But if you're the mother of a son, you live in dread fear that your son will make someone pregnant, and have his life changed, changed utterly; and he will have nothing to say about it.
Quite so. But my sons are by now both safely married <<pant of relief>>.
Seriously, though, nowadays not many boys actually suffer the consequences of getting a girl pregnant. Such pregnancies are often terminated by abortion, especially when we are talking about well-educated middle-class families. Or the baby is given up for adoption. Shot-gun marriages are much less common than they used to be.
If the girl chooses to keep the child, the boy -- that is, the family of the boy -- may contribute to the child's support, and that is not equivalent to having one's life "changed utterly."
One arrangement that I have seen frequently, in recent years, is when the resultant child is formally adopted by the girl's parents. I have seen that occur even when both of the "biological" parents are well into their twenties, or even thirties, and continue to live together. Very odd.
Joan |
