I was young when I met her dad and very naive. And
one thing led to another（一件事跟着一件事）
, and now it's just me and her.
Does the father visit her
every now and then(时不时)
?
No, he moved to a different state and we don't hear from him very often. He was participating for the first year, and then for maybe two years after that he would call every few months. But then after that, he just kind of disappeared altogether. And now we hear from him every few years.
I don't know. He won't tell me anything. I despise him.
Because he took advantage of a situation. He's much older than me and he knew a lot more. And he knew what he was doing. And he knows that he's left us without him. And even though we're better off, because I don't think he's very smart. I didn't notice at the time, because I wasn't very smart either.
But you still
had a choice
when you were pregnant. Right?
It was not a position where I didn't want to have her. What was done was done. I was okay with it, and I'm glad I have her now. It's not an issue so much I wish I didn't have her. It's just that I wish he would have made more of an effort. He wanted a child. He specifically said he intentionally got me pregnant. But then he abandoned the situation. I had a baby out of negligence (疏忽), he had a baby on purpose, and then he left.
Why didn’t you get married?
Marriage is not that common anymore. It needs to be a responsible choice if you're gonna be married here. If we were to be married, it would combine our finances and our debt. And that would not have been a good choice for me.
But is it responsible to have a baby without getting married?
And you will see that's the thing. Marriage is not required to have children, and most couples are not married anymore. And then the very few who do get married don't usually just stay married. All it really ends up doing is costing you more money. It doesn't make a difference within your household.
At least marriages can
attach
the father with the kid, isn't it? She’s kind of protected.
He’s still legally responsible. He's still ordered to pay for her. But they have to like force him because he won't go do it on his own. Like they have to take it out of his check. And if he doesn't have a job, then there is no money to take. He's still legally responsible in every way for her. They don't do a lot to enforce it. If a person, mother or father just decides not to do it, then they just don't do it.
Is the father still paying every month for the tuition? For your living expenses?
No, he used to be pretty good at it. But then maybe six or seven months ago, it just stopped. And I don't know why.
Is it legal to stop that?
No, but
i
t happens(这样的事时有发生)
. This is actually an
insanely common
situation here in America.
Families are a mess.
People have children irresponsibly and mothers just do everything and fathers go and have their own life and have more children and more babies moms. That's just the way things are done now. It's insane.
Is there a way for girls to protect themselves when encounter an older man and he knows all the stuff, but you are like just 20ish, right? And you made a terrible decision that you can't regret ever because that was a baby. Is there a way for younger girls to protect themselves? I mean marriage obviously is not an option anymore, because it's quite common that without marriage, people could have kids. And people are doing this all the time.
Our
education,
the biggest issue. The kids
don't know better.
And then what they believe they know is what they see on TV. Like we've got
teen mom
. You've got these teenage women who are having children. And then now they're on TV and they're making all this money. And this is what's in their heads. They're thinking it's gonna be so much fun. I'm gonna have a baby, we're gonna play, they're gonna be so cute. La la la. But that's not what it's really like. They don't understand. So they don't make the effort to protect themselves.
Birth control
is a good option, but it's not as accessible as it should be. And then there's a lot of shame around it, and you gotta make good choices. Not very many people are encouraging good choices. They're just leaving the young people out here to figure it out.
Maybe your parents could give you advice, could guide you in some way.
Well, my parents
failed
for me. Too late now. But I have not had any more children since then. And I don't plan on it, which I actually got my tubes tied to prevent it from ever happening. One is enough for me.
If there’s another chance, if you could start all over again, would you still choose to have the baby?
Once I was pregnant, there was no question. But if I had a choice, I would have chosen not to become pregnant at that time. I had a plan for my life, and it all got
derailed (脱轨，使离开正常进程)
. My late teen years were very rough.
You met this guy, you thought he was
the one
.
No, it wasn't even that. I was grieving. I had had a fiance who died suddenly in a
car wreck
. So I did not know how to manage my feelings. And I spent a lot of time just trying to hang out and seek attention. I wasn't making good choices. I didn't even love him at the time. I had to grow to love him with time. But we were having fun. And that was, it sounded like everything was gonna be good. I'm like, we're hanging out, we like each other. Everything is going well. I wasn't worried. He didn't know that it would turn out this way. He seemed like he was going to be a better person, but I only knew him for two months when I got pregnant. It was until after I was pregnant that I started to really learn who he was. And then the distance started growing.
So you never thought about
abortion
?
