Real Life Makes for a Painful Movie

I thought I was in a bad comedy this morning by the creators of Scary Movie (3 and onward), Epic Movie, Date Movie, Meet the Spartans, Superhero Movie, etc., (yes, worse than those), when, on my way to work, I was passed, in succession, by two young black women, unrelated to each other, who were both pregnant. It's not that two is a lot, it's just that they were walking not more than 15 feet apart from each other in the same direction, and came off of the same bus. I was walking in the opposite direction. It was as if someone had just made a throwaway comment in one of those movies and this was the related descriptive scene.

I work in a poor neighborhood, which in some twisted way, makes me feel good, because though the neighborhood is black, there is not a high incidence of crime. Certainly there's plenty of niggerish behavior, but fortunately, it hasn't (largely) degenerated (yet) into violence and theft. But what I hadn't thought about before, is the high incidence of teenage pregnancy. These women were no more than 18, probably right at 18, and likely 16 or 17. I call them women because once you bear a child, unfortunately you can be a child no more. But make no mistake, in terms of age and mental maturity (if not innocence), these were children; teenagers.

I realized I had no idea how high the incidence of teenage pregnacy was in the black community - my community. Sure, I've read the statistics, but numbers on a page are not the same as living something day to day, and day to day, I see many pregnant mothers, as well as mothers with born children, and in many cases, mothers with both. For some reason it never dawned on me until this morning (which I know makes me an idiot), but this is a huge problem. Let me correct myself - I knew this was a huge problem. Several years ago I even began the process of creating a photoessay that deals with this issue (among many others in the black community). However, what I mean to say is, I had never experienced the problem on a daily basis like this.

Now, frankly, it's the mothers who really experience this, and I'm not trying to make their hardships and experiences about me. But what I mean is, I've never been around it to this degree, and it is troubling.

It has me thinking, again...