Its ALL a Choice...

There is quite the flap on the Interwebs right now about Michelle Duggar.  She is pregnant with her 20th (!!!!!) child and everyone is losing their damn minds.  She shouldn't have another baby!  She is denying her children a childhood because they are always taking care of her babies!!  She is awful AND she homeschools and she is a fundamentalist Christian (GASP!)!!!

Whatever...

She made a choice.  She is choosing to be the mother that she is.  She is choosing to use her body in that way.  She believes that God wants her to have all these kids...and nothing that we (or anybody) says is going to change her mind.  I would not choose that life.  You may not choose that life.  But it is her choice, because its her body.  The same can be said about abortion.  Again, I would not make that choice (and I am glad that I never had to make that choice) but I am not going to stand in the way of someone who wants to (and probably needs to) make that choice, because its not my body...its theirs.

There is alot of scary, scary stuff going around about women's health issues right now.  Some people seem to think that they can legislate what we can or can't do with our bodies, just because we are women.  They are mostly doing this to make abortion illegal but all of it hampers us as women.  It throws us back to a time where the men we married were "in charge" of us and we had to do what they wanted...and that could include having another baby even when we didn't want to because the men controlled the finances and we couldn't go and get contraception without them knowing.  Women now have the choice of staying home, or working.  Women now have the choice of breastfeeding or bottlefeeding.  Women have the choice of becoming pregnant or not.  We have the freedom of choice and that should never be taken away.

We also have the freedom of choice in our lives, too.  I choose to be the mother that I am (stressed out as that may be).  Other moms do not choose to do what I do...they make other decisions that I would never make...and that is ok because that is their choice.  After this last round of knee-crap I could've chosen to stay home and eat and gain more weight.  I chose instead (with the help of my sister/friends) to get back up and keep working out.  I have not chosen to give up chocolate (!!) but I have given up drinking once a night.  I need to make healthier choices, and I am slowly doing just that.  Because this is my body and its my choice.

You may think that your circumstances are such that you have no choice but in reality all the choices that you ever made got you where you are right now...all of them, the good, the bad, and the ugly.  Your life, when laid out before you, is a set of all the choices you have ever made.  The kids that you were friends with in school.  The homework that you did or didn't do.  Standing up to bullies or fights you had with parents or friends.  It may be a little sobering, but it all makes you who you are.  It makes me who I am...all the Lessons Learned, Mischief Managed, and what's done is done and can't be undone.  And I do not regret them.  My choices got me to live in a great state (commonwealth), date a guy that I am still in love with, and have 3 amazing kids (no more, no less).  I have met many wonderful people because of the choices I made...all of us have.  There is great freedom in choice and everyone, from Michelle Duggar to a nameless woman who just got assaulted, should have it.  NO ONE should feel that they are stuck with no choices.

Freedom of Choice...is what you got...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVGINIsLnqU

Choose Wisely,
DM