MY LIFE - NOVEMBER

Social Experiment #290 - November 20, 2002

I found a new person to rile me up over a new topic. I ran into this situation while reading my recent tags on Bolt. One of the people had a question of their own asking people who came to her profile to go to another girl's profile and then give your thoughts. I was figuring this was a friend or maybe someone that wasn't liked.

I was in for quite a surprise.

Now, from what I remember, this woman is 23, she's been married since February of this year, and seemed at first to be a well-rounded individual who had her own views and opinions, much like everyone else. However, as I read through her profile and her journal entries, it became increasingly obvious that this woman had a slight obsession with teenage mothers.

This became even worse as I got into her own tagbook. She held very, very strong opinions on marriage, childbirth, and the whole idea of being a teenage mother. Now, I'm not one to condone actions that aren't exactly on the up and up, but I'm also not in any position to start bashing someone because I don't like how they live. This woman obviously disagrees with this notion, spreading her "words of wisdom" throughout her profile and taking every chance to take shots at teenage mothers, calling them names such as teenage breeders.

There's a point where the cause your trying to push becomes an obsession. This woman blew right past that point. Every question either dealt with teenage pregnancy, marriage, and proper ways to raise a child. She tried to come across as an expert on all these areas, using stats, reports, and anything else she could get her grubby little hands on.

It got to the point where I'd read something she wrote and feel like she was shoving it my face saying "see? I'm right. It says right here you need this and that and have to do this!" If she wasn't doing that, she was literally attacking anyone who was in a single-parent home, was a single-parent, or even had sex before marriage. She was on a mission, unfortunately, her mission was bringing back results that I'm sure she wasn't expecting.

I of course had to pitch in my two-cents worth, so I cracked my knuckles and began to fire my own shots back at her with each question I answered.

One question was about marriage vs. nonmarriage families. She had an article, of course, to back up what she believed to be right and to make the excuse that anyone who thought differently was a moron. The article claimed, and mostly correctly, that children growing up in married families had a better chance of succeeding in life. This was all fine and dandy, except that she held the contention that ALL families benefited from this. There was no mention of parents who stay together just for the kids, sometimes causing more damage than good. Of course, coming from a divorced family, I was salivating at the chance to take my own shot at her.

The biggest problem I had was her claim that if you weren't in a family that was held together by marriage, you were likely to become a social misfit. Criminal behavior, drug use, an unstable mind, all those things and more are supposed to be my forte since my parents divorced.

Imagine the glee I felt writing my response, in which I responded that my mom was a single-parent who raised my sisters and me by herself and that we've all turned out fine. No one's in jail, no one's insane, no one's hooked on drugs. All the things that are supposed to happen according to her and the experts she so relies on didn't happen. I had no problem pointing that out.

Then of course I had to tackle the whole teenage pregnancy thing. From the way she worded things, she pretty much included all teenage girls in her evaluation, claiming that all teenage girls didn't care about getting pregnant, that they were all pretty much whores in one way or another. Her big claim was that girls were having kids because it was cool. I have NEVER heard this before and I've talked to many teenage girls in my time.

Of course, I took my shots at that one too.

My favorite ones were the ones where she claimed that infants from a teenager were more likely to die at the hands of their teenage mother than any other reason. This one she didn't offer any solid evidence to back it up, only more theories. Same with infants from teenagers having more psychological problems than any other child (never mind the whole gene thing, plus the theory that having kids over the age of 35 isn't really that great either). I laughed at this one, especially after reading the evidence that she had. Every piece of evidence was a theory.

Really, all her arguments were based on stats. When it comes to stats, you can't possibly think to use those to try and raise a family. Stats and experts can't predict how a child is going to be or what's going to work. All of the things she believes in are nice in theory, but humans are such unpredictable beings, you can't possible go by what a study says.

Furthermore, I found it unfair that she attack all teenage girls. Many are very responsible girls, even if they are having sex. It's honorable that she believes in being a virgin, that she believes in waiting until marriage to have kids. Her views are honorable. It's how she goes about it that pissed me off. I don't like stereotyping and that's exactly what she was doing.

