Teen Pregnancy

Dear Victorious,

Our teen-aged daughter is pregnant. As you can imagine, we are distraught. She is only 16 and has her whole life ahead of her. The baby's father is not involved. To make matters worse, we aren't even sure who the baby's father is. Our daughter says "it doesn't matter" and she isn't interested in knowing who the baby's father is. She of course wants to keep the baby and insists that she's ready to be a good mother.

We have searched the Bible and just don't know what to do as Christian parents. This is a case where we're wondering what Jesus would do. Can you tell us?

Anthony C. - Yonkers, NY

Dear Anthony,

Based on what I know of Jesus' nature and character, my guess is that He would start with forgiveness. Your daughter needs to be forgiven.

Her sin has been committed. She is now dealing with the consequences of that sin. Yes, she made a bad choice, and now she's going to pay for that. Others will likely suffer from that bad choice as well. The baby's father, his family, the baby, your family and of course your daughter. Everyone will pay for this poor choice in one way or another.

So a lot of forgiveness is going to be needed. That means you separate your daughter from the sin "as far as the east is from the west." You never bring it up again.

The next thing I suspect Jesus would do is help your daughter grasp her responsibilities in the situation. You and your wife need to sit down and decide what you are willing to do ... and what you are not willing to do. Then you need to meet with your daughter an walk through these responsibilities and what you are willing to do to help her with them. As part of that conversation, you should also help her examine what else is needed and what can be done to resolve it.

Certainly you are disappointed. But she is still your daughter. Lead with a firm hand. Set firm boundaries. Don't enable her bad behavior or disproportionately allow her to escape the consequences of her poor choices.

Finally, you need to be firmly grounded in God's Word. Look at how God deals with His children (you and me) regarding our poor choices. Specifically, He delivers us from the guilt and shame with absolute forgiveness. In some situations, He lessens the severity of how we experience the consequences. But He does not ever remove the consequences entirely or protect us from them. Rather He insists that we step up and be responsible for our own choices and their natural consequences. You should do the same with your daughter.