Babies and Casual Sex

I found the following on a friend's blog:

Oh, I also had an eye-opening experience which just makes me feel worse and worse for the kiddies of today. I saw a girl, she couldn't have been older than 14 or 15 with a BABY...ahhhhh. Her and her friend walked by with the baby in a stroller and I was like "ew" at first but didn't think much of it. Then a few minutes later a whole bunch of KIDS (and I mean KID kids...like some of the boys looked REALLY young...probably a little brother of some of the others?) But anyway, the point is, these kids had this baby and the mom left the kid with her "friends" who I later found out didn't even know her and had just met the girl. The poor kid, who was really cute (!), was crying the whole time and they're like bouncing the baby up and down saying "Don't cry, baby!". I was like WTF, didn't they name the kid? Did they pick it out of the dumpster behind Sears or something?? "Pre-teens" (since I'm still a teenager technically) are so fucking ignorant and immature, I cannot believe 1) this girl has a baby at all and 2) that her parents would let her TAKE IT TO THE MALL with a bunch of 12-year olds watching it while she was off doing whatever and calling it "baby". And as a fantastic finale, the baby was wearing a PINK dress and a PINK bow/headband thing in her head and as the new friends of the mom were leaving and handing "baby" back to her, they said their goodbyes and as they walked farther away the one turns and yells "WAIT, what's HIS name again???" and then once they know the name they all yell goodbye to the child literally called "it". I don't know, but this bothered me so much. I feel bad for the baby AND the mother. I mean, the poor kid will be raised at the Berkshire mall with a bunch of "punk rock" kids who only hang there now because of the newly installed Hot Topic. And the mother will have to have the burden of a child while she's trying to enjoy her childhood, which I guess is her fault. The whole picture just looked wrong and out of place. If I had a teen daughter who got pregnant and decided to have a baby, I wouldn't drop her off (since none of these kids could drive yet) at the mall to hang out with her friends. And what do the parents of the other kids think? Like "Bye mom, I'm going to the mall to hang out with so-and-so and her baby...can you pick me up at 9:30??" Some of the boys were even trying to SIT in the stroller while the baby wasn't in it and laughing hysterically when it rolled out from under their immature asses. These kids should not be raising a child. DONE...but I could go on FOREV

This really bothers me, but it's something that seems to be becoming more and more common, at least in my area. As I recall, during the time of my high school graduation, I was hearing stories about a middle schooler who was pregnant. That's just nuts. Of course, I think this can all be chalked up to out society's relaxed standards regarding casual sex. Honestly, we have absolutely no standards anymore. During eighth grade there was a big stir because during our Field trip, two of the students got it into their head to have sex on the charter bus! They weren't dating or anything, they were just bored and needed something to do. Yes they got into trouble because it wasn't school appropriate, but I don't recall ever hearing anyone say that what was going on was definitely wrong. I realized last year, when the students in my psych class discussed their sex lives, as was quite common there, how often most people do have sex just for the sake of having sex. Call me prudish, but I seriously believe that sex is something that should be reserved until you're at least in a committed relationship. I'm not even trying to tell people to wait until marriage, but at least wait until you've got a good relationship going. This brings to mind a conversation I was having with a guy a while ago, I didn't really know him, but we had talked a few times and were getting to know each other. He was talking about how he's new to Lancaster and was trying to make some new friends, and I told him that I'm always happy to make new friends, and he laughed at me. Then he informed me that after the few conversations we have had, that I'd never quite become what he considers a "friend". To him a friendship between a guy and a girl involves a little more give and take than he's sure I'd be willing to give. Basically, if I wasn't willing to have sex with him, I'd never make a good friend. Major case of culture shock there. Makes me happy that I have a little more self-respect and self-confidence than most girls, giving me the power to tell him where to go. At this point I'd like to thank my parents for raising me right in that respect.

This whole thing brings to mind a little "PSA Comic" done by Jhonen Vasquez in his JTHM comics. It was done by "the council of people who are sick of seeing more people" and I love it. I want to find a bumper sticker somewhere that says that.