& Baby Makes Three. February 7, 2010

I’ve always been amazed at people who enjoy dating. There’s those people who are habitual relationship-ers with a series of years-long relationships, one after another, that began with a 13 year romance that was sparked on the swings at pre-school, and then there’s the polar opposite of people who have sneeze-and-you’ll-miss-it relationships that max out around 17.3 hours long here and there until they return to the comfort of singleness <coughMEcough>, but I’ve alwaysalwaysalways been amazed at the people who fall between these two categories and are not only always dating, but always dating someone new. Those first experiences with a new romantic interest are so exhausting to me… the need to keep adorable conversation going and seem incredibly and never-endingly interesting makes me more tired than watching people sprint on the treadmills at the Y (which, on a sidenote, those sprinters bring up so many questions for me as I stare at them with great interest from the machines behind them… why are you sprinting on the treadmill doing a 6 minute mile with the incline at practically 90 degrees? Isn’t that an activity better suited to the great outdoors?).

But anywho, ships of relations seem to have enough issues of their own without interjecting a third party into them. Obviously third (or fourth… or fifth…) parties may not be as problematic if you’re starring in an episode of Big Love, but when we’re talking about trying to date whilst raising the cutest munchkin on the planet, especially given that men don’t usually reach maturity until… well, I’m still trying to figure that age out, so I’ll have to get back to you on that… it can be triiiiicky.

One of the first things young mommies tend to ask me when I’ve done mentoring is if “guys still liked” me after I had The Daughter (I’m glad it’s concerns like these that trump other items like… how did I get through college? or, how bad does childbirth hurt?). This is a tricky question to answer, but I’ve definitely gotten more perspective on it over the years. I’ve never been a “relationship” person and never really wanted or was looking for someone to “save” me from the trials and tribulations of teenaged parenthood. Because of this, I wasn’t upset about being single; I was actually usually relieved to be single (minus, of course, those crushes we all develop at one point or another that involve lots of staring forlornly in science labs, crying, and consultation with girlfriends).  In a nutshell: I was no Farrah from Teen Mom. I didn’t put myself out there enough to have anyone really shoot me down. I’m sure there were plenty of guys out there who didn’t want to date me in college because of The Daughter, but I was never in a position to have that knowledge on my radar. I lived at college by myself so I didn’t have endless opportunities to go out and attempt the more typical college dating experience. So conversely… I actually tended to attract guys who were ready to settle down, but would end up making me feel suffocated since I had a lot I felt I needed to prove to myself before I would be comfortable having a more serious relationship. 

In hindsight though, I know the fact I was a teen mom affected most, if not all, of the relationships I did have in college, graduate school, and beyond. I was really conscious of the fact that all of the dating I did, especially while I was in school, was casual, so I didn’t let The Daughter get to know them for fear she would get attached and experience loss over and over again with each breakup. There are a number of relationships that ended for various fun reasons — we drifted apart, they bought ugly shoes, cheating — but at the end of the day, I’m sure in there somewhere was the fact that many of these gentlemans realized at a certain point that, even though they didn’t know and hadn’t met The Daughter, she was inevitably going to have to become a part of the equation at some point… and perhaps they weren’t ready for that. But! I know some of my cutie little exes read this blog, so perhaps they can enlighten us further as to if boys like teen moms.

