Her question
stopped me in my tracks. “So why can’t you have a baby and go to
college?”
I opened my
mouth to speak, “Because….” I stopped. “Well, it…."
The modern
proscription for a successful life in America is rigid. You
graduate from high school, you go to college and graduate, you get a
master’s degree, and you begin your career. Only then are you given
permission to settle down and consider having a family.
The promise of
“success” hangs in front of our nose, like the hare racing in front
of the greyhounds at the track. We have our life mapped out, no
time to waste, and no room for detours. But why?
It wasn’t
always this way. There was a day not so long ago when diversity was
more than a political slogan. It formed the very fabric of life, a
patchwork of possibilities, a life of beauty designed around the
varied circumstances of men and women.
Once upon a
time, we took life as it came. We planned. But we also made
allowances for the turns in the road, the detours and side trips
that inevitably occur. They were not evidence that life was over.
They were moments of creativity, unbidden opportunities to
incorporate the unexpected into life and call it success.
Love wasn’t
rejected until we had our college diploma framed behind the leather
chair. It came in joyful moments of surprise, and it was received
as a gift. Students in love got married. If children came along,
life wasn’t over. It was extended.
Married
students moved into married housing. And if they became pregnant,
the children were welcome. Life was big enough to have it all.
Not so today.
For all the pride we have in our ability to plan the perfect life,
we have created the ultimate rigid path that rejects life’s
diversity. If success is only possible as single men and women
without children, then our fate is sealed. Sex is recreation,
relationships are void of commitment, and babies are unwelcome.
Thus, it is
quite an easy matter for clinics on college campuses to sell young
women the solution to unplanned pregnancies. Abortion in college is
just one more part of the so-called prescription for success.
Abortion
counselors don’t counsel. They simply latch onto our fears and
reinforce them. “Oh, my dear,” they tell young women, “you don’t
want to drop out of school. You’ll never be able to do it. Here
let us fix it for you.”
Sealing their
fate, reinforcing the promise of failure, we withdraw support from
pregnant women. If they want acceptance, love, careers, and a
future…they have only one path, one narrow path, just big enough for
one person to walk alone, no babies allowed.
As a nation we
are all caught in the fear of failure. Parents push their daughters
to abortion. Boyfriends expect abortions. And women have bought
the lie. They can’t be a woman, a mother, a wife, and a
student…because we tell them they can’t.
When did we
decide that the best life to be had is the life of a sterile woman?
What justification do we have for preaching the Mother Goddess in
feminism even as we demand that she sacrifice the joy of mothering
in order to move ahead?
Do you plan
joy? Or does it flow from your ability to accept the unexpected
treasures found along the way…love, commitment, marriage, and
family? If humans were created to be parents, what kind of
happiness will we find by denying our creation?
Babies are not
the enemy…but only if we are willing to believe in the value of life
and all that it brings. What joy have we lost today by pretending
that the best of life can be planned? When did we give up on
ourselves?
