Tuesday, May 5, 2009

I’m Carrying Unwanted Pregnancy… Father Plans University Education


Dear Agatha,


I’m 19 years of age and pregnant for a man who has told me to keep the baby. But my problem is that my father wants me to have a university education. I’m the only child left out of his three children at home with him. My elder sister and brother are both married.

I am so confused.

Helpless Lady.


Dear Helpless Lady,

Your father’s intentions and dreams for you are commendable. This is because he knows that the best legacy a parent can bequeath to a child is a good education. With a sound education, the sky becomes a stepping-stone and not the limit.

As a woman, there is no emphasising the essence of getting a premium education because gone are the days when women depended on their husbands for everything. Your education empowers you to be who you want to be without putting all the pressures on the man.

It also gives you a broader perspective with which to manage your home as well as ensure all your children get properly educated. It gives you the economical strength to prepare for the unexpected.

This is the wish of your father for you and one any sensible child desirous of quality life should key into.

Like every loving parent, your father doesn’t want you to suffer needlessly or live a life below God’s standards for you. His desire is to offer you protection against the very vice you have fallen into. His desires for you come from his experiences in life; his deeper knowledge of the future of the world and how one who isn’t educationally and economically equipped for it would find it so difficult to survive.

But you are now pregnant which means you have to wait until after the birth of the baby to pursue your own dreams in life. The danger of your situation is not being able to achieve your father’s dream for you if your man is the type that has no vision for himself let alone offering you the needed encouragement to further your own dreams.

Though you are still young at 19, your current situation has made you more matured than your age. This is an indication that you must stop thinking in terms of a distant future to the reality of your situation.

Your pregnancy has removed you from the protection and responsibility of your father, it has placed you strictly under the responsibility of the man whose baby you are carrying.

You lost the right to worry about your father’s feelings and desires for you the moment you agreed to sleep and get pregnant for a man you are not married to. You have made your choice in life and that is thinking about the well-being of the child inside of you, how to ensure the child doesn’t suffer from care and lack.

So that you don’t end up with more regrets later in life, you must begin from this early beginning to put proper structure in place for your economic dependence. To be frank with you, there is no way your man, unless he is very comfortable, can look after you and your baby adequately without some help from you.

You can therefore plead with your father to help set you in business. Though far from the type of life he has envisaged for you, it would at least ensure you have some economical comfort in life.

Get your sister and brother to plead on your behalf for some economical settlement because at 19, your future is still far away and requires some levels of assistance to help you get it off the ground.

Towards this, you must first tell your father about your state. Don’t expect him to be joyous over what you have done. He would, out of anger and disappointment, say things or behave out of character, just keep pleading with him to forgive you. Yes, it may be your life but if you think deeply, your decisions also affect those around you.

He would be particularly disappointed because of his high dreams for you but if you learn to be patient and able to endure his condemnation, you will be able to persuade him after a while to help establish you financially.

His disappointment would be minimised if the man who is responsible for putting you in the family way shows sufficient commitment towards you and the baby. Encourage the man to do the right thing by coming to see your father with his people. It is not enough telling you to keep the baby he must do what is expected to give your family the confidence and peace of mind to keep relating with you in love, confidence and respect.

Beyond asking you to keep the baby what other plans has he discussed with you? What do you know about this man? Is he married or single and have you met his family?

Although these concerns are belated, but still not out of place so you know what you are up against. It would also help inform your family the quality of help to offer you. The truth is in your state, you are not in any position to bargain with him. Whether you like it or not, some day, his child would return to him so he is the one that needs to handled with care because the moment you decided to sleep with him and have unprotected sex, you put yourself on the vulnerable line. Your current shame is yours alone to carry, not his. The pride of a woman and power she has over any man is her moral value. Had you protected your values jealously, you won’t be going through these challenges.

Whatever happens, hold on to your dreams; don’t ever negotiate it away no matter the issues confronting you today. It is very essential a woman has a life of her own, it is the only way she can be happy in the choices she has made. In addition, trust God and have faith in His decisions for you.

Good luck.

Lonely Heart


Dear Agatha,

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Vin.