When is a child an adult?

Okay...sometimes people act in a way that completely befuddles me. I get morning updates from our Atlanta paper by email, and this is the title of an article in today's paper:

Woman pretended to be mom of girl who got abortion, say officials

Hmm...it got my attention, so I followed the link and read the article. You can do the same by clicking on the article name above.

I'm amazed at the article and how one woman could choose to take into her hands the fates of so many people. She affected the lives of her son, his girlfriend, their unborn child, her own, the girlfriend's parents. Perhaps it's a bit pollyanna to expect that she could have gotten together with the girl's parents and talked the situation through. But no...she takes the girl to an abortion clinic to terminate the pregnancy. I'm outraged at the behavior of the parents...I'm also outraged that the girl didn't feel like she could talk to her own parents about the situation.

What bothers me more are the comments from the readers that follow the article. One commenter says that the parental consent laws violate the rights of the potential parents. Excuse me! The potential parents in this case are 16 years old. They're children! I'm sorry, but in my mind, a 16 year old is unable to truly think through all the possible affects that a decision like this will have on their lives. The see the immediate relief that terminating pregnancy will bring, but do not foresee the sleepless nights and the pain and the lingering guilt that will come. This girl has been irrepairably damaged, physically and emotionally because someone was too selfish to think of anyone other than themselves.

I am not a fan of bigger government, personally I believe that we have too many laws governing too many things - HOWEVER, we have to protect our children. Giving a child free reign over their body is socially irresponsible. A child lacks the life experience necessary to completely understand the impact of their decision on their present and more importantly their future.

Another commenter says that "abortion is not murder, fetuses are not babies...". I can't tell you how my stomach turns over a comment like this. It makes me sad, my heart hurts for this person. Clinics will usually perform an abortion up to 15 weeks of pregnancy. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to look at an ultrasound of a baby of that gestation and see the facial features, arms, legs, heartbeat.

I do hope that there is no relaxation of the parental notification laws, though. Children under the age of 18 years may feel like their emotionally able to handle sex - but I guarantee you that none of them are emotionally able to handle the after effects of terminating a pregnancy by themselves.

What do you guys think? Have a differing opinion? Let me hear it!

Men should be men....

Sunday, our pastor preached a sermon on what real men should be like. In true Pastor Ritchie style, it was not exactly what you might have thought it would be.

Pastor Ritchie is irreverent and sarcastic and one amazing preacher. And Sunday he called for the men in our church to stand up as men, not some kind of castrated version of a man that a lot of churches are asking men to be. A lot of men clapped and whooped it up for him. They were very into what he was saying.


I have to say, I was too.


One thing that struck me was his comment about how he'd rather his wife tell him she respects him than that she loves him. I asked Shooter over lunch if this was true of him. He said that he actually needs to hear both things but knowing I respect him ranks higher.


Shooter and I have had our rough patches in our almost 9 years of marriage. What's awesome is that we've grown through it and become a better husband and wife to each other. I realized that during one of the roughest patches, the respect issue is where things started to come apart for us. I didn't trust that he had the ability to lead our household and therefore didn't respect him very much either. All I wanted was for someone to provide for me and to protect me. He wasn't living up to his end of the bargain. Granted, I wasn't living up to my end of the bargain either, I was nagging and fussing and whining and complaining and not really doing much to lift him up. That was a period where poor Shooter was getting griped at from every possible direction. Honestly, he came out of that a much, much stronger man.


I look at Shooter now and I recognize part of him, and then there are parts I don't recognize well. He's grown, matured and discovered who he is. He's a stronger man, husband and hopfully will soon be the father I always knew he could be. Better yet, I have discovered that nagging and griping don't get me anywhere. Now....I'm not saying that I don't ever nag...cause I do...it's just part of my DNA. I have just seen him grown into my protector, my rock, my provider, my husband, my friend.

I just hope that as women we realize that having men who are so in touch with their feelings and all sensitive and soft means we have men who are fulfilling what they were called to be. Once we accept that our men were created to be warriors and providers - then I think we're well on our way to really having the kind of relationship we crave.