I was chatting with one of the little girls on my street the other day - I think she's about 7 or 8. She asked what my DD's name is, and I told her. Then she asked what her last name is, and I told her that.
She repeated both names, thought about it for a second, and said "That sounds like a lake."
What a lovely thing to say!
Friday, September 18, 2009
Monday, September 14, 2009
Blogging for Choice (repost)
(This was posted on my original blog, which I have since shut down. I am reposting it here as my submission to the October 2009 edition of the Carnival of Feminist Parenting.)
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January 28th 2008 marks the 20th anniversary of the Morgenthaler decision, which declared that it is unconstitutional to force a woman to carry a fetus to term. This is a very big deal, of course, but there is still a question of semantics to be decided…as I understand it, the decision did not so much legalize abortion as make it not-illegal – and a woman’s right to an abortion is still not guaranteed in Canada.
To celebrate this decision – and to help ensure that the issues remain in the public eye – Canadian pro-choice bloggers have declared January 22nd “Blog for Choice” day. As always, a big thanks to Antonia for the idea, and my contribution follows.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
As you know, I have a healthy, happy fetus kicking around in my uterus right now, distracting me from all sorts of other important things that I should be doing. And as you also know, this was a planned pregnancy – so it’s safe to assume that I would never have considered terminating it, even for one second.
But a lot of that is down to luck, and to my particular combination of circumstances. I’m tremendously lucky to have a loving, supportive partner, who is as excited as I am, and who can’t wait to be a father. I’m also lucky to have loving supportive family and friends nearby, and lucky to have enough money to raise this child into adulthood. She won’t be getting a car for her 16th birthday (although if all goes well, her dad and I might just be able to afford one for ourselves by then!), but she will have food, clothing, school trips, Christmas presents, and everything else she needs.
So I’m immensely lucky as a parent…but of course my daughter is going to be the recipient of tremendous good fortune as well. Not only the supportive family and friends mentioned above, but she will also have plenty of food and clean drinking water running freely in her home. And not only will she have this clean water available for drinking and cooking, but she will be able to pour litres and litres of it down the drain as she takes a shower or flushes the toilet. In fact, my daughter will be flushing the toilet with cleaner water than most of the world has to drink – and I hope we can raise her to understand what a privilege that is.
She will also have access to some of the best taxpayer-funded education and healthcare in the world, and if she chooses to go to university, she will have both the rights and the means to make that happen.
But what if you’re not so lucky? What if you’re too young, too poor, too sick, to be able to raise a child? What if you already have six kids, or you live in a country where you don’t have access to enough food, water, or medical care? It’s hard work, this parenting thing, and not everyone has the emotional or financial wherewithal to handle it.
Of course adoption is always an option as well. But I’m discovering that pregnancy itself is also very hard work – there’s nausea, fatigue, a thousand different kinds of discomfort, crazy hormonal surges, and of course the financial cost of replacing your entire wardrobe as your body expands.
Plus you have to take a ton of time off work for doctor’s appointments. My pregnancy is about as low-risk as they come, and still in the past five months I’ve had six medical appointments and four ultrasounds. And more are scheduled for down the line as well. Apart from one of the ultrasounds, that’s about the minimum that anyone in Ontario would have – and of course, all these appointments take place during regular 9-5 working hours, which means I’m taking time away from my job to attend. So once again, I’m one of the lucky ones – not only a low-risk pregnancy that requires minimal medical attention, but I have a salaried job and an understanding boss who doesn’t mind all the time I’m taking off as long as my work gets done. Not to mention that I don’t have to pay for all these appointments – I can’t imagine living in the United States or some place where these costs would all come out of my own pocket.
Or even living in Canada, where the health care costs are covered – not everyone can take the time away from work like I am. There are many many women out there who work for an hourly wage, and who don’t get time off for medical appointments, and who don’t get paid if they don’t put in the hours. And how many of these women are already using their entire hourly wage to support their families? Would they be able to afford the financial costs of pregnancy, let alone child rearing?
I know exactly how lucky I am to be in the position that I am in, and to be able to say with confidence that I never considered terminating this pregnancy. But not everyone is as well off as I am – and even I have not always been where I am today. If I had gotten pregnant, say, ten years ago, my circumstances would have been entirely different. I was still in school, still living paycheque to paycheque, and although I can’t remember who my boyfriend was at the time, I can guarantee that neither of us was at all ready for parenthood. If had gotten pregnant then, would I have had an abortion? I don’t know what I would have done, but I do know that I would at least have considered it.
