I was listening to the Diana Ross and Supremes version of Love Child and it got me thinking about the mind set that leads us to societally to be unforgiving of mistakes.  Actually, not just mistakes but various and sundry things that are day to day life that societally we feel the right to judge, persecute, and punish, endlessly.  In the song the daughter is suffering for her mother having had a teenage pregnancy.  Having been kicked out the house, struggling with no support of family or partner to take care of her daughter.  The daughter suffers the stigma of her mother having her too young and unmarried.  I just don’t understand.  I put myself into the parents role:  my daughter comes to me and tells me she is pregnant.  She scared, distraught, she doesn’t know what to do and I as a parent, who has held her, guided her, supported her, at that point when she needs me most, I kick her out and abandon her.  I don’t take her into my arms, help her see her options and support her through her decisions.  A mistake was made, an error in judgement.  She will need to live with whatever choice she makes.  Her punishment is the punishment of consequence.  I don’t see why societally it is okay to think that we have the right to dole out further punishment through abandonment, ostracism, stigmatizing, and verbal abuse.  As a parent we are expected to punish through abandonment.  I don’t get it, and that is only about a huge life altering mistake, I won’t even start about not being able to accept our children for who they are…