<When my parents were kids, students who got knocked up in high school were objects of shame. They KNEW they had done something wrong, and so did everyone else. Liberals are aghast at this "dark age" attitude, and push for high school day care.

Your parents? What about you? I knew girls who got pregnant in high school.

The "students who got knocked up" were all, by definition, girls. The boys got a walk. Sometimes a pat on the back. Their "wrongness" quotient wasn't the same.

The "dark age" attitude often forced young mothers -- not young fathers -- who were emotionally unprepared to give up their babies for adoption and were equally unlikely to seek out a motel-room abortion, to quit school to take care of their infants. Even those who gave up their babies for adoption were forced to leave school for a year and basically "failed" a grade unless their parents could pay for a tutor. Once school kicks you out, it's difficult to go back.

Day care was intended not to reward the girls, but to keep them in school so they could get a job later, and perhaps avoid trading sex for security. They still took the babies home at the end of the day. No dances, no hanging out, just homework and child care.

You have no way of knowing how many girls got pregnant in the '30s and '40s and '50s. The abortions were illegal, and girls "went to Aunt Tillie's" to have their babies and give them up. (Personally, I'd like to see the numbers on suicide attempts and institutionalizations.) Pregnant women, even married ones, weren't even allowed to teach school in many places until the '60s. We see it more now because it's more public. Girls no longer have to pay for a moment's poor judgment with their educations.

"The objects of shame", indeed. It was being another kind of object that got them into the fix they're in. Let's keep them objects of one kind or another, and not let them be treated like human beings. Let's make them all wear scarlet letters and live on the outskirts of town.

Regards--
Mary Anne