My Body My Choice

 At present Roe V Wade is being adjudicated again in many states and in the supreme court. This is such a hot button issue and it's driving me batty! 

I am PRO-CHOICE, I do not believe anyone has the right to tell me what I should do with my reproductive organs. It infuriates me that the states that are banning abortions are not putting any kind of clause into the laws for the woman's health. If the woman's health is in jeopardy that doesn't matter to these law makers, how is that even right? How can you be pro-life for a fetus but not the person carrying the fetus?  Why are there no clauses for rape? If the argument is a woman shouldn't have sex if she doesn't want to have a child, what if she is raped? she didn't want to have sex. What if a girl is being abused by a family member? Why are there no clauses to protect women from incest? What if carrying the fetus will cause the mother to pass away? Not all women are aware of issues before they get pregnant. 

What if the child tests for special needs that are beyond what the mother can handle? Are there programs in place to help the mother figure it out? Are their programs in place to support the child for the rest of their life? There are countless go fund me pages to help parents with special needs children get the help they need bc our health care system FAILS to help all. 

If you think about it a man can have sex with a hundred woman in a year and have 100 babies but if a woman has sex with a 100 men in a year she can only bring to term one pregnancy. Why are the laws being written to force a woman to carry a child to term. Why are the laws not being written to keep men from spreading their seed? 

A vasectomy is reversible so why not have all men get a vasectomy until they are ready to fully support a child? If a life begins at conception is that when child support starts? A man does have to be involved to conceive a child so when does his responsibility start? Probably not bc even though it takes a man to have a baby the woman is going to have to prove it's his child. Why is a woman's word not good enough? She didn't get herself pregnant. 

Are the laws that are being written including support for the poor mothers who have to bring a child to term? WIC and other social services? Are they including child care help? Are they including some sort of maternity leave reimbursement? What about health care help? Is funding being increased for foster care system if the woman chooses to give up the child? 

If these lawmakers truly believe life begins at conception they need to add help into these laws rather than just adding in ways to go after the DR's or women who choose to do what is right for themselves, their bodies, and their health be it physical or mental. 

As many people are standing up to fight for their right to choose whether or not to get this vaccination need to stand up for the right of women to choose what to do with their bodies. 

Growing up together. A mother / son story. An introduction

2020 was a difficult year, it is now in the rear view mirror but we are still in the thick of this pandemic, there is hope that the vaccine will help and get us back to normal. however we are closing in on a year of this pandemic and the reverberations are going to continue for a while I fear. 

This past month my son has been struggling, I believe 2020 has finally crashed around him. As it was getting colder and the virus was ramping back up we asked him to stop hanging out with friends. They were indoors and honestly we weren't sure where everyone had been, we needed to close our circle some. It stinks, really stinks. But I think that coupled with the darker days created a tailspin for him and he is now falling apart. 

For me this is one of my biggest fears, mental health problems scare me bc your mind can play tricks on you. When people pass by suicide loved ones often say we didn't know, they were always so happy, why didn't they reach out. I never wanted to miss a warning sign so when he started crying and said he couldn't go to work. I wanted to cry, all I was thinking was oh no it's happening and I don't know what to do. he claims he doesn't want to hurt himself and I don't see any signs that he does so I am hopeful that we can battle through this. I am praying that my armor is strong enough to hold him up as well as myself. 

He had a meeting with a second counselor, one he liked much better yesterday. He was telling me about the intake and some of the basic questions, one of which was about his childhood, I joked that he better say it was awesome. His response was really mom my dad left me, I had no one to turn to when I needed them. Talk about a gut punch. 

I have always thought saying not having a father was annoying, when I was in high school there was an instance were a group of boys decided to beat up two men as the men were on their way home from work, the men were related in some way, brothers or cousins. One man was able to get away the other unfortunately passed. Some of the boys were charged, the oldest of the group being 18 was charged as an adult. The lawyer for this young man blamed his lack of a father on his behavior and I was outraged. to me it sounded like the lawyer was saying a woman couldn't teach her son that it was wrong to beat a person to death. This occurred only a couple of years before I had my own son and a few years before I was raising him on my own. but it stuck with me. I will raise my son to know right from wrong, I will raise my son to be a functioning member of society. 

I know this isn't about me and that I need to be strong for him. I know that he can only see things that are wrong in his life rather than what is right. But it still hurts my feelings for him to act like all would be right with his world if he just had his father. I talked to my own dad about my feelings. I know that it is not fair to dump my feelings about this onto my son as he is struggling, we need to get him better and then I can work out my feelings. In the conversation with my dad I mentioned that my son told me a couple of months ago that until he understood the reason behind the divorce he wasn't sure he could trust me. In his mind his father left so he couldn't trust him and he wasn't sure if I was the cause so he wasn't sure he could trust me. his father and I split when he was 4 and he and I didn't have a conversation about things until he was 12. 

I told my dad that I did keep things hidden from my son. In my mind I have a personal life that is separate from my mom life. It was not my place to disparage his father. It was also not my desire for my son to see me out partying and living it up. I did but I didn't do it in front of  him, he was always with family, most of the time by his own choice, when I was out enjoying some much needed time to myself. My dad said that maybe it's time to tell my son about my experiences and what I did and why I did it so he would get to know me as a person and not just mom. 

This is a longwinded introduction to my story of growing up as I was raising my son. Maybe if I get it all out in parts I will be able to show it to him, he will be able to know more of the things that I did and why. Maybe, just maybe, this will  help him see his childhood in a different light.