Changes to the RTR Site

I was starting to feel tha the website was getting too cluttered, so I've done away with some of the pages (particularly the Welcome page) that few visited anyway. Instead, everyone is welcome to come in and read about my current "ramble." I love to talk, I'm an excellent gossip (I guess that depends on who you are), and I think far too many people sit back and keep their mouths shut in today's world. Sitting and ignoring an issue doesn't make it go away. I'm far happier witching about it and hoping that maybe one person might listen and take something away from the conversation.

Those who know me well generally know all about my neighbors. In a nutshell, they are the most predictable family known to man. There are certain things that the kids have done or said that signaled impending doom. When the daughter turned up pregnant this winter around six months after graduating, I can't say I was surprised. The daughter's motivationally-challenged boyfriend had been allowed to move into the house with them during the daughter's senior year. To me that was a sure signal that the daughter would start to lose any responsibility she had towards sex. My heart broke, however, when I soon learned that her almost 16 year old brother, a kid I tried to set on the right path from the time he was 8, was also entering impending fatherhood. Part of me feels bad that I gave up hope on him two years ago, maybe he might have been spared...he's never been a good student and now that he's about to become a dad, I honestly can't see him motivated to stay in school.

This has weighed heavily on my mind for most of the summer. The lack of protection used by both of these teens isn't a great thing. So now a family of five is about to become a family of seven, plus the on-again, off-again boyfriend/father of the daughter's baby. They all must fit into one tiny house that can't be more than 1100 square feet.

Then in the news this past week have been two tragic stories regarding women who had babies, killed them, and went on to have other babies. The woman in Maryland obviously hid her pregnancies well, but how can she put her body through the birthing process time and time again. You can go to any Planned Parenthood and get on the pill and then follow this with the use of condoms. I can think of many men and women who would have given both arms and a leg for these babies. Instead, they were tossed aside like last week's garbage. It horrifies me.

Today, I woke up and read the headlines. A woman out in California was having babies and dumping them in various locations. I don't get the mentality. How can you have a baby and just dump it? Again, has this woman heard of birth control? I'm sickened. I know there are those who say this is inhumane, but perhaps people who have been convicted of crimes this horrendous should undergo mandatory sterilization to prevent another innocent newborn from death.