More importantly though (you should know by now you can’t escape one of my blog entries without a soapbox rant), my biggest piece of advice to the mommies I have worked with is this: ze boyses should come later on down the road. I know when I was 16 and pregnant, I felt about as unattractive as humanly possible. I was sure no guy was ever going to date me, and, in all honesty, most 16, 17, 18 year old guys are not looking to jump on board and play baby daddy. That feeling can make you do stupid things, but the kind of validation people receive from the opposite sex is fleeting and creates a vacuum where there’s a constant need for more. Truuuuust; I have been there. The older one gets though, the less of a issue being a mommy will become. Don’t get me wrong — being a parent period presents issues when trying to mesh those responsibilities with dating… but it gets easier. In the meantime, rather than looking for Mr. Right in every nook and cranny, the time is better spent accomplishing things that prepare you to take care of business yourself. Going to college, traveling, reading, spending time with le bebe… these are all things you can’t go wrong doing, and in the process, you might just find that right person afterall, rather than waiting around for him to fall into your lap. Buuuut… even if you don’t, you will be in a better position to not feel like you need “saving.” I’ve watched plenty of the teen moms I work with jump from one unhealthy relationship to another out of desperation, settling for guys who were about a kamillion times below their level, and then ending up in a worse position then they were when they started the whole process. As someone who has made some hella poor relationship decisions, but who also has tended to push dating behind other things like education and work… choose education and work. At 24 (can I go on a sidenote and say I love the number 24 for some reason? I don’t know why, but I do), having finished my Master’s in May, having had the opportunity to travel outta the great US of A, having slaved away in my closet-office at a non-profit where I am over-worked and under-paid… I finally feel like I’m at a point where I can have a relationship of substance (woot woot). Where I can relax and know I am going into a partnership with someone because I want to be… not because I need to be. It’s a good feeling. And hopefully it’s a good feeling for the other party involved to know I bring something to the table other than bills and a baby.

So annnnnyteenmom, there’s your friendly piece o’ advice from your very penitent teen-mom-blogger who may or may not have sort of taken 6 months off of blogging. Whoops! I promise I’ll be better.

17 Years. August 7, 2009

Last week, I was picking The Daughter up from summer care. The woman, A, who keeps her during the summer is amazing, and I really appreciate her (and the very affordable rate she offers me!). She does a lot of nifty things with the children during the week, like the library and park, and one of her friends has a large in-ground pool in her back yard so at least once a week she takes the kiddos swimming there. I will meet them at the pool when I get off work and chitchat with her while The Daughter gets in some more swimming time (which, on a proud momma sidenote, she just started swimming this summer and is doing fantastically!). I have always been very open about my status as a young single mom and don’t try to hide the fact that I had The Daughter when I was still in high school… I look and sound younger than I am anyways so it’s probably in my best interest so that people don’t think I’m (gasp!) even younger than I am.

 

Anywho, we were talking some and my age came up and  A goes, “Wait! So how old are you exactly?” And I said, “23… I’m almost exactly 17 years older than The Daughter.” She does some quick math and goes, “Ohmigosh, so I am you and you are The Daughter!” I must’ve had my confused squinchy face on, because she explained further: “You and I are exactly 17 years apart!” This sparked all kinds of interesting conversations about how The Daughter and I could biologically be pregnant at the same time (no thanks!) and how old I was going to be when she goes to college (35… eek, I need to get on that college savings stuff better). It was a fun conversation, I enjoy A a lot, but it also got me thinking that, especially as The Daughter and I grow up, there’s some neat things about being closer in age than most other mother/daughters…

 

1. I will be done “raising” The Daughter before I have even reached the big 4-0. A lot of times teen moms focus innately (or are encouraged to focus on) the fact that they’ve just forfeited the freedom of their youth. This is very true… but at the same time, I’m going to have empty-nest freedom while still being young enough to really enjoy it (not that people in their 50s don’t!), with the added bonus of having a lot more financial freedom than a 17 year old.

2. I have more energy as a young mom. It’s biology. On a sidenote though, I can’t imagine parenting any older because being a mom even as a teenager is exhausting!

3. There’s a higher probability that people will mistake The Daughter and I for sisters as she gets into high school and college than if I was an older mom… I’m sure she will hate that, but I’m sure I won’t.

4. This one relates specifically to my singleness… but… I don’t ever have to compromise when it comes to parenting. Making all the decisions can be challenging at times (no one to sound ideas off on except my graduate school-level, non-parenting friends who I love), but at the same time, what I say goes. I remember as a child if Mom said “no”, I would go ask Dad in hopes of the answer I desired. No such luck for The Daughter (which means I’m also the only one who gets wheedled and therefore the only one guilty of giving in). My word is law. Sort of. Sometimes. On occasions. I’m actually trying to think of a time, but its… just… not… coming… to… me. Sighs.

