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I remember hearing my great aunt talking to my cousin, who at the time had 2 kids under the age of 18, with her first baby being born when she was at the age of 15. My aunt in her wisdom tried not to chastise her because she didn’t want her to be embarrassed but wanted her to learn a lesson from having this child at such a young age. My cousin had dropped out of high school to have the baby but reassured us that she would go back to school to get her GED, get a job and marry the father of her child. My aunt simply looked at her, attempted to smile, but the look on her face revealed how little she had faith in my cousin’s convictions. And interestingly enough, not more than several months later, my cousin showed up pregnant again, with her first born baby in a stroller, no “baby daddy” by her side, and a broken heart.
Now, as a young African American girl growing up in Baltimore, I have seen it all. I have become immune to what other communities consider shocking. I’ve seen young girls as young as 10 years old have children of their own. Entire families become addicted to crack cocaine. Mothers going out of the house to work “the streets” to sell their bodies. Fathers either leave the home altogether or simply die at the hands of a dope dealer. And children being left to their own vices to find love they couldn’t find at home.
Generally, children suffer the most from sexual promiscuity. They can be brought into the world by what I consider to be young, careless parents who spend one night of passion just to escape their own harsh realities only to discover a lifetime of paying for those mistakes they’ve made with a child they cannot afford to nurture or care for in a “hell” which the parents helped to create. No one wins this game. The child grows up confused about what it means to have a family in a world which counts them out before the age of 21.
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