Time and time again, I have shed tears at that Talian Nur’s song. It is a beautiful song, always bring tears to the eyes. Yet, after each time I watch it on TV, I feel the anger rising in me.
I am not angry with the mothers who dumped their usually deceased babies. I am angry with how clueless the adults and the politicians are.
Yet, I cannot find the right way to say it because it touches on other’s religion. And they are super-sensitive and easily melatah, blinded and unreasonable.
Then again, I cannot just sit still and not say anything at all because it seems more and more rampant nowadays. The women affairs minister seem to have a lot of time to apply barrels of cement coating make-up for herself. Yet, after so many decades she still can’t tell us why newborns, sometime dead, some still alive babies are left in newspapers, bitten by ants and covered with dirt.
Things have gotten so stupid. One Chief Minister suggested lowering the marriageable age. Another Chief Minister (in a sense) suggested killing the mother who dumped her baby.
Since I converted to Christianity, I notice I have this magnet, attracting girls with problems writing to me. That had happened many years already. We Catholics call it the gift of counselling.
These girls who are in trouble notice I am not judgmental like most older women like their moms or aunties. So, they write to me.
Several of them are unwed mothers. One claimed she is 14 years old. One said she is a Muslim. Usually, when they have Malay-like names, I am very cautious with my reply because I am not sure if it is one of those mails meant to bait me. You know…if we wrongly preached God to the wrong person, we can be hauled up. In my faith blog, I have people asking ‘I am a Muslim and I want to know about your Jesus.’ My first action is to delete off because it is a grave matter.
So, back to these pregnant girls. My first advice is always, ‘Talk to your parents, no matter how you think they are not loving you, going to slap you, wateva, they are your parents and will be the best person to guide you.’
I am a Catholic. Abortion is a sin to us. But as a mother to a premature baby who was born only 1.45kg, I will never allow any women to abort their babies because babies have lives. Even tiny ones like my Vincent. Even those with birth disorders because they have lives too. So, I will send them BabyCentre website which has very good description of how big their baby is. Usually these girls only found out when they are about 12 to 16 weeks pregnant.
My reason is ‘the most you have to give up is a year, i.e. the time they need to hide their pregnancy to birth’. I told them it will avoid risks and also a huge scar and guilt for the rest of their lives.
So, why do these girls get pregnant? Do you think they are just being horny? That’s what our supposedly wise ministers and chief ministers think. Usually, these girls got into trouble in their quest for love. We are now living in a less loving world. Parents have to work hard to make ends meet. Mothers don’t spend time with their daughter enough to guide them.
And the boys? Again, parents do not spend enough time to instill moral values into them. They live a callous life with little feelings. They just don’t care what tomorrow is.
Now, the religion bit. We know which religion has the most baby dumping. Why? Because it is a great sin to have sex out of wedlock. It is punishable by the Almighty. Now, we have humans politicians who want to mete out capital punishments on this earth as well. Can you imagine the kind of pressure these girls feel? Can we blame them for panicking and throwing away a baby? They are also risking their lives giving birth without medical attention. I wonder how many have bled to death, but went unreported? How many had their wombs forever scarred, not able to have anymore babies in future?
Come on lah, stop being so judgmental. We need to teach our youngs the proper value, the consequences and provide them a place to fall back on. We have to stop this stupid ad where they are term as inhuman, beast and other stigmas.
It is only when we can afford to give our children a proper home, loving environment that we are qualified to talk about punishing them.
What an amazing classic 5xmom post.
IMHO the best way to prevent pregnant girls from dumping their babies or seeking abortions is to provide not only counselling but also material support like prenatal care and help them to find an orphanage or connect with adopters. For the really desperate ones who are at risk to be beaten up or killed by their parents, shelters where they can stay during the pregnancy can help.
I don’t know if there are NGOs in Malaysia that provide such services but my mum volunteered with one such when we stayed in the USA. The girls were also encouraged to bring their boyfriends to the prenatal classes so the boys would learn to be more responsible too. But in our country, I think services like that would have to be run very discreetly otherwise the organisation would be accused of promoting teenage sex or some such ridiculous thing by politicians who can’t tell the difference between promoting a problem vs trying to mitigate an existing problem.
The schools need to play a bigger part in dealing with teenage mothers. When I was studying in MGS Melaka we had one Christian teacher who was sort of the unofficial guru kaunseling for the non-Muslim girls who told us she had helped a number of pregnant students. Apparently, a lot of girls don’t develop big bellies and can hide it by loosening their pinafores a bit but she learned how to spot them and would quietly ask if they needed help. Teachers like that are worth their weight in gold.
Sorry to double post but I just watched the video and I’m angry too. Asking how can a person treat a baby like sampah? Cos her boyfriend, her family, and all of society has already treated her like sampah.
Since you’re Christian and so am I…I once read an essay that pointed out that the virgin Mary was an unmarried pregnant teenager. Even her fiance wanted to dump her until God told him not to, and she had to leave her kampung and stay with her cousin. It must have been a tremendous relief when Elizabeth welcomed her happily.
Hwa – That’s a refreshing thought, never seen Mary in that light before. I believe in our conservative and too ‘punishing’ society, these girls really are desperate and resorted to baby-dumping as there is really no way out for them. Not that I condone what they did but the fault lies in us too.
sy – *grins*
To all babies of the world born and unborn, I wish you the beauty of silence, the glory of sunlight, the mystery of darkness, the power of water, the sweetness of air, the quiet strength of the earth, the love that lies at the very root of things. Most of all I wish you the wonder of living.
Note to self: Never grow a wishbone where your backbone ought to be.
I was adopted and i thank God that He gave me to a loving couple who brought be up as their own. There are homes for unwed mothers, maybe those poor girls didn’t know about them, and thus were panic stricken they found out they were with child. Surely there will be people like myself wanting to adopt these babies. Now we see all kinds of “solutions” proposed. ..this is what you get from legalistic people..without compassion and mercy… so called leaders…may God have mercy on our nation!
The human is creature most precious. Because with them all of living of creature could be synergy. But the human can to be dangerous creature. Because of their greed, they could be murder each other and destroy all of the world.
So be careful with your lust. It could make you to be the creature most precious or to be the creature most poorly.
I think this is more of the society needing to change rather than religion. In both Islam and Christianity, it is a sin to have a child out of wedlock (I’m an RC, btw). But what makes us more forgiving and understanding? It’s not just our Lord’s command to forgive, but we also bring in a more realistic expectation that humans do mistakes. The community that our church is in is more emphatizing, so our hearts are more open to the plights of these young women.
I’m just questioning myself though — why dump these babies? Why not put up for adoption? Is our adoption policies so strict or so downgrading that these young mothers cannot face the fact but to dump the little angels?? Because if they’d rather get rid of the babies that way instead of putting up for adoption, something must be very wrong in the system…
Haiyo, my heart is so heavy for these people….
Lorna recently posted..Bubbly baby laughters
firstly, we need to introduce the Sex Educations to the young children tru education syllabus.
I’m not sure if sex education per se will help alleviate the issue. I believe we should be teaching social sciences, not just in the aspects of moral and sex, but also educate them in other areas of life, such as where and how to seek help, the need for counseling, identifying social issues like how to deal with divorces, stress, family and peer pressures, self-esteem, and so forth.
I empathize with our children who have to needlessly face the pressures us adults bear upon them, whether we realize it or not. The demands we have on material wealth has obscured our responsibility on our emotional and mental health, and we are suppose to be the example for our children to follow?
Lorna recently posted..I’m not sure what to say when they ask- part 2