I wasn’t prepared for what Catherine was about to tell me.
“I’m going to try to get pregnant next week,” she blurted out without any context.
Catherine just turned 19 years old. She still lives at home with a controlling mother. Her father killed himself when she was young. She doesn’t yet know how to drive and has to beg for rides to and from a menial job. She’s never had any romantic relationships, but she’s recently started slipping away from home to meet men for sex.
Just last week, she told me about how one such man — who she met online — picked her up and took her to a camper about an hour away from her. (She told her mother she was at a friend’s house.) They had sex for a couple of days, then he abruptly brought her back home — and then he disappeared from her life.
Now, she’s met another man online and she plans to meet him Sunday night. She’s never seen him in real life, but she’s planning to make sure he gets her pregnant. And she looked shocked when I told her that this plan was stupid and selfish.

Why is real love so hard to find? Look into a mirror for the culprit
Let’s quit trying to force others to choose our shopping preferences
Not happy with your life? Change your narrative, change your life
Becoming who we’re meant to be is the hardest battle of our lives
Goodbye, Bessie (2008-2018)
How miserable does someone have to be to ‘troll’ a cute dog picture?
Left’s refusal to criticize Obama because he’s black is simply racist
‘What’s the worth of one warm smile? Go and ask the dead man’
Trusting Obama to create jobs is like trusting an arsonist to put out fires