[Critique Group 1] Marcia's July submission

[Marcia Wick]

A break from my book – sensitive subject matter

 

The Fatalists

777 words

 

 

As a single mother of two blond blue-eyed girls in their teens, I wasn’t
naïve about their emerging sexuality. Having forsaken my own virginity at
age 16, I knew the allure of a boy’s kisses. Fortunately, back in the 1970s,
I was able to obtain the birth control pill without my parents’ consent. In
the 1980s, following a sexual assault, I chose to have an abortion at a
compassionate Planned Parenthood clinic. Ultimately, I postponed motherhood
until my late 30s. 

 

Still, motherhood wasn’t easy. After my divorce, I struggled without child
support to pay for my girls’ back-to-school clothes, orthodontia, and
special needs. In the 1990s, being proactive, I took my adolescent daughters
to the doctor for advice on birth control before it was too late to
consider. I feared the burdens an unplanned pregnancy could create for not
only them, but me. In my 50s at that time, I had no desire to raise my
grandchildren.

 

Despite my cautions and precautions, my older daughter conceived her first
child out of wedlock, nearly a child herself, I thought, at age 20. She
claimed only one or two missed pills had resulted in her pregnancy. Her
university plans were derailed. Her boyfriend deserted. Her frantic mother
encouraged abortion; not for the first time, my advice was ignored. I
believe it is a woman’s right to choose, and the choice was my daughter’s
that time, not mind. 

 

Do I regret my advice? It’s complicated. Today, my 10-year-old grandson is
one of the singular lights in my life. I am his Nana, not Mom, and his
mother is a Super Mom. That’s not to say that my daughter hasn’t struggled
financially, physically, and emotionally; raising a child while trying to
advance her career, sacrificing her social life, and finding precious time
to take care of herself. She is exhausted, lives pay check to pay check, and
neglects her own mental and physical well-being.

 

Meanwhile, I steered my younger daughter, attention deficit, away from the
birth control pill - lest she forget to take one or two like her sister.
Instead, we opted for the depo shot and implants which protected her for
months, even years, at a time. She was “free” to explore her relationships
without the risk of conception. However
her first boyfriend, a dad himself
as a teen, left her with the lifetime legacy of herpes. Her second beau
kicked her out of his trailer, literally, in below-freezing temperatures one
December night. Her third boyfriend struggled with insecurity and anxiety.
My daughter wore the pants in their relationship. When it crumbled, she
withdrew from the world of heterosexual romance and found love online with
another woman who, like her, was coping with the ravages of an STD and prior
abusive relationships. They are happy and compatible. If destiny provides an
opportunity, they hope to be parents one day. Despite their nurturing
desires, I worry they will struggle as mothers often do. Coping with a
global pandemic, inflationary prices, and a warming world on the brink of
WWIII, they often depend on me to help cover the rising cost of groceries,
transportation, and extraordinary medical expenses. Nearing 70, my resources
are fixed and dwindling. 

 

Regardless of my well-intended attempts to protect my daughters, The Fates
played a more powerful role. For centuries, three ancient goddesses known as
The Fates have been credited (or blamed) for weaving the threads of destiny.
Clotho, the spinner; Lachesis, the allotter; and Atropos who cuts the
threads, were believed to influence birth and death – not mothers or birth
control devices, not doctors or courts or Congress.

 

Today, a woman’s right to manage contraception and reproduction is
manipulated by three old men I call The Fatalists – Trump, the liar;
McConnell, the minimizer; and Alito, the dismantler. Other like fatalists in
the not-so-distant past denied a woman’s right to vote, own property, or
seek a divorce, even under circumstances of domestic abuse. The fate of
women and children in the 21st Century has never been more uncertain.

 

If The Fatalists can criminalize birth control and abortion, they should
also submit deadbeat Dads to castration. If women are forced to carry every
pregnancy to term, they shouldn’t be marginalized, stigmatized, or driven
into unemployment and poverty as a result; nor should children suffer from
neglect, abandonment, hunger, or homelessness. It is estimated that more
than 1.6 million children in America are homeless today. Nearly half of
those children are under age six. Perhaps The Fatalists who claim to cherish
women and children should be taxed at a higher rate to provide impacted
families with food, shelter, and clothing, along with access to health care,
day care, and education.

 

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