My Grandmother's Room

A lacquer armoire holds her mother's wedding gown, old albums with faded black & white photos of her father, a child then
A window - sun light filtering through the leaves and branches of the apple tree outside
A bed with a musty wool mattress
She is reflected in an old mirror with a wooden border painted blue, now chipped - here and there
Coco Channel and lipstick on a lace doily on the old Singer sewing machine

The Legal Paradox of Emancipation

I just learned that if you are 14 (or 13 or 15 or ...) and have a child, you have the legal right to make health care decisions for your baby because you are considered an "emancipated" minor in the eyes of the law in many states. This is ever so deeply, not to mention painfully, confusing to me.

So essentially, the fact that you were immature and irresponsible enough to get pregnant at 14 in the first place not only promotes you to adult status but, actually entitles you to make salient decisions for a whole other human being? Am I missing something? One more time. A responsible teenager who has the good sense not to get pregnant is in the care of the their parents (i.e. not emancipated), but if they go on to make a poor and highly irresponsible decision and get knocked up they then not only become emancipated, but have decision making power over another life? So, in essence, our legal system is rewarding teenage irresponsibility and poor decision making with adult privileges. Bafflement.

I never want to think I didn't say "I love you" enough.