You tell the girls that if they shack up, they are putting themselves in a risky situation for sex, pregnancy, STDs, being pumped-and-dumped.  They don't believe you and swear that nothing will happen because they aren't trashy girls. No, dear, you aren't...yet.

So now she's pregnant and has no husband and no wedding date.  In 5 months, if she doesn't marry the boy who knocked her up, she will officially be white trash, which is the usual way everyone refers to unwed mothers...not that any individual unwed mother will refer to *herself* the way she refers to other unwed mothers, of course.

You know, this is what I've always wanted : not a happily-ever-after princess wedding for her, not a college education, not that she be a decent wife and mother; no, I just wanted her to be eligible for government hand-outs.  Oh, joy, our life-long sacrifice has finally paid off!  And thank you, asshole gov't for encouraging her NOT to marry.  Why would she want to marry the boy if medicaid pays all her expenses?  She would be foolish to do the decent, responsible thing instead of taking the money, right?

I HATE MEDICARE AND ALL OTHER FORMS OF WELFARE FOR UNWED MOTHERS!  Take away that incentive and the parents would marry immediately so that she could get on his medical insurance.  And for those girls who have no boy to marry because he's a bum?  Maybe the girls wouldn't have had sex with a bum and instead waited until after she was married to a decent guy because she would know that nobody would pay her medical bills for her if she got pregnant.  Unless she did the adoption thing, then the new parents would pay all her bills.  At least that way the little kid doesn't have to grow up without a dad.

One thing I'm holding onto is that she isn't a murderer.  If she had killed a tiny baby in order to keep her life from becoming complicated, I would have been so disgusted with her that I may not have been able to speak to her again.  Mothers who commit abortion are the lowest form of human life.  Below Hitler and Stalin, below Jeffrey Dahmer and John Wayne Gacy.  Because the mother was given the responsibility to protect and nurture that baby, to be the *only* one who could protect him from danger, and she killed him. It's making me sick to think of a woman paying a doctor to rip her child out of her womb when she should be fighting him to the death to save that baby's life.  Abortionistas are cold-blooded psychopaths who should be kept away from decent society, because a woman who could destroy the life of her own helpless baby is capable of violence against anyone.

We raised over $600 for the Animal Shelter at the garage sale this year, and that money will do a lot of good for the food & medical for the homeless animals, but...I still want Mom to stop volunteering her front yard for the annual sale.  She's too old to do anything herself, either setting up or taking the money, which means she needs the kids and grandkids to do all the work--and the grandkids aren't dependable.  This year she lined up two kids for the set-up and two grandkids for the sale itself, but one of the grandkids was injured the night before the sale began and could only use one hand.   (At least she showed up instead of leaving Mom stranded: usually the girls abandon Mom to hang out with a boyfriend.)

The first year we did the sale, Mom and I did everything ourselves--after the Shelter people brought all the donated stuff over.  It was fun: Mom and I sat outside, sipping iced tea, chatting, reading, and visiting with the buyers.  As the years have gone by, I cannot take three days of sunshine anymore, and Mom says adding everything up and doing change confuses her.  I can still help with set-up/take-down each day, but I cannot help during the sale itself, so Mom needs someone else there all the time.  Every year that we have depended on the younger ones to help, at least one of them lets us down.  Not on purpose: they really think they will be there, that they will *want* to be there...then the sale day comes.  I get so tense trying to figure out how to make things work out with not enough people.  It stopped being fun years ago; I hate the whole thing now.

As the sale was ending yesterday, Mom was telling me again how glad she was the the older kids were here because she cannot do the money part of the sale, so I advised her not to do this again next year.  She said she really enjoys it, though.  Huh? Why?  She didn't spend even an hour outside during this entire process!  She isn't even sitting outside to visit with the neighbors anymore.  What is she enjoying?  Watching us set up tables in her yard?  Watching us move furniture around--under the tarps at night, out from under the tarps in the morning?  

I'm thinking that Mom likes doing the garage sale because she doesn't do any work for the sale, yet because it is at her house, she gets credit for doing something.  If we used a different location, Mom would be helping to the same extent that she is doing now--not at all--but she wouldn't be able to tell herself that she's helping.  Which means she isn't going to agree to not do this again next year: she puts in no effort, yet gets the reward.  All she has to do is volunteer her yard and let someone else figure out how to make the sale happen.  (This year, she hadn't even asked anyone to help before volunteering her yard.  When I asked her specifically who was going to work the sale, and had her *call* to see when they would be here, she discovered that nobody would come on Saturday.) 

Perhaps I should ask to do the sale at the garage-sale building that the Animal Shelter usually uses: I wouldn't be tense about others helping because I wouldn't *need* anyone to help--the stuff would not have to be moved & tarped each night and I could handle the sale itself because I'd be out of the sunshine--and I would still have the opportunity to help the stray animals.