Déjà vu

I was reading an interesting article about Charlie Chaplin, about his life and loves, and no doubt his background had something to do with his behavior.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2597412/2-000-lovers-comedy-genius-didnt-like-women-New-book-reveals-Charlie-Chaplins-obsession-young-girls-cruelly-treated-them.html

Taking a particular section from the article,

One of these children was Charlie — born in April 1889 to a part-Romany music-hall singer called Hannah Chaplin. She’d already had one son out of wedlock and, although she was married to a successful music-hall artist called Charles Chaplin, it’s unlikely that he was Charlie’s real father. 

Whatever the truth, Chaplin senior gave the infant his name. But a year after the birth, he walked out — probably because he suspected Hannah of infidelity — leaving her and the boys to lead an impoverished existence.

Charlie later confessed that his mother had many subsequent affairs. It’s likely that, in times of extreme poverty, she also took to the streets. This was not unusual in working-class South London, where women drifted in and out of prostitution to save their families.

As Charlie once said: ‘To gauge the morals of our family by commonplace standards would be as erroneous as putting a thermometer in boiling water.’

So here I am today dealing with a similar situation in 2014. This girl has had a child in marriage, and the father has left him. Then the mother gets involved with an unsuitable man, whom she already has known intimately and suffered violence in his hands, and becomes pregnant, whilst temporarily abandoning her first son to her father. Now she has left this man, and is in limbo wanting to have an abortion, for which when I was asked for help, point blank refused and said she will have to see the baby to full term, and we will discuss what we do with the child afterwards.

She says he or she (the unborn baby)  will not have a father and therefore she must do this, to which I tell her, there are so many successful people in this world, who have been born out of wedlock and there is nothing really wrong in this day and age, as long as we can make some arrangements to ensure the child grows up in a loving and caring family. She has already had an abortion and in my book, after the second time it just becomes a means of birth control, like the pill, and therefore subject to repeated liaisons leading to this tragic outcome.

She has a few options, go back to her first born, bring him up with the second born, children of two fathers, but at least the mother will do what is needed to bring them up in a one parent household. Second would be to abandon her first born which her second liaison is pressing her to do, leaving him at the mercy of grandparents, who will always remind him he was abandoned by both his parents!!! And return to the abusive man to give the baby a child, only to have to leave him when she cannot tolerate the beatings anymore!   

The outcome she favors, and wants my approval for, is to abandon the first born, have an abortion, lie she has NO children and take flight abroad to a maid job in the Middle East, running away from her responsibilities, into a life of independence, or so she assumes, only to be taken advantage of by some foreigner who abandons her when pregnant, to continue a life of a loose woman, to make ends meet and survival, perhaps getting involved in drugs and destroying what is left of her life.

This seems a pattern followed by her mother who abandoned her at about the same age of her son who she is about to abandon.

I am unrelated with no vested interest, and can just wash my hands of the case, and tell her to do as she pleases, or do I get involved and inform her of the options available and the consequences of those options being taken, which I have, but to which she seems deaf at present.

The problem is I am not sure of what she says, namely between truth and fiction of her stories, as she is still in contact with her current partner who she maintains she has left, and which he maintains is just a visit to a relative and she will be back once she gets her ID number so she can attend the ante natal clinics provided for pregnant mothers in this country, which help them through this period!

These matters have existed throughout history and the ignorance of these mothers who continue to make the same mistake, despite being informed of the available options, boggles the mind. The irrational streak in humans defies gravity, logic and time. So shall we hope that we are fortunate in bringing a future Charlie Chaplin, warts and all or we think it better that that potential is snuffed out literally. These are hard choices people make every day; to some hard, to others, run of the mill.