Originally Posted by P.R. Princes

And the thing is when you get pregnant in high school you have pretty much screwed your life up. You now have to take care of yourself and your child.

Originally Posted by tsurara

Age doesn't make you mature. Responsibility does.

80% of the 20-30 year-olds in Japan I've met with kids are too "immature" to raise children decently (they're still living with their parents and spending their money on Starbucks coffee and designer bags).

It doesn't matter.

You don't need a PHD or even a high school diploma to raise a child... those things are luxuries we've come to expect (and still can if we make decent decisions about our actions).

But if you want to do something stupid: you have to deal with the fallout. That is what makes for maturity. Someone bailing you out or making excuses for you doesn't help at all.

I know plenty of teenage pregnancies that turned out just fine. The thing they have in common: parents who accepted that they screwed up and made things work anyway.

The ones I consider gigantic failures? They've got 4 or 5 kids now -- all of them monsters being raised by state money or their grandparents while their parents go out and get drunk every Saturday night.

Life doesn't wait for you to be "ready" in any other respect... and seeing as your body is ready anywhere from 10-15 years-old: maybe we need to stop babying teens when they get into trouble?

Thing is: there's this great thing we have called "free will". It allows us to decide our own destinies to a point... But in order for it to work in any remotely moral fashion, we need to accept responsiblity for the things we've done.

We're incredibly spoiled and evade responsibility for virtually everything. We're passing it on to our children.

Maybe none of us are mature enough to be having babies anymore?

Originally Posted by atomik_sprout

Pshaw! If my mother heard that, she'd take offense. Just because you have a kid at a young age, it doesn't mean your life is screwed. Like I stated earlier, my momz had me when she was sixteen. She was twenty when she had my sis and twenty four when she had my bro. She raised all of us well, we've never been homeless, hungry, abused, on welfare or in a situation that would put my mom in the category of a bad parent!

Originally Posted by P.R. Princes

mm yes i can see what your saying but i know alot of people that have dropped out of school and have screwed there lives up. But i do know that its not the case for everyone

but it does hold more of a challenge when you have a child and sometimes it can be good and for most it is bad.

Originally Posted by Scourge

I respect your mom Atomik, she owned up for what she had done and had taken responsibility for it, and in the process is having a great life with you and your other sibling. The fact that most of us are making is that a lot of other girls at that age mind you are not propaired mentily, maturly, or economicly. The sad fact is that most of these girls who I have seen becoming pregnant are not the kind of person your mom is. They do not want to mature because they like being spoiled, they dreaded the thought that their life now had to revolve around some one else other then them selves, and the fact that getting a job ruined their sociel life, and they didnt want to sacrifice even that for another life that they then selves were holding. But dont get me wrong either, I to have seen teen pairents, like your mom, were able to comit to all three of the things I said before and are enjoying their life. But most, well, tsurara has somed it up rather well.
I also agree with you Astaroth, it is suppose to be a sacred act between two people that should never be taken for granted.
Now as for my self, I would love to be a father some day and have kids with my girlfriend who I hope some day will be my future wife. But I know we are not set mentaly, I also know that we are not set economicly, but we are maturly ready, but with out those other two factors, we dont dair risk it.

Originally Posted by Miroku4444

... like maybe sodomy.

Originally Posted by tsurara

Want a baby? An abortion? Pay for it yourself, drive your own butt to the hospital and deal with the aftermath.

Haven't got it in you? Then you shouldn't be having unprotected sex.

Can't imagine having a baby? Reality check... that's what sex is for. Saying you "accidentally" got pregnant having sex is like saying you were "accidentally" shot playing russian roulette.

Originally Posted by tsurara

We're incredibly spoiled and evade responsibility for virtually everything. We're passing it on to our children.

Maybe none of us are mature enough to be having babies anymore?

Originally Posted by tsurara

Now see... if everyone was engaging in sodomy we wouldn't be having this debate!

Sodomy is one of the more reliable forms of birth control