Annie's Baby

by Beatrice Sparks

“I guess maybe I can’t say it.”

  “I think you can.”

  “Well after the first party he took me to…he. he tried to rape me.”

  “And?”

  “Something deep inside told me then that I shouldn’t go with him any more, but that was impossible.”

  “Impossible?”

  “Yes! Impossible!”

  “Ummmmmm.”

  “Well, maybe not literally impossible, but. honestly…emotionally impossible! I was so…whatever…by then, I would gladly have died for him.”

  (Dr. B. starts talking very slowly. So slowly in fact, that I could transcribe with very little trouble.)

  “I want you to stop for a minute and relax. Close your eyes and see yourself lying on a blanket with Newley, on the green lawn, under a huge oak tree. The sky is blue with just a straggle of lazy white clouds floating to your right. You feel as light and wispy and carefree as they look. Far off, you can hear birds singing, bees buzzing lazily, and a little brook meandering slowly over some rocks. You can smell wild roses and feel sunbeams squishing their way through the softly, slowly blowing leaves to rest lightly and warmly on your cheek. Newley moves slightly and rests one paw on your stomach. Life is cool and serenely relaxed, beautiful, and well worth living.

  “Before you open your eyes, start slowly thinking about what you MIGHT have done after that first experience. Remain relaxed and in charge of your mental processes.”

  “I guess I could have…should have talked to someone, but that would have been tough because Mom didn’t want me to date till I was sixteen, and I was only fourteen, and…all my friends were fourteen, too, and dumb as I. I’m thinking now how dumb and lucky and innocent and uncluttered and irresponsible their lives still probably are.”

  “What do you think your mom would have done if you had talked to her?”

  “She’d have lectured and preached and warned and grounded me for forever…and who knows what else.”

  “Oh.”

  “Actually she’s not that way at all. I’m just being paranoid because, I guess, I still don’t want to fully accept responsibility for my actions. I know as well as I’m sitting here that I should have talked with her instead of…”

  (Very long pause.)

  “Instead of what?”

  “Making a complete jackass fool of myself by…wanting him to be my boyfriend so much, I tried to take all the blame for his actions on myself! I felt I’d do anything, ANYTHING to get him back, and I dumbly did.

  “I didn’t care that he treated me disrespectfully and cruelly, physically, mentally, emotionally, and…you know. It was like my brains had been turned off, and my hormones had been turned only I can’t…I simply can’t believe I did the things I did.”

  (I started crying like a dam inside me had broken.)

  “It’s okay sweetie, sometimes people, especially young people, don’t realize that the urge to procreate can be one of the strongest drives on earth, that it is what keeps life continuing! However, important as it is, it must be controlled, like fire, atomic energy, etc.”

  “I’m learning that a little late.”

  “Did you think you loved.”

  “Danny.”

  “Did you honestly think that you loved Danny?”

  “I…loved him more than anything on earth.”

  “What is love?”

  “It’s…it’s…Is it when someone else is more important than you are?”

  “Does that seem…and feel…right to you?”

  “Well…not exactly somehow, but…”

  “I’m going to give you a little self-quiz about love; I give it to many of the people I work with. Read it when you’re alone and quiet. And we’ll talk about it later if you want to.”

  WHAT IS LOVE?

  Does the person I think I love:

  Make me feel happy?

  Make me feel important?

  Make me feel attractive?

  Make me feel kinder?

  Make me feel smarter?

  Make me nicer to myself and others?

  Make me feel valued?

  Make me feel comfortable with myself?

  Make me feel comfortable with others?

  Make me feel proud of what I am doing?

  Make me feel proud of who I am?

  Make me feel of benefit to him?

  Does the person I think I love:

  Try to control me?

  Think I am wrong if I don’t agree?

  Want everything his way?

  Make me feel ashamed?

  Make me feel embarrassed?

  Make me feel afraid?

  Make me feel insecure?

  Does the person I think I love HURT me:

  Physically?

  Mentally?

  Emotionally?

  Socially?

  Scholastically?

  With my friends?

  With my family?

  Would he AT ALL TIMES:

  Protect me?

  Cherish me?

  Encourage me?

  Build me?

  Does he ALWAYS:

  Bring out the best in me?

  Care deeply about my concerns?

  Put my needs on as high a priority as his own?

  Have faith in my abilities and suggestions?

  Stand up for me?

  ARE “TRUE, LASTING LOVE” AND “RESPECT” ONE?

  DOES HE TREAT ME WITH RESPECT?

  AFTER DINNER

  Dr. B.: “Do you want to talk, or would you rather watch TV for a while?”

  “I’ve got so many questions, they’re blowing around in my head like a cyclone.”

  “Quick then, let’s answer some of them.”

  “Well…I’d never really been with a boy before Danny. Oh, lots of us used to hang out together in the mall and at school and stuff, but…”

  (Long pause.)

  “But what? I told you in the car coming here that anything, positively anything that you talk with me about will always be absolutely, sacredly secret.”

  “I don’t want you to think I’m…”

  “I don’t!”

  “There is soooooooooooo much I’m mixed up about.”

  “Like?”

