Adapted from a recent online discussion.
Dear Carolyn:
I’m literally shaking as I type this. My 15-year-old daughter is pregnant. I can’t believe it. We had many good discussions about waiting until she was ready, using birth control when she was, but it all did no good. She’s furious at me that I told her father! Of course I had to tell my ex-husband, but her stepmother, who she doesn’t like, offered to adopt the baby, so now my daughter is furious at all of us. She wants to keep the baby, can you imagine? I don’t know where to turn.
She’s forbidden me to tell anyone else so I’m left crying alone at night. I want to march her right down to the nearest clinic for an abortion, but I can’t force that. What do I do? I’m going to be a grandmother at 45. How can this be real?
— My Daughter Is Pregnant
It can be real because stuff just happens sometimes. Even adult self-control is imperfect at best.
And immediately after your own family story gets an unwelcome new twist, that’s when it feels the worst. You will eventually — soon — adjust to this situation as part of your reality, because that’s also just what happens. Whether something is great or awful or weird, we eventually process it and get used to it and absorb it into our day-to-day lives.
You don’t have the luxury of waiting for absorption, though, before you help your daughter. You must act now. So, since there’s a “nearest clinic” for you to “march her right down to,” that means there’s a clinic you can call to inquire about their counseling resources. And when you learn what they offer, get both you and your daughter on the counseling schedule. Your daughter is 15, she doesn’t get the last word on what you tell other people. You need to be discreet and respectful of her privacy, yes, but you have license to share information with people helping you. So do that.
While this is a serious situation with significant potential consequences, there are three adults on the scene and you have time to figure out how to make the best of it.
And your daughter has decided she’s old enough to take this on, so you can — judiciously of course — start holding her to that. It’s also a baby, not a terminal diagnosis. Calm yourself down, figure out your options, weigh them carefully, and show your daughter how this parent thing is done.
Re: Daughter:
If your daughter chooses to keep the baby, your best case scenario for 10 years from now is a happy, healthy, hilarious 9-year-old grandchild whom you love and adore, and a good relationship with your daughter, who will be gracious enough to understand why you were in a panic and cut you some slack … but who will also never exactly FORGET how you acted when she came to you with the toughest thing in her young life. This is not to say you have to do whatever she wants or that you can’t have feelings; it’s just to say: think carefully before you speak and act. Make sure that’s really what you want to say and do.
— 15 Years Later
Excellent, thank you.
— Washington Post Writers Group
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