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By Jayne Schooler
When our beautiful twenty-one-year-old daughter came home from college on a spring Sunday afternoon in 1998, I thought it was her usual drop-in-and-do laundry visit. However, the real reason for her visit would propel us down a path of emotional turmoil, hurt, and confusion. We never thought we would travel this path, certainly not with her, and not at that point in our family's life. It wasn't supposed to be this way!
 After returning from church that evening, Kristy sat down at the kitchen table and tearfully asked me to join her. "Mom, there is no easy way to tell you this. I'm pregnant," she quietly said. "Eight weeks, I think." My husband, a pastor, wasn't home from church yet. He didn't know the news that awaited him.
What we experienced in the months that followed took us into unfamiliar territory. As we journeyed this uncertain path, we learned many valuable truths. One truth we observed from talking with scores of parents who walked this same path. That truth is that the parental response to the pregnancy is pivotal to a daughter or son's ability to make good decisions, decisions that will affect them for the rest of their lives.
Yet, some clients' parents, shackled with pain and hurt, find it difficult to offer positive and helpful support. What those parents need is to hear and feel that someone understands what they are going through. They need someone to connect empathetically with them.
PRC counselors who meet with the parents of a client have a key opportunity to offer that steadying hand. As counselors meet with parents facing this unexpected crisis, there are things the counselor needs to understand. Here are five things to keep in mind.
Emotions run to extremes.
The parents sitting across from you are experiencing many painful and confusing emotions.
As the initial shock of the news begins to wear off, innumerable painful emotions follow. They certainly did for us. When Kristy told us her news, we did not know how to navigate through our own emotions. What did we and other families feel?
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THE PARENTS
ARE EXPERIENCING
MANY PAINFUL
AND CONFUSING
EMOTIONS.
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Failure and guilt. We felt as though we had failed. We wondered what we had done or had failed to do that caused our daughter to make the decision she made, and we wondered what we should have done differently to help her. In the beginning, the what-if questions shadowed us.
Anger. For another couple, John and Catherine, the depth of their anger caught them off guard. "Rachel's unplanned pregnancy came as the result of a way of life we had known about and had been heartbroken over," John explained. "When she told us of the situation, I was overwhelmed. I didn't know I could experience such incredible anger."
Sadness and loss. Other families felt incredible loss. When pregnancy occurs in the life of a young woman, dreams her parents had for her wither away. Grief emerges from the losses parents experience and for the loss of the dream of what "should have been." It happens for parents of young men, as well.
They are in unfamiliar territory.
The parents who have come to you are usually journeying to a place they have never been. The parents may need support from you in order to respond in a redeeming and constructive way.
When faced with the overwhelming circumstances of their child's unplanned pregnancy, a parent's response is critical. Yes, anger, disappointment, and fear are normal and to be expected. But after the shock, the message that emerges over time will have long-term implications. Parents often fail to realize the important role they play. PRC counselors can gently remind them of that.
Tony, Amy's dad, walked his way through anger and loss. In a matter of several weeks, he realized that his daughter needed something else from her parents. "It was important for Amy to know that we still loved her. We told her that we wanted her to come home and we would work through this together."
Young men involved in an unplanned pregnancy need the same support. Josh's dad said, "As the reality set in for us, we realized just how much our son needed us to walk through this with him—not in anger, but with understanding. I learned that my son needed me to model what a godly and mature response looked like, and God enabled me to do that."
It is a crisis for the whole family.
Fathers and mothers may deal with this family crisis in totally different ways, potentially leaving one parent feeling alone and unsupported. You may be needed to help restore relationships.
A potentially serious tension that occasionally arises is the double bind felt by one parent, most often the mother. The mother often feels caught in the middle between a hurting, desperate daughter and a hurting, angry husband. She wants to love and nurture her hurting, frightened child while at the same time maneuver through the emotions and reactions of her husband. One woman commented at a support group meeting for young girls and their mothers, "I am taking care of my daughter through this. I am trying to manage my husband's anger and frustration. But who is going to take care of me and what I am feeling? I am feeling so torn and so alone."
Their principles will be challenged.
The family walking through your center door may be experiencing the ultimate test of their core values.
Some families, who had always been vocal about the value of life, find themselves wrestling with what to do with "the problem." Families will struggle as the core values for which they previously stood are challenged by the current reality of their lives.
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FATHERS AND
MOTHERS MAY DEAL
WITH THIS FAMILY
CRISIS IN TOTALLY
DIFFERENT WAYS.
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According to Miami Valley (Ohio) Women's Center executive director, Linda Schindler, when a young woman is ambivalent about her decision to abort or to carry the child to term, her parents tend to express their support of whatever decision she plans to make. However, when the young woman clearly chooses life, parental support, in some cases disappears. How could that be?
Linda explains, "What this pregnancy feels like to parents in the initial stages can be stated in one word, threat." What is threatened for parents? Their reputation, their way of life, their parenting skills, their plans for their own future, and their family system, as they have known it.
What do people usually do when threatened? They have a fight-or-flight response. Often, even in the minds of parents whose core values scream pro-life, abortion offers a way to erase the threat. They imagine that they could temporarily set aside their values and no one would know. Initially, abortion can look like an easy way out.
The four concerns discussed above, when addressed in ongoing conversations with families, can be key in their decision-making. And there is one more.
They have the gift of time.
As family members encounter this critical time, one additional message can be shared with them that may have a lifelong impact: They have the gift of time. Decisions don't have to be made today. Immediate actions don't need to be taken. Answers will come as they give God time.
The following questions can be used by PRC counselors in helping families deal with their own feelings and concerns:
How did you learn of your daughter's pregnancy?
How did you learn that your son was going to be a father?
How has this impacted your relationship with your daughter/son?
How has this impacted how you see yourself as a parent?
How has this impacted your relationship with your spouse and others close to your daughter/son?
What major issues are you struggling with?
What decisions need to be made now? Later?
What is your greatest concern about your daughter's/son's becoming a parent?
What do you need from us?
| Jayne Schooler is a conference speaker and the author of five books including Mom, Dad, I'm Pregnant: When Your Daughter or Son Faces an Unplanned Pregnancy (NavPress, 2004) from which this article was adapted. For more information, visit Schooler's web site: www.jayneschooler.com. E-mail: jayeschool@aol.com. |
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