–noun
1.
the painful feeling arising from the consciousness of something dishonorable, improper, ridiculous, etc., done byoneself or another: She was overcome with shame.
2.
susceptibility to this feeling: to be without shame.
3.
disgrace; ignominy: His actions brought shame upon his parents.
Shame. According to dictionary.com the above definitions are what describes Shame as a noun. But what does shame mean to me? It means basically the same thing. The feeling of something that is dishonorable and well damn right "shameful." A lot of kids I went to high school with had gotten pregnant. I know of at least 20; some of them being my best friends. However, the rest of the kids at school would ridicule them about getting pregnant. They would say that whoever gets pregnant should be ashamed of themselves. I didn't think that way. Nor do I still to this day. Just because someone gets pregnant out of wedlock or in high school/at a young age, doesn't mean that they should be ashamed of themselves. In fact, I kind of think the opposite. Getting pregnant in high school doesn't necessarily ruin your life. In fact, I think about 90% of the kids in high school are sexually active and only a handful of them end up in pregnancy. The fact that these teen parents (well most of them) step up and take control of it, is rather honorable and admirable. My friends who got knocked up took control of their lives. They grew up. They realized that they had sex and there were consequences to that act. I'm extremely sexual and I know there are consequences. But the fact of the matter is that even though they messed up and either didn't use protection or just got unlucky, they took control. They figured out what would be the best for their baby and did everything in their power to make things right and wonderful for their unborn children. I admire that. I don't think that is anything to ashamed of at all.
One thing I do think is shameful (and this is coming from past experience) is when those parents end up being trash. One of my best friends who got pregnant our senior year in high school had her child and was doing great. Her boyfriend at the time.. well he's another story. He was watching the baby girl while my friend was at work and the next thing we know is that my friend got a call from her boyfriend saying that there was something wrong with their girl. She rushed to the hospital only to find out that her daughter had died. Normally when infants die, one would think of SIDS, but this unfortunately was not the case. The father of my niece (not by blood but because I am basically family) had murdered his child. He had shaken her and thrown her at the wall. She didn't have a chance. Thankfully he is in jail and justice is kind of being served but an infant does not deserve that. That is what I think is shameful. It's been almost 4 years (this September will be 4) since it has happened and none of us are the same.
It's still hard for me to talk about this because I don't want it to be real. But the reality of the fact is that this little girl who holds so much love in so many hearts wasn't able to even begin to live. She didn't get to fight. She was a little innocent child and her father, of all people, decided to take that away. That is shameful and he should be ashamed of himself.
There are other things that I feel are shameful but this is the one that hits me the closest. It's the one that really sticks with me and that's probably because it happened to family. Dishonorable and disgraceful; that's what shame means to me.
[Sorry, I'm a bit late and that it's technically Monday here by me. But my grandma was in the hospital today and everything just started to settle down a little bit ago.]
Much love to all of you
xo
Stephanie
This was so heart-wrenching to read. It is so terrible she had to go through that. This was such a compelling post Steph. Wonderfully written.
ReplyDeleteThank you sweetie. It was actually really hard to write about it. But I got it out. <3
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