Yes, Mary is pregnant, at the tender age of 16! A few weeks ago she gave me permission to make this part of my public blog. In a way, that's part of the problem. She's not embarrassed at all. Didn't even know the guy's last name, but hey, that doesn't matter. The only silver lining is, she doesn't swim in this sick and twisted rap infested subculture; she only dabbles in it now and then. Then she returns home and speaks English, and keeps her rap crap within her headphones, in her own world, because she knows we find it offensive, and will yank it away if we hear it. In contrast, John is willing to blare it to the world, until we storm into his room and turn it off. So they are different, these two, and Mary knows; but she is still drawn to it like a moth to a flame. She still thinks these movies are funny, 87 minutes of Black people treating each other like shit. And she still thinks, or she use to think, that repeating the phrase "You's a whore" is somehow a song. But maybe we've had some influence over her after all. She has grown up 2 or 3 years in the past 2 or 3 months. One of those months consisted of incredible morning sickness - throwing up every 25 minutes - becoming so dehydrated that we had to rush her to the hospital twice. It hasn't been easy, and yes, actions do have consequences. She's starting to get it. She has decided that school is important, and she needs to put the baby up for adoption. We practically stood up and applauded. This is nothing like the subculture that she flirts with, where the extended family says, "You can give that baby to someone else! Especially not some privileged white folk in the suburb. We can raise it. Welfare will pay for it. Don't you dare think of giving her up." We have some experience with this warped family dynamic. Eleven years ago we sat in a hospital room with a young mother who had just given birth. We had a car seat, ready to take the baby home. The birth mom had done all the paper work; she knew she could not take on another child. And she had selected us as an adopting family. So far so good. But then her parents, siblings, and other children spoke as one. "Don't you dare give that baby up!" She would be ostracized - not for having a child out of wedlock, or for having a child that she could ill afford - but for giving her baby to someone else. So we went home with an empty car seat. All the workers in the hospital smiled as we left, as if to say, "Go home you rich bitch; you didn't get one of ours today." So yes, I have some knowledge of this subculture, and Mary, thankfully, does not really belong to it. She understands, and she is growing in maturity with each passing week. Maybe she can pull her friends up, instead of letting her friends drag her down.
As you can see, we haven't had a lot of time to worry about John and his disorder. He managed to pass two classes this semester, one with a D-. But the teachers were pretty up-beat at our last IEP. "I know he's struggling academically, but he doesn't call us f**king bitches any more. He really has come a long way." Ok, I guess that's something. We mostly stay out of his way, and don't ask him to do anything, because we can't manage John's oppositional defiance and Mary's issues simultaneously. As our therapist says, "Sometimes you have to pick your battles."