I'm not exactly proud of the actions of a lot of teens, but that doesn't give me or anyone else the right to go around and bash them as a group. It's not fair to the rest of them that are being good people to be judged that way.

It gets even better though. After all the preaching, after all the talk about how to raise a child, you'd think that this girl was a mother or something. You'd think that she was currently raising a kid and trying to spread her girth of knowledge to the rest of us pions.

You'd be wrong.

Not only does she not have any kids, she even mentions she may not ever have any at the rate she's going. This is the same woman who parades around in her profile as if she's some damn expert on kids, yet she doesn't have any at all. It just made the whole experience even more laughable to me as I answered the questions.

The bottom line is this people. Don't preach something if you don't practice it. Don't go telling people how to live their lives when you don't know what the hell you're talking about. Don't go criticizing a group of people because a small number of people are being morons. It's not fair to the rest of the population.

Teenage pregnancy is a problem. However, let's all agree that it's something that has always happened and something that will always continue to happen. My mom was a teen when she had my older sister. She's not exactly that messed up, and I'm certainly very normal even though my mom was barely in her 20's.

You can't just blame something on a teenager because you think it's their fault. Yes, more girls are getting pregnant at a younger age. I know this, but it's not as epidemic as people seem to make it out to be. It's just more publicized nowadays.

Don't even get me started on single-parent families either. That part, that was a load of bullshit as far as I'm concerned. To claim that if you don't have both parents that you're doomed to fail in life, that pissed me off so much. I couldn't believe the nerve of this woman to claim that this was true most of the time.

Then there was the fucking moron blaming it on politics and those who think in the liberal manner. What the fuck does being liberal have to do with the destruction of the nuclear family? Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't both liberals and conservatives finding themselves in the middle of controversies involving their families, infidelity, and other scandals?

It's that kind of narrow-minded thinking that makes me most upset. Don't try and blame one group on what you believe to be social decays. It's not fair, it's not right, and it's certainly not solving the problem.

I think a lot of people need to grow up and find a hobby. It's cool to feel strongly about something, but don't shove it in my face and say everything else is wrong. I don't care for that.

If you do, you better be prepared to back it up with HARD evidence, not theories. I will test you and will not relent.

---

Today wasn't a bad day. Despite my little aggravation towards a certain person mentioned above, I had a good day. I did the stupid scavenger hunt that we had to do for work that was basically an excuse for my manager to not have to have a meeting for the pharmacy. It was so ridiculously easy for me, I had it done in about half-an-hour when it was supposed to take at least an hour.

I also had to wait for my pictures to develop. I finally managed to find the camera that I had lost like two months ago. It was in my car. I kind of felt stupid after that one, but I was able to go and take some new pictures of the house before developing them. Only about 17 pictures came out, but I guess I can't complain too much.

That gives me about 60 or 70 pictures to scan whenever I actually bother to do it, which will probably be never at the rate that I've been going. I just haven't had time and when I've had time, I haven't remembered to do it. It's also just so damn tedious to do.

While I was at the store, I found out something that kind of disturbed me. This girl I work with, Rose, recently broke up with her boyfriend after she caught him cheating on her. Well, evidently I managed to make my way onto "the list" as Regina put it, a list of guys that she is considering dating.

For one of the few times in my life, I was speechless. It wasn't that I felt particularly honored, but more surprised. I never really looked at Rose and thought that she might actually be interested in me, although Monday she was incessently interested in everything that was going on with me. I didn't think anything of her extra niceness at the time, but now it makes more sense.

There are a couple of problems that arise with her sudden attraction towards me. Number one, she's not exactly remarkable to look at. She's not bad, but she's not great either. Second, she has a major, major ego issue. She's maybe too intelligent for her own good. She knows much more than she needs to know and she's constantly rubbing it in. She has a way of grating on you that's hard to explain.

Then there's the little rule about dating coworkers. It's highly discouraged for obvious reasons. Add that to the fact that we're not a good match and it seems highly unlikely that anything's going to happen there. I just don't have an attraction to her.

I guess it's more intriguing than anything else.