Making It Legal

I grew up long enough ago to take a dim view of pregnancy before marriage. That's honest. I can't lie about it. I am a product of my upbringing. Even though I was part of the generation that promoted women's lib and dispelled traditional gender roles, fought the establishment, burnt our bras and protested the war in Vietnam (not to mention the shootings at Kent State), some old-fashioned values were drummed into my head by the strong females in my world. My aunt 'had' to get married at sixteen. It was an outrage. My grandmother's first comment was, "What will my friends think?!" She was as were all members of society at that time. Sex before marriage was a huge no-no and pregnancy was the ultimate indignity for 'getting caught'. My aunt was still in high school and her soon-to-be husband was a graduate of Stanford University. Nowadays that would be called statutory rape. He would eventually leave my aunt with two children, one of whom had crippling arthritis, for his secretary. It was more than a cautionary tale. My mother raised me to think my virginity was my trump card and that losing that put me out of the game. Getting caught was even worse. She had strong feelings. She saw a woman as without worth if she were not a virgin. I, in time, rankled against that notion and rebelled. Times have changed, and my daughter certainly exemplifies prevailing attitudes towards what used to be considered a mandatory sequence of marriage and childbirth, one that abortion allowed many of my generation to circumvent. She wanted to become a mother. She sees that as her primary desire in life. She wants to be a stay-at-home mom, and she wants it now. She can participate in delayed gratification to some degree but not to the degree that allows her to consistently stop and make wise decisions regarding her life's course. She chose to conceive a child before she was married. She felt her significant other was the mate for her life, so why not start a family now? As this pregnancy has played out, it has not been without difficulties, one of which was her realization that she wanted to be married to this child's father before the child left her womb. These were tenuous weeks, even months, with an impending engagement on and off the horizon. There were hurt feelings and arguments, and for a while I wondered whether or not the relationship was going south. I offered up my ring, hoping to both remove a financial impediment and see the ring I loved put to good use. Eventually the engagement happened, great sighs of relief were made, and steps were taken to get a license. On Tuesday they had an extremely small civil ceremony down on the bluffs above the ocean. It was a stunningly beautiful January day with only the two of them, me and the couple whose husband officiated in attendance. Once the engagement happened, they were both content with their fate. He now calls her his wife and me his mother-in-law. I am getting used to it. It does feel different than the role I felt I played in their lives before Tuesday. The level of connection is deeper, more permanent. I am trying to relax about it. After all, I don't have the most positive attitude about marriage at this point in time. I will try not to be a pessimist about my daughter's union. She and Kyle have to let it play out and do what they can to make it work. I try to sit back and breathe through my nose. It is done now. They are a family. The upside is that I have more of a feeling that I can now move forward with my own life. More on that later......