They said ‘Fair play’, but they meant ‘Thank goodness she’s not my daughter’

House guests are more frequent now that we live in the countryside and summer is threatening to crack into life. Everywhere there are signs of the great bloom that is coming. The trees are heavy with leaves again. The grass has the look of a prepubescent boy who doesn’t know he’s in need of a haircut. Dizzy, the pony that lives in the field behind our house, has taken to scratching his toffee-hued bottom on the tree by our fence and rolling ecstatically on the dried grass, his prim little stick legs akimbo and bent at his knobbly, horsey knees.

This weekend’s guests are good friends who are relatively recently married. She is eight months pregnant. He is caring, alert, interested and kind. He also seems, like the rest of us, a touch baffled. Pregnancy, although a fundamentally natural part of life, is strange. We all know the process, but watching it happen is still quite shocking, and fascinating. It transforms someone you know into someone different. She may be a little changed or a lot, but her body and mentality change. Trauma and discomfort are inherent in pregnancy and birth, as is a sense of connection and inimitable portent that I, not having been through the process, can grasp only theoretically.

The baby is deeply wanted. They talk about their plans for it, about what the sex might be

Our friend is still very much herself, but it is late in the pregnancy. She is visibly uncomfortable, although she doesn’t complain. She’s not sleeping much. Her body is on loan, with her consent, to the baby that is coming, and there won’t be a moment’s true solitude until after the birth. Then they will be two. For now they are still one. The baby is deeply wanted. They wait for it with excitement and interest. They talk about their plans for it, about what the sex might be.

When I was 17 I knew a girl, the daughter of a family acquaintance, who “got pregnant”. That is the term we use. As though it is a solitary exercise. Being pregnant is ultimately a solitary exercise, of course, as the girl I knew would soon learn. But girls and women don’t get pregnant by themselves. She decided to keep the baby. That is the only reason anyone knew. Who knows how many teenage girls make the trip to Britain and never tell, saving themselves the judgment, scorn and, if they’re lucky, pity of all around them?

The boy did a runner as soon as he found out. His parents called the girl a liar. They shielded their son from his responsibilities

It was Leaving Cert year. I remember the talk from the “adults”. It swirled around rooms in grey pools of derision and self-righteous judgment. There was not a little flavour of “Thank goodness it isn’t my daughter.” I understood the negativity. After all, her chances of succeeding were heavily affected by this. The boy did a runner as soon as he found out. His parents called the girl a liar. They shielded their son from the consequences of his behaviour, from his responsibilities. The girl’s parents supported her, but they were ashamed. They felt the downward pressure of murmurs on the air. They wished that they could say “Thank goodness it isn’t my daughter.” Without real, robust support the life of a young single mother can be truly miserable.

She sat her exams 10 days after the birth. People said “Fair play to her”, but they really meant “Thank goodness she’s not my daughter.”

There is no age at which a pregnancy can never be a crisis, but you reach an age – around the age I am now – when it shifts from something to fear to something to desire. Women around me are trying to get pregnant, and many are succeeding. They hope for the bodily changes they once feared, because they know that summer is coming. They are no longer alone, or as poor as they were in their youth. No longer beholden to the perspective of parents, no longer too callow to extend their sphere of responsibility beyond the perimeter of their own skin. They want it to happen now, when the time is right. Ideally, that is how it should be for everyone, but I still think of the girl, who was someone’s daughter.