in one’s teens!

Even if we did have the infrastructure for a nurturing society as I outlined with my socialized democracy ideal, I still would mourn my students’ (late teens, early twenties) early parenthood. I cherish my young adulthood and the opportunities I had to simply discover my needs, wants, and possibilities. Parenthood involves the fundamental sacrifice of thinking of yourself first. Someday I hope to be a parent, but I’m so glad I (and all my friends) have had the opportunity to have those years of discovery. And guess what? That’s not an income thing (though of course, having the income/class status that allows for college and mobility was vital to my experience). I have known non-traditional students from a more working class background who did not go to college right out of high school (and did not have children then either) speak about those years of self-discovery as well!

Of course, one the more recent teen pregnancy stories that pops to mind in one of an ELEVEN YEAR OLD whose mother (my student) took her to a crisis pregnancy center to show her how evil abortion is (you know, those places run by the religious right, on our tax dollars, with horrible mutilated pictures of late term fetuses and lots of prayer).

She wanted to play on the swings at the park nearby the damn place and her mother told her –No, you’re pregnant, you can’t ever play on the swings again!

Yeah, that’s some seriously social stuff going on–that mother (who I tried to talk to about abortion and adoption compassionately…she was against both.)–But, regardless of our social infrastructure we have the arch of our lives to think about and our lives a precious. So, to lament a child’s loss of childhood is a valid thing to mourn. Also, if you’re not formed (though yes we all change over time) but there is something to a fundamental formation between 16-25, how can you parent another human child as they deserve?

Peace