Babies Having Babies

I have learned during my time in West Virginia not to act surprised when I meet someone here who has multiple children and hasn't yet hit thirty. It makes me sound like a judgmental elitist asshole, and even though that's exactly what I am sometimes, it is better not to sound like one.

However, today I worked another lunch shift at our little cafe, and I met a nineteen-year-old coworker with three kids. Nineteen. Three kids.

Okay, so, kid number one, perhaps a mistake. (She's five. So mama-waitress had her oldest when she was fourteen. Does anyone have a child at fourteen intentionally? And if they do, shouldn't someone be stopping then?) But then she went and had two more. In a pretty short span of time. I guess she liked being a mama. At fourteen. So much so that she decided to be a mama again. At fifteen. And at seventeen.

I had a debate with a friend over this who said, "Well, one hundred years ago people often DID have kids at fourteen. It was the norm."

But one hundred years ago people lived on farms and agrarian families needed as much help as they could get to plow the fields. One hundred years ago the life expectancy was something like fifty, so fourteen was our twenty-five. One hundred years ago we still allowed child labor, and was that a good thing? One hundred years ago THE WORLD WAS A LOT DIFFERENT.

He had valid points in his argument, I'm sure. I don't know why this whole thing riled me up so much.

I guess I just think of those three kids. And while mama-waitress seemed like a sweet and lovely person, she seemed more than anything else, like, well -- a nineteen-year-old. It just doesn't seem fair that kids should be brought into the world by someone who is still very much a kid themselves. And sure, I bet she loves her kids and cares for them the best she knows how, but it just seems so... irresponsible, and well... selfish.

God, do I sound like a republican? This has nothing to do with the welfare system. It is just about people thinking about their responsibility to this planet and to their children. It is about giving kids a fighting chance by waiting until one has some knowledge of life, before bringing a new one into this world. Obviously, I couldn't ask her for any more details about her situation without sounding like a total asshole. But it just doesn't compute. No matter how I work it out in my head.