GABRIEL PROJECT: Father Tucker at Dappled Things says his diocese is starting up a branch of the Gabriel Project, which gives material, emotional, and spiritual support to families in need. I had the honor of speaking with the Silver Spring branch on Saturday morning; they’re a great bunch of people.

I was supposed to touch on some of the themes of my Weekly Standard piece on life at a pregnancy center (subscribers-only link, sorry). I was a bit scatty (7:30 AM is not a normal Saturday wakeup time for me!) and I think I spoke too fast, but here are some notes on what I said:

First, I talked about two problems that come up again and again at the center: fatherlessness, and an understandable but misguided view of marriage.

As I said in the Standard piece, there’s a line on our interview form where we’re supposed to record what the client’s father would want her to do if she’s pregnant. (There are similar questions about her mother and the baby’s father.) But I almost never am able to fill that line out, because so few of our clients are even in touch with their fathers.

In fatherless families and fatherless neighborhoods, it’s much harder for women to a) know what to look for in a man, a sexual partner, a potential husband; b) know what they can demand of a man–they don’t have to have low standards!; and c) believe that there’s any point in waiting for marriage. For many of our clients (not all, certainly), “waiting for marriage” sounds about as realistic as “waiting to win the lottery.”

That plays into the second problem: Marriage is viewed as the last item on life’s to-do list. You get married once you’re financially stable, once you have a nice place to live, once everything else in your life is set up.

This view is based on totally understandable and even accurate premises: Marriage is a big deal and people don’t want to rush into it. But the marriage-last view causes major trouble when it runs up against reality. For a lot of our clients, if you wait until you’re financially stable to get married, you just won’t get married. (And marriage itself is likely to increase your financial stability.) If you wait until you’re totally “ready” for marriage… well, I mean, lots of us are definitely unready for marriage, but is anybody totally ready?

And, most importantly, if you’re not ready for marriage–if you’re not financially and emotionally together enough for marriage–what on earth are you doing sleeping with a guy? By the time our clients come in for their pregnancy tests, of course, they’ve already figured out the huge flaw in their program: Sex makes babies.

And there’s more: A lot of clients respond really strongly to something I cribbed from this essay–a line from the movie “Vanilla Sky”: “When you sleep with someone, your body makes a promise, whether you agree to it or not.” This really resonates with women, and we talk about making sure that your body isn’t, essentially, writing checks your mind and heart don’t want to cash. It’s really important to talk about the emotional and spiritual dimensions of sex outside of marriage, not just the basic, biological facts.

This point offered a segue into the other thing I wanted to talk about: what works? What can you say in an hour (at most!) that will actually resonate with a woman and help her make good decisions about her life?

The major theme I hit here was how often our clients want to do all the right things. They have the right ideals. They want to get married. They want a closer personal relationship to Christ. They want to be good mothers. They want to finish college or high school.

But the things they’re doing now work against achieving their goals. You’re less likely to graduate from high school if you’re having sex, with its attendant emotional drama and possibility of pregnancy. You’re less likely to make a good marriage if you date and sleep with men you know to be unreliable. You’re not going to have a close personal relationship with God if you don’t go to church and don’t try to bring your life into line with God’s will. Etc.

What I do, quite often, is a kind of counseling jujitsu–if you listen sympathetically (and God knows people often need someone to listen to them) and ask a few guiding questions, often the client ends up basically counseling herself. Sometimes I’ll offer advice–things that have worked for me in similar situations–or agree with her points and underline them by using snazzier, more memorable language (like the “Vanilla Sky” thing above). Other counseling sessions require more from me: information (I have a quick, no-more-graphic-than-it-needs-to-be description of a D&C; abortion), or presenting the Gospel, or gently, carefully pointing out things the client may not want to acknowledge. But often it’s just encouraging her in her goals and brainstorming things she can do to make achieving those goals more likely.

The other thing, the much harder thing, that I need to do in these situations where the client wants the right things, is simply convince her that her goals are attainable. How do you show someone that a good marriage is possible when she hasn’t seen one? How do you show someone what life in Christ should look like when she thinks the people at her church are all gossipy hypocrites?

That’s a lot harder; it usually takes a longer-term relationship than the counseling session can provide. I try to hook my client up with other people–our parenting class, for example, or our Mentor Moms program, or a good church, or a well-loved teacher. We talk about whom the client trusts, someone she can talk to about marriage and dating.

We also talk very practical, basic, step-by-step stuff: Don’t hang out with friends who will lead you astray. If you’re in a situation where you think you might do something wrong, leave, or go to the bathroom and pray, or move (e.g. instead of hanging out alone at the guy’s apartment, go get something to eat). It’s easier to picture small-scale actions than the big goals for which they serve as preparation.

I can’t remember how I closed the presentation. Probably I just realized I’d been yattering for a while, and stopped. But everyone was very nice about it! Anyway, lovely people, wonderful program. I’m quite grateful that I got to see it.