Lauryn Hill: Choosing life for son Zion “best decision I ever made”
The decision to have her first child was one of the major change’s in 24-year-old [Lauryn] Hill’s life. Many in the music industry advised her to have an abortion, but Hill resisted the pressure. It was a choice she never regretted, and a quandary she details in the song To Zion (video below).
“That song,” she says, “is about the revelation that my son [Zion] was to me. I had always made decisions for other people, making everybody else happy, and once I had him that was really the first decision that was unpopular for me. It was one that was based on my happiness and not what other people wanted for me or for themselves.
And it was the best decision that I could have ever made, because I’m the happiest and healthiest that I have ever been. It also revealed to me which relationships were right, which ones were sincere, and which ones were based on exploiting and hurting me.
It was a godsend all the way round – 360 degrees of that whole situation were nothing but a blessing. And I’m so happy that I made the choice that I did.”
~ Simon Witter, The Guardian, August 21
[youtube]http://youtu.be/rNXPepJtVrc[/youtube][HT: Andy Moore; photo via Flickr]
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
This song is really moving, and it’s my first time hearing it (guess I’ve been out of the loop).
What beautiful words!! I guess you never know how much a baby can change your life until you have one. Yes, it turns everything upside down, but it also shakes loose the things that were unnecessary. Good for her for choosing her son instead of popularity.
It also goes to show you that having a baby does not automatically mean your life is over. (though for the first couple of months it feels that way haha)
We should try to get this message to a lot of moms considering abortion – having a baby rearranges your life, yes, but it does not mean it’s over and you have no options. I think many women considering abortion have a false dichotomy of either have this baby and never achieve anything in your life ever again OR have an abortion and live your dreams and goals.
I have seen so many women (and men!) whose lives are changed for the better when they have children – single OR married. Sometimes a child is a wake up call for a parent… a motivation to get them to work even harder to make a life for themselves and their children.
Not always, but I have seen it quite often.
It made me think of the late actress Judy Garland, who always bitterly resented being pressured into an abortion she did not want by her domineering stage mother, husband, and studio boss when she was 19y/o.
When Judy’s daughter Liza Minelli was born, Judy made the caustic comment that she finally had permission to have a baby, no doubt a slap at her mother. Judy’s life would remain an ongoing tragedy of drug and alcohol abuse, failed marriages, and exploitation until she died in her late 40’s.