  “Is it all right for guys to…hit girls?”

  “Absolutely not! If a boy hits you, it shows he not only does not respect you, he does not respect himself!”

  “I…I hated it, but…I guess I thought every guy did it.”

  “Believe me, EVERY guy does not!”

  “But all the guys in our crowd…”

  “The old ‘EVERYBODY’S DOING IT’ is one of the world’s biggest fallacies. If everyone in your crowd is doing it, it may seem like everyone else is too, but that isn’t necessarily so. Kids who tag think ‘everyone does it’ kids who are brought up in abnormal homes think ABNORMALITY IS NORMAL! Kids who are into any kind of deviate behavior often honestly think it is much more rampant than it is.”

  “What…what about…”

  “About?”

  “Rough…”

  “Rough sex?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Anyone who inflicts pain upon another person is sadistic. You’re looking at me quickly—do you know what sadistic means?”

  “Sort of, but…”

  “Sadism means getting sexual pleasure from dominating, mistreating, or hurting someone else physically or otherwise.”

  “Danny said…”

  “What?”

  “I was so stupid and gullible and naive, I can’t believe I…”

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “No, but I wish I knew how come boys don’t have to take any responsibility for anything they do. It doesn’t seem fair or right or anything. Of all the girls I knew who went to our Unwed Mothers school, only one of them had any help, and that was because the girl’s father made the two guys pay for her two abortions. Probably both of them would have skipped or something if they’d thought they had to pay child support or whatever, for fo
rever.”

  “There are some interesting changes happening in our laws right now. California’s governor and the state’s prosecutor are stepping up enforcement of statutory rape laws against men who impregnate underage girls.”

  “You said men, and I guess it is usually older guys, at least it was in our UWM school. I think there were only a couple of us who had boyfriends about our own age; actually, even Danny was two years older than me.”

  “A study in the American Journal of Public Health states that two thirds of the babies born to teenage mothers in California were fathered by adult men who were, on average, four to six years older than the girls. The article also stated that U.S. teenagers give birth to more than a million babies every year, and that the younger the mother, the greater the age gap. Girls in high school had babies with men who were on average 4.2 years older, while junior high girls bore children by men on average 6.7 years older.”

  “That’s scary, and it seems like nobody (sniff, sniff), including me, is ever thinking about a little, unguilty child when they’re…doing it.”

  “Maybe they should, and maybe if all males knew they were going to have to take their share of the responsibility in a pregnancy, by being either a ‘child-rearer’ or a ‘time-doer,’ they might take sexual accountability more seriously.”

  “I don’t think anyone in Danny’s and my crowd thought anything about consequences, at least it certainly wasn’t number one in our minds.”

  “And it’s about time serious thought is given to the subject, isn’t it? In California alone the state and federal taxpayers spend $7 billion annually for welfare and health care benefits for families started by TEENS.”

  “To say nothing about all the poor little innocent, mostly unwanted babies that…Do you think it’s true that all babies born to teenagers are ‘at risk’?”

  “Probably most of them are.”

  “I didn’t want to believe that.”

  “Think about it—how many of you young girls would know if your baby had an earache, if she was teething, if she had an upset stomach, if she was getting enough to eat, if her formula or breast milk was agreeing with her, if she was warm enough or cool enough, what to do about rashes or runny noses or mucus around her eyes, or diarrhea, or dehydration? More babies in the world die of dehydration than of any other one thing.”

  “I DON’T WANT TO HEAR ANY MORE!…but I do, too; I should; I’ve got to.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Well, the National Centers for Disease Control data inform us that the out-of-wedlock birth rate has doubled in the past few years. That the national average is more than 31 percent. The highest rate is in Washington, D.C., where 67 percent of births are out of wedlock. Mississippi, Louisiana, and New Mexico follow with 44.4 percent.”

  “What is the answer?”

  “A whole collection of values!”

  “What about protection?”

  “I’m sure you are aware that while condoms are touted as being the answer, THEY DO NOT guarantee anyone 100 percent protection. They do give some protection, and if people are going to be sexually active, they certainly should wear them, as well as using spermicidal jelly, which still does not present a 100 percent safety net 100 percent of the time.”

  “What about those little thingies they put in a girl’s arm?”

  “If a girl is going to be sexually active, she should, from the beginning, consider the possibility of bringing an unwanted child into a hostile environment, and seriously consider Depo-Provera shots, which last for about three months, or Norplant, a small implant in her upper arm, so simple that it can be inserted by a nurse through an incision so small it can hardly be seen.”

  “How long will a Norplant keep a girl sterile?”

  “Up to five years.”

  “Someone told me they were dangerous, that they could make you not able to have children even when you got old enough to maybe really want them.”

  “That is not true.”

  “I know that I’ve learned my lesson the hard way, and I’m going to stay celibate.”

  “Just so you won’t get pregnant?”

  “No…because it’s right for me! It’s part of my value system. Always has been, but I’ve heard that once you’ve been sexually active, you can’t stop. I don’t think I believe that.”

  “I definitely don’t.”

  “That makes me happy. I suspect I’ve heard a lot of untrue garbage in the last few months, stuff I’m going to dump far, far out of my life.”

