Around noon, my neighbor Deedee gave me a call. There was a woman from the shelter where she worked waiting for transportation from the urgent care facility in the clinic next door to our condo building. Her ride was coming but she had three children with her who were hungry. Could I help? Of course I could. I got to work building some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. The six year old's sandwich was cut in fourths. The two year old's half sandwich was cut in two as was the whole one for mom. All I could find for the baby were some rather ancient rice cakes. I added Sour Patch Kids, grapes, a bottle of water, a Sprite and and orange soda. This is what I had on hand.
The family was waiting inside the lobby. Two of the sweetest little boys, and a beautiful mother holding her baby who was drinking his bottle of milk or formula. I distributed the sandwiches and was entertained by the two year old. What a firecracker. The six year old was more subdued. I don't know which one had been seen at the clinic. But it does occur to me how secure a toddler is as long as mother is with him, and how strange it must feel to be living in a shelter for the older boy. I sat with the young mother and talked to her a little about birth control. She agreed and told me that she was getting her tubes tied after this next one was born. Yes, she had a babe in arms and was about five or six months pregnant with number four. I asked if she saw herself going back to the father and she said no. She has a hard row to hoe and I wish her strength.
Why was it my parents were able to space three children over nine years from 1947 to 1956? This was before the pill. Most of my friends had either two or three kids in their families. Our parents knew about using diaphragms. I know my own father was quite sexual and he and my stepmother used to tear up the sheets into their eighties! Why didn't this young woman know how to prevent pregnancies? Condoms! She was taught about condoms. Abstinence and condoms, not a winning combination. Back in the early 1970's there was a line, "What do you call people who use condoms for birth control? Parents".
And this is what passes for sex education in this day and age. Obviously just saying no didn't work and her old man didn't like the feel of condoms. So there she was, about 23 or 24, soon to have her fourth child, no place to live, facing a future with very little help. Why have women regressed in her generation? Stupid, stupid policies that have decided sex is dirty and the less the children know about it the better. And if you are so stupid you just said yes, then live with the consequences of your actions. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps and this $600. a month.
Section 8 housing vouchers have waiting lists over a year long. When family policy is decided by repressed white men, women pay. children pay, families suffer. When tax breaks go to the very richest in our society and there is no money for low income housing, whole generations pay with the lack of security that homelessness brings.
The economically secure know about birth control choices. They also know how to obtain an abortion for unwanted pregnancies if necessary. Now the old white men are trying their best to have that choice taken away. Ireland recently voted overwhelmingly to give that right to women. Here, where abortion has been legal for over forty years the debate is to make it so hard to obtain that women will have those babies. There isn't money to help them raise their families, but, oh you know... they made their beds and now have to lie in them.
I'm saddened and frustrated that the country of the land of the free and the home of the brave, led by a man who paid for many abortions, is so hostile to women and families. I believe in taking the shame away from something fun and beautiful and educating our young men and women in preventing accidental pregnancies. No one gets an abortion lightly, keep it legal and safe and for those who need it. Roe vs. Wade is basically about the sovereignty of a woman's body. Who decides? She decides, not some legislator in Washington. Support Planned Parenthood and NARAL.
