In all honesty, having dodged more than one bullet...

2010-01-28T04:55:55.510-08:00

In all honesty, having dodged more than one bullet prior to getting married, I can say from experence & observation that most people who are having children out of wedlock are not just making some arbitrary decision to live together and start a family without getting married. More often than not, as much as the people involved may care about one another, many of these children are products of "OOSM's," which stands for "Oops - OH Sh%T Moments."

This does not make them bad people, and surely the child didn't ask to be conceived, but like the old saying goes, "you can't un-ring the bell." Now, many people in these positions actually do care for one another to the point where they do go on and "jump the broom." Some just keep it moving together as a family, and others eventually fall apart under the pressures of parenthood.

Again, this doesn't make them bad people. This only goes to show that as time progressed, they grew apart as individuals - something that was probably bound to happen anyway; however, because of the child involved they are inextricably linked to one another for a MINIMUM of 18 years.

People need to begin realizing that how you feel today might not be how you feel tomorrow or next year. People need to take this into consideration instead of assuming that the attraction and infatuation they have with one another will last for ever ALL ON ITS OWN.

I'm married and I still wear condoms. I choose to wear condoms because I don't want my wife taking drugs to "play tricks" on her body. I tell people all of the time; although it might feel like it at times - both literally & figuratively, that ring on your finger is not a birth control device.

In the end, love is love and all that good stuff, but people must begin being more responsible - especially when it comes to taking their individual and collective futures into consideration because it's cool if things are such that they can walk away from one another if things go south, but with a child involved, he or she is ultimately the one who will suffer the most.

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In all honesty, having dodged more than one bullet...