  “Good for you. I’m proud of you! Proud that you’re my kin and proud that you’re my friend.”

  Newley poked one paw through the little crack in the door, pushed it open, came in, and curled up beside my chair with her head on my feet. We were family! A good, clean, honorable, virtuous family. I now have my head on straight and I AM GOING TO KEEP IT THAT WAY THROUGH ALL THE ETERNITIES OF THE ETERNITIES!

  September 16, Monday

  I know I said I was going to transcribe all Dr. B’s tapes, but I can’t. It’s too time-consuming, and besides you’re really me, so you know them anyway. Guess we’ll just have to go on from here, except I want to tell you one more thing Dr. B and I talked about that I think is an awesomely needed concept.

  Some schools have a “Baby Think-It-Over Doll” that they pass around to their kids over weekends. It’s made of soft, plasticized rubber and looks and sounds like a real six-pound infant.

  When kids first see it, even the boys want to play with it. It’s cute and cuddly, but it’s computerized to cry when it dislikes its position, needs feeding or tending, wants to sleep, or has been handled too roughly. And it electronically records whether its “parent” has responded, or has, even by shaking or dropping it, committed child abuse.

  At first, most students are enthusiastic about their new charge. But both boys and girls, after repeatedly getting up in the middle of the night to quiet cries that come in intervals stretching from fifteen minutes to six hours, get the message pretty soon that babies are a lot of work.

  Often students deemed at high risk of pregnancy, those with low self-esteem and poor academic performance, are given cranky dolls that cry from every fifteen minutes to an hour and a half. It can take up to twenty minutes to stop the nerve-wracking wailing. One girl said she wanted to throw it out the window. And boys admitted they’d wanted to dump it in a closet, so they could get some sleep, or really scary thoughts ran through their minds, like putting it in a plastic bag or smashing it. Sleep deprivation was the kids’ biggest complaint, and they didn’t even have the diaper-changing and the bathing and washing and drying and folding clothes and cleaning and feeding, and on and on forever, day and night things.

  I wish I’d had the program because I had NO IDEA until…but there’s nothing we can do about that now, especially since L’il Annie started crying this very moment, and I’m soooooooooooo tired, I want the sound to go away…I want her to go away. Far, far, forever away—but not really—I guess.

  1:16 a.m.

  I finally got L’il Annie to sleep. Mom came in and helped me rock her, walk the floor with her, give her some warm water in a bottle, pat her belly, rub her back, and everything else we could think of, or that the baby book suggested.

  I’ve still got lessons to do that I thought I’d get up early and do in the morning, but it’s morning now and I haven’t yet gone to sleep. Actually, now I’m so sleepy, I can’t go to sleep. But I guess I can. I better try anyway.

  5:26 p.m.

  L’il Annie was cross all day in school, and everybody was mad at me. She woke up the other three babies in the nursery room and eardrum-pierced all eight of the other students. Finally even the teacher couldn’t stand it any longer. Actually she tried to use L’il Annie’s crying as an object lesson to the whole class—and explained gently, over the bedlam (because the other babies were by then crying), that this is what babies do. That one of the toughest things about babies is that there really
are no blanket solutions to crying, etc. That sometimes no matter what you do, you can’t fix the problem, a fact that is triplely frustrating to teenagers. Then she suggested maybe I should take L’il Annie home.

  Using my baby as the example was a completely humiliating experience! Who would ever have dreamed that conformist, good-grade me would ever get kicked out of school because my baby cried.

  I was feeling pretty negative and defeated until about halfway home when L’il Annie’s tense, tiny body relaxed, and she curled up in my arms and, making precious little sounds, went to sleep looking and feeling like a soft, warm, sweet-smelling angel. I gently touched the skin on her hand and face and again marveled that it was like no other soft substance on earth.

  I’m amazed that sometimes I can feel such wondrous devotion to this innocent little part of my body and soul, and that other times…I…I…I’ve never hated her; I just resent the time and effort and everything she takes. I guess I’m just having trouble coexisting with my mixed, childish, dumb feelings right?

  October 1, Tuesday

  9:10 p.m.

  I know I haven’t written you for a couple of weeks, but not only is L’il Annie sick, I think I am too. I’m having diarrhea and throwing up a lot. I don’t want Mom to know because we’ve got enough to worry about with L’il Annie. She’s got a fever that even the antibiotics don’t seem to help. I’m worried, worried, worried about her and feel so responsible for her being this way that I can’t get much down my throat, and when I do get something down, it comes right up—or out—in just a few minutes.

  A home teacher is coming twice a week, but I don’t feel like studying. In fact, I honestly can’t comprehend why I was so dead set on graduating high school at seventeen. That seems pointless now; in fact, everything’s of no consequence, except Annie. I’m afraid to be out of her sight, afraid to sleep, even afraid of taking long showers. What if something happened to her?

  I haven’t been out of the apartment for the two weeks that L’il Annie has been sick, except the times we took her to the doctor, and I’ve lost so much weight that I have to put a big safety pin in the back of my pants and wear my shirts outside. Mom is so busy, she hasn’t noticed except to tell me I look pale.