Children with Children

Something that I find to be a large issue in my generation is young parents. It seemed that from junior year in high school to now, there has been a large amount of people who had children. These people range from 16 years old to about 25. I believe that if you’re under 25 years old, you are in no way mature enough to raise a child unless absolutely necessary and even then, your parents should help you.

The cause, in my experience with this is neglect of proper protection. Most of the young parents I ask say their kids are accidents. Neither of the parents has good jobs, stable lives or is emotionally prepared for a child.¹ The reason of neglect gives me the ability to, for the most part, not feel any guilt or sorrow for those young parents.

 

My sister is included in the ever increasing list of young parents. She is already on her second “accident child”. I remember a few of our conversations when she was pregnant with her first child. I asked her why she hadn’t used a condom. Her response was that it was too much of a hassle and they didn’t like the feeling of them. Then later in the conversation she asked me if I felt sorry for her being in that situation. I told her the truth, which is I did not feel at all sorry for her. She didn’t understand why. She was put in the awkward position of having to explain to her mother that she was knocked up without being married. I told her that this was the price she would have to pay for not thinking ahead and using the necessary protection to prevent it.

She’s now on her second child. The care she provides for her child is sufficient but no where near what I had hoped it would be. I’m thoroughly disappointed. Sure, she goes to work now (after having taken five months off). My mother babysits while my sister is at work. When my sister comes home, she calls her husband and they talk for a while then my sister goes to sleep. The entire time she’s home, our mother is watching my sister’s child.

I’m not trying to say she neglects him, but she doesn’t do her part by any means. I feel that she figures that because she’s worked 8 hours today, she doesn’t have to do anything after getting out of work. Normally this might be true, but because she has the responsibility of raising a human being for the next 18 years, she isn’t finished when she gets home.

One evening, she was busy talking to her husband on the phone in the kitchen. Her son followed her out there and proceeded on standing on a kitchen chair. Everyone else was sitting in the living room at the time, assuming she was paying full attention to the child. She didn’t take him off the chair. He eventually slipped a bit and almost fell off. He didn’t get hurt but he was certainly scared which caused him to cry. I was upset that she wasn’t fully aware of the situation her son was in.

 

I suppose this mother stuff will eventually sink in. Hopefully having two kids will speed up the process. The main thing I’m scared of though is the fact there’s a slim chance the children might be suffering. The child might suffer in the sense of emotional instability. The young parents of today may not have the experience in handling certain situations that may come up.

 

A few months ago a friend of mine was talking to me online. We were discussing her relationship with a new boy. She was 18 or 19 at the time. This was the year after she was supposed to have graduated. He was a sophomore. They had been going out for less than 6 months. They had made plans to get married and have a child. I stated that I was against this decision and as her friend I strongly suggested she didn’t follow through with this idea. When I stated this, she got upset with me and basically disconnected with me for quite some time. I don’t know what her opinion is any longer. We just recently started talking again, and the subject hasn’t come up and I dare not trigger it. Either way, it’s thoroughly disappointing to see that my generation has lost the ability to think through their actions before following through with them.

 

In ending, I’d like to state that I love my sister and my nephew very much. I think my nephew has brightened up my life immensely. In my opinion, my sister is doing a fine job raising him, but like any other parents, she has her weak spots.

 

 

¹The grammar of this sentence has been edited by Microsoft Word. If it sounds awkward, it isn’t my fault.