Boyfriend wants it morning, noon and night

Dear Pastor,

I am 21 years old and I have been reading your column in THE STAR before I became a teenager. My mother is a higgler and every day she bought the newspaper. When she came home and tidied herself, she would read the paper. There were times that she would be on the phone discussing it with her friends. When her boyfriend came home, she also told him what she read. Sometimes he used to curse and say what he wanted was food and not to be told how a man should treat a woman, because "Pastor pack up women's head about how men should treat them".

My mother had three of us; two for one man and the last child for this man. He used to travel and buy things for my mother to sell. As children, we wore the most fashionable shoes and clothes in the community. We were able to eat and drink what we wanted.

My mother taught us how to cook, and every Sunday we had rice and peas, and we drank carrot juice. It was always my mother's desire to move us out of the ghetto. She was able to do so when my uncle died and left her a house in the Kingston 5 area.

My father told her to stay in the ghetto, and to rent the house that her brother left in his will for her. She said she wanted to move, so one day, without his consent, she moved. My father was not pleased. After a while, he got involved with one of the women in the community and my mother threatened the woman. My father told the woman that my mother has to keep quiet because she is the one who left him. When my mother saw that my father was not going to move from the area, she gave up.

My mother stopped allowing me to go to my father's house in the ghetto, because she was afraid that the guys in the area would try to be with me. The guys used to call me Fatty. I look much older than my age and I had big breasts. I didn't like any of the guys in the area, but I love one of the guys who attend the same high school with me. His father was a policeman. I felt safe when he was with me, but his mother and father were not in a relationship anymore. He was lucky to get a visa. He went away and never came back.

I got another boyfriend and the first night he took me out, he forced me to have sex with him and I got pregnant. My father said that if my mother had not moved us from the ghetto that would not have happened to me. I am now attending HEART/NSTA Trust and the grandmother of my child takes care of him. This guy and I are still together, but he wants to have sex with me morning, noon and night. That is all on his mind.

I cannot get my first boyfriend out of my mind, but it does not appear as if he will return to Jamaica for now. He said I should not give up on him, although he has another woman in America.

What advice can you give to me?

B.

Dear B.,

I do not know what course you are pursuing at HEART, but I will tell you to put your entire mind in it, and take your mind off the man who is now living in America.

From what you said about him, he is a good guy. However, you should not give him the impression that you are a puppet. Unfortunately after he left, you got pregnant by another man. You say that this other guy behaves like a sex maniac -- he wants sex morning, noon and night. You were not wise enough to prevent him from getting you pregnant. I hope that you would learn to protect yourself from another pregnancy. If you feel you must have sex, then you have to protect yourself.

Your father has blamed your mother for what has happened to you, but that was very unfair of him to do. Your mother did not want to continue to live in that area, and your father felt that there was no need for her to leave.

Take good care of yourself, and write to me again.

Pastor