Letters to the Editor
-
I'm inclined to agree with the "maternity leave"...
I don't want to "encourage" teen pregnancy, but expecting the girls back in school the day after they are released from the hospital is ridiculous. Especially since hospitals don't keep you that long after you've had a baby nowadays.
Yeah, three or four days after becoming a mother, your hormones are going crazy, and your milk is coming in...yep, that's exactly when you need to be sitting on your stitches on a wooden lecture hall chair seven hours a day, because you are SOOOO going to be able to pay attention to algebra.
And what of the girls who had C-sections? I thought the recovery time for those was six weeks or something thereabouts.
"But they should think about the consequences before opening their legs..." Of course they should. But this is the wrong way to "punish" them. Kids get hurt in stupid-ass car accidents all the time, and they are allowed medical leave to recover from their injuries. They get to do the work from home.
Let the girls do the work from home if they want. Encouraging them to complete their educations is going to make their lives better, their babies' lives better (why should we punish a little baby for his parents' being too young?), and overall, it will be less costly to society in the long run.