We further declare that God has commanded that the sacred powers of procreation are to be employed only between man and woman, lawfully wedded as husband and wife.and
Children are entitled to birth within the bonds of matrimony, and to be reared by a father and a mother who honor marital vows with complete fidelity.These are things that my parents taught us since we were little. I know many other families teach similar things to their children. Sometimes kids listen and sometimes they don't. I did, my sister didn't.
Right now my sister is pregnant. She is not married and right now there is no chance of her marrying the father of her baby because he is married to someone else. It doesn't matter that he was separated from his wife when he helped my sister sneak out of the house in the middle of the night to go and live with him. After getting her pregnant he decided that he still loved his wife and wanted to get back together with her and basically told my sister to take a hike. What a charming guy, huh?
Right now I am all kinds of torn up inside. I am mad at my sister. I am mad that she has betrayed us. I am mad that she is using my parents. I am upset because she seems to think that this is all okay and she doesn't see anything wrong with living with a married man and getting pregnant by him. I love my sister, she is family after all. I want to help her though this because I know pregnancy can be really hard. I don't want my sister to think that I think this is in anyway okay, though. It would be a difficult situation at best, but you also add to the fact that my sister has a mental disorder and she cannot take her medication while she is pregnant.
If I lived far away this would be a mute issue. I would let her and my parents and whoever deal with it and I wouldn't have to hardly see or talk to my sister. That isn't the case, though. She lives with my parents, who live about 25 minutes from me. It's the holiday season and we are getting together fairly often, and right now she is staying with me. My parents are having some remodeling done on their house so my sister is staying at mine for a week or maybe longer. I get to see my sister every day. She eats meals with us. She reads with us when we have family scripture time and family prayers. My kids beg her to read them stories and after bed times she and I chat until it's time for me to go to sleep. I know this can all be a wonderful opportunity to bond with my sister, but it's also stressing me out. I don't like confrontations and I am not comfortable when she starts talking about the baby. I think that baby deserves something a lot better than being raised by my sister. She is also in contact with the father's family quite often. She will quite frequently refer to them as her family also. She calls his mother "Mom" and tried to tell my children that his niece was her niece. I did correct that one, but maybe not in the nicest way. It just galls me. I don't want things to be uncomfortable since she will be here for a while, but I don't want her teaching my children that it's okay to have a baby and not be married, in fact, not have anything to do with the baby's father. I am trying to teach my children the values I was raised with. At the same time, I want to teach my children to love people, even if you don't love their actions. We believe that we are all sons and daughters of God and therefore all brothers and sisters. I don't want to confront my sister but I don't think I can go on and just change the subject whenever she brings something up that is uncomfortable. I am just so unprepared to handle this.
I know my children will learn more from my actions than from things I say so I want to teach them right. I want to teach them to stand up for their beliefs, and teach them to respect that others may believe differently. I want to teach them to be good parents, and that means thinking about your children more than yourself. I want to teach them that being a parent is a wonderful thing, but it's not something to get into on a whim, it's also a very challenging job. I don't want to teach them to run from, hide from, or avoid all confrontation (which is what I like to do). It's not good to go out seeking an argument or fight, but some things need to be stood up for and that may mean standing up to someone. Maybe I'm just too nice.
