The moral of the story

When I was 22 my father said something that rocked my world and changed how I viewed men.
 
It went along the lines of..."when you’re a young man you approach things differently. You know that your going to have to look after a wife and children and take care of a family, your going to have to succeed. They'll look to you for survival and happiness. That’s a lot of pressure."
 
Until that point it had never occurred to me that I was oblivious to this pressure. That I'd never struggled with the idea that I'd have to buy a house, support a family, pay school fees or violin lessons and perhaps pay for aging parents by myself. I certainly don't consider myself old school traditional, the notion just ever occurred to me.
 
The reason I raise this pithy little bit of dad-wisdom is because a guy I've been having coffee with lately (The Dutchy) has been told by his ex-girlfriend that she's 6 weeks pregnant. They broke up 6 weeks ago and she has a 1% chance of ever having kids. No bones about it - she's keeping it. I can see where she's coming from, but I don't think this is quite how he envisioned his family starting.
 
I realise I consult this piece of advice my father gave me when I think a man works too much, that I work too much or that I don't see something as important as it is to another person. Pressure comes from all sorts of directions and I can never know which direction someone is feeling at any one time. But the more I think of his particular situation the more I struggle with it. And even though Dutchy and Preggers both want different things how much pressure can they put on each other before the lid is going to blow off?
 
And at the end of the day life is life and you can't control every section of it. I guess it's the unanswerable question with only one response...
 
Q: What do you do when life gets in the way of plans? Or, worse, plans get in the way of life?
A: Cross all your fingers, hope to hell that it works itself out and stock up on condoms.