And I would have considered myself lucky, even then, to have had the option of not continuing the pregnancy, and of avoiding the huge financial and emotional costs of bearing a child that I was not equipped to raise at that point in my life.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
January 28th 2008 marks the 20th anniversary of the Morgenthaler decision, which declared that it is unconstitutional to force a woman to carry a fetus to term. This is a very big deal, of course, but there is still a question of semantics to be decided…as I understand it, the decision did not so much legalize abortion as make it not-illegal – and a woman’s right to an abortion is still not guaranteed in Canada.
To celebrate this decision – and to help ensure that the issues remain in the public eye – Canadian pro-choice bloggers have declared January 22nd “Blog for Choice” day. As always, a big thanks to Antonia for the idea, and my contribution follows.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
As you know, I have a healthy, happy fetus kicking around in my uterus right now, distracting me from all sorts of other important things that I should be doing. And as you also know, this was a planned pregnancy – so it’s safe to assume that I would never have considered terminating it, even for one second.
But a lot of that is down to luck, and to my particular combination of circumstances. I’m tremendously lucky to have a loving, supportive partner, who is as excited as I am, and who can’t wait to be a father. I’m also lucky to have loving supportive family and friends nearby, and lucky to have enough money to raise this child into adulthood. She won’t be getting a car for her 16th birthday (although if all goes well, her dad and I might just be able to afford one for ourselves by then!), but she will have food, clothing, school trips, Christmas presents, and everything else she needs.
So I’m immensely lucky as a parent…but of course my daughter is going to be the recipient of tremendous good fortune as well. Not only the supportive family and friends mentioned above, but she will also have plenty of food and clean drinking water running freely in her home. And not only will she have this clean water available for drinking and cooking, but she will be able to pour litres and litres of it down the drain as she takes a shower or flushes the toilet. In fact, my daughter will be flushing the toilet with cleaner water than most of the world has to drink – and I hope we can raise her to understand what a privilege that is.
She will also have access to some of the best taxpayer-funded education and healthcare in the world, and if she chooses to go to university, she will have both the rights and the means to make that happen.
But what if you’re not so lucky? What if you’re too young, too poor, too sick, to be able to raise a child? What if you already have six kids, or you live in a country where you don’t have access to enough food, water, or medical care? It’s hard work, this parenting thing, and not everyone has the emotional or financial wherewithal to handle it.
Of course adoption is always an option as well. But I’m discovering that pregnancy itself is also very hard work – there’s nausea, fatigue, a thousand different kinds of discomfort, crazy hormonal surges, and of course the financial cost of replacing your entire wardrobe as your body expands.
Plus you have to take a ton of time off work for doctor’s appointments. My pregnancy is about as low-risk as they come, and still in the past five months I’ve had six medical appointments and four ultrasounds. And more are scheduled for down the line as well. Apart from one of the ultrasounds, that’s about the minimum that anyone in Ontario would have – and of course, all these appointments take place during regular 9-5 working hours, which means I’m taking time away from my job to attend. So once again, I’m one of the lucky ones – not only a low-risk pregnancy that requires minimal medical attention, but I have a salaried job and an understanding boss who doesn’t mind all the time I’m taking off as long as my work gets done. Not to mention that I don’t have to pay for all these appointments – I can’t imagine living in the United States or some place where these costs would all come out of my own pocket.
Or even living in Canada, where the health care costs are covered – not everyone can take the time away from work like I am. There are many many women out there who work for an hourly wage, and who don’t get time off for medical appointments, and who don’t get paid if they don’t put in the hours. And how many of these women are already using their entire hourly wage to support their families? Would they be able to afford the financial costs of pregnancy, let alone child rearing?
I know exactly how lucky I am to be in the position that I am in, and to be able to say with confidence that I never considered terminating this pregnancy. But not everyone is as well off as I am – and even I have not always been where I am today. If I had gotten pregnant, say, ten years ago, my circumstances would have been entirely different. I was still in school, still living paycheque to paycheque, and although I can’t remember who my boyfriend was at the time, I can guarantee that neither of us was at all ready for parenthood. If had gotten pregnant then, would I have had an abortion? I don’t know what I would have done, but I do know that I would at least have considered it.
And I would have considered myself lucky, even then, to have had the option of not continuing the pregnancy, and of avoiding the huge financial and emotional costs of bearing a child that I was not equipped to raise at that point in my life.
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