The Way It Was

[MrScorpio]

The Beatles ruled. The mini was in. I was seventeen, and pregnant. What happened next is what could happen again.

—By Eleanor Cooney | September/October 2004 Issue
192


In 1959, when I was a precocious smarty-pants still in grade school, I wrote a fake letter to Doris Blake, the New York Daily News advice columnist. I pretended to be a teenage girl "in trouble." I spun a tale of a liquor-soaked prom night and passing out in the back of a car. I included a cast of entirely fictional characters—a worthless boyfriend, a mentally unstable mother, a strict, brutal father. I ended my letter with: "Now I think I am pregnant. Please help me. I am desperate."

I'm not sure what I expected, but my letter was not printed, and no advice was forthcoming. The silence was utter. Possibly Miss Blake, like Nathanael West's Miss Lonelyhearts, had a drawer where such letters were tossed. If so, the other letters in that drawer were no doubt a lot like mine—except that they were not written by wiseass children. They were real. And for the writers of those letters, the silence was real. And I remember thinking: Gee, what if I really were that girl I made up? What would I do?

One summer night some years later, when I was not quite 18, I got knocked up. There was nothing exciting or memorable or even interestingly sordid about the sex. I wasn't raped or coerced, nor was I madly in love or drunk or high. The guy was another kid, actually younger than I, just a friend, and it pretty much happened by default. We were horny teenagers with nothing else to do.

http://motherjones.com/politics/2004/09/way-it-was?page=1

[Marnie]

1. And you point is?

[MrScorpio]

2. Posting a story that needs to be told...

That's me point.

[tosh]

3. Umm, really? You need to ask that?

Thanks for posting, MrScorpio.

[jwirr]

4. My oldest child was born that year - I was 16 years old. That could have been me. However, I was

lucky. My family was there for me and her. It could have been worse - she was born severely disabled and became my priority for the rest of my life. I grew up that year but unfortunately my husband did not - yeah back then it was common to get married if you were in trouble - that was supposed to be the solution.