It’s Not a Marriage of Convenience for Social Workers

Social service workers agonize more than most people. Part of that, I think, is that they’ve peeked through more blinds, looked into more closets than the rest of us. You and I see our neighbors’ houses from the outside; a social service worker makes house calls late at night.

So, while many people might look at a public agency-sanctioned marriage between a 20-year-old man and the 13-year-old girl he impregnated as an outrage, pure and simple, a social service worker might be more inclined to at least put the issue on the table. What appalls Rush Limbaugh does not necessarily appall the professional social service worker.

Karen Ursini is the parenting education coordinator for the Coalition for Children, Adolescents and Parents, a nonprofit agency supported by United Way. In her business, she can’t afford to pretend or wish that young teens don’t get pregnant from the company of irresponsible boys or young men.

She read the story Sunday about the recent marriage approved several weeks ago by the county’s Social Services Agency, in which the 20-year-old man wed the 13-year-old girl he impregnated. No doubt, the first impulse of many people would be to wonder why the man wasn’t in jail.

“I think it’s complicated,” Ursini said Tuesday in her office.

How so? I asked.

“Just the expectations that people and culture have of what it’s like to be a parent. To think that a 13-year-old could parent a child--when you look back over the centuries, they probably were doing that. People have parented that young, because that was the way their society was set up. So, when you see a couple that really wants to try it and there is really a commitment, I don’t know what it serves to lock up the father and take away the baby, or whatever.”

Don’t misunderstand; Ursini spends most of her professional life trying to keep young girls from getting pregnant. Much of her agency’s work involves sex education with children and parents, teaching young girls how to resist sexual overtures and asking questions about the sexual culture that our society has perpetuated.

“What we really need to do is get society to speak up against it [these kind of pregnancies],” she said. “What are we telling our young boys about sexuality, what message do we give them about having sex? Are we telling them not to do it, be responsible, or are we making it a big joke when they say, ‘I have two children, that I know of,’ and everybody laughs? When are we going to stop that?”

“The whole teen pregnancy issue is such a complicated thing,” she said. “When I first started in this, they were having babies because they didn’t know how not to. Now, I realize they’re having babies because it makes their life better, because it isn’t so good now. Maybe [a girl] isn’t being very successful in school. Maybe she’s not doing well, grade-wise, or social-wise. That’s where we often fail our girls, because we don’t uphold them at ages 12 and 13 and give them enough activities to be involved in. There are just a lot of families where girls are not getting what they need to keep away from this situation. We as a society need to build into these girls the outlook that they are worthy and can stand on their own.”

It’s virtually impossible for me to imagine a 13-year-old and a 20-year-old engaging in anything remotely resembling a marriage. While agreeing that “it’s not healthy” that people that age would marry, Ursini surprised me by saying she would give the union a fighting chance of succeeding.

“I’m sure it’s less than 50-50, but maybe 50%,” Ursini said. “The whole key is what the young man is like.” Typically, she said, a girl will stay married for the child’s sake if she is treated well by the baby’s father. Also typically, the father splits the scene.

In the case that sparked the newspaper story Sunday, however, the young man expressed interest in staying married and being a good father.

I wonder how many people gnashed their teeth upon reading that.

I know I did.

All right, I asked Ursini, what can you say to the teeth-gnashers?

“Well,” she said, “let’s take better care of our 13-year-old girls and make sure they’re all doing well, being loved by their families and given opportunities to develop who they are. Let’s do a better job out there.”

But surely, I said, you can’t be encouraged when you read a story like that.

“It still depresses me,” she said. “That’s why I’m in this field--to prevent it.”

Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by writing to him at the Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or calling (714) 966-7821.