5. The Daughter and I have a very unique relationship because it’s “just the two of us.” While teenagers who get pregnant intentionally in hopes of achieving this dynamic can oftentimes be bitterly disappointed (let’s face it, babies don’t make very good sidekicks, they cry too much)… as The Daughter ages I enjoy our unique mother/daughter relationship that is fostered in part because I’m young and in part because it’s just she and I. I enjoy curling up in the oversized chair and reading a Roald Dahl book, or watching an episode of What Not To Wear (she likes Stacy better, according to what she told the saleslady in Banana Republic the other week while they were trying on jewelry whilst I was in the dressing room). I like that she is still young enough to not be embarassed to hold my hand in public or sleep in my bed sometimes and I love the conversations she holds up very well with me as she gets older. While I didn’t go into motherhood looking forward to these things (let’s not kid ourselves, I wasn’t even planning on going into motherhood at the time!), I can’t lie: I really enjoy The Daughter not only as my daughter… but as the nifty human being she is. I can only hope that we can continue to communicate this way into the tumultuous waters of puberty and adolescence. Scariness!

 

Of course I’m probably not supposed to, gasp!, admit that teenaged parenthood isn’t all tragedy, but… it’s not. I would never say there wasn’t a lot of sacrifice, re-arranging, and tears involved in the process of getting The Daughter and I to this point in (mostly) one piece, but here we are and even on the bad days, I can’t imagine our lives any other way…. and I wouldn’t really want to even if I could.

 

On a closing note, as I was titling this entry, I definitely started thinking of that Rat-a-Tat song called “Seventeen Years” and haven’t been able to stop singing it in my head. If you can even really sing a song that doesn’t have any words? Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo do. OK, I’m done.

Babies Having Babies July 27, 2009

As I come across articles and books and web pages about teen pregnancy, I am struck by how, over and over, people use sensationalist statements like “babies having babies!” or “children having children!” I mean, I am the queen of overexaggeration; pretty much 132569% of my stories have statements like “…and it was about 76 katrillion degrees in there!!!!”, but even though my friends complain about the ridiculous stature of my stories at times, they all know it wasn’t really 76 katrillion degrees in there, and they all know I know it wasn’t really 76 katrillion degrees in there, which is my justification for using such outlandish terms and numbers. It also helps that gross and obvious exaggeration allows for strong dramatic effect, and who doesn’t love that when you’re talking about how freaking hot it is in Haiti (trust me, it’s hot).

 

Much in the same vein… babies can’t really have babies, just like children can’t really have children. People use the terminology because it gets people’s attention — they will pick up the article, read the book, watch the after-school special. It’s sensational by nature. The problem is that it’s statements like these that perpetuate the myth that adolescence/teenagedom are synonymous with the word “immaturity.” Up until recently, even in America, loads of people were teen moms and no one thought it to be an epidemic, pandemic, crisis, or social ill. That’s because a lot of people were having babies young. It wasn’t uncommon for people to get married as teenagers and without the advent or accessibility of birth control… people had children. And somehow (gasp!) the population grew and children survived and people even bought houses. Pure craziness! The last half a century or so though, has seen a growth in immaturity in young people. It’s expected that teenagers are going to be wild, unruly, irresponsible, and unable to function beyond the id. And of course, there are so many social and cultural changes that have occurred since then that I would never discount – I feel fortunate to live in a culture where there is greater female worth, where there is birth control, and where there are option for me in addition to (or even outside of) motherhood. But, it is important to recognize that biologically, emotionally, mentally, etc teenagers have been totally capable of procreating and then successfully raising their children throughout history and, therefore, there’s no reason why they shouldn’t be capable of doing so now. So why is it that the 18 year old mom in 1950 wasn’t a “baby having a baby” but the 18 year old mom today is? I have my own ideas, but it’s food for thought. Given that research has shown that fetility begins to decrease in females in their late 20s and ther average age of first marriage in the US is the mid to late 20s… it seems that social norms don’t always align with biological ones. Is this a bad thing? No. I am 23 and I still don’t think I’m ready or mature enough to be married, but I think a lot of that is influenced by social norms of the culture I grew up in rather than personal ability. Similarly, the 16 year old mom today may not think she is capable of being a mom because the social norms of our culture dictate that she isn’t old enough or mature enough to handle it. (I mean, it doesn’t help that strangers in the video store will think it’s OK to say things like, “You don’t even look old enough to be a mom!”) Are you catching my trend… Self-fulfilling prophecy much?

 

I understand why people have concerns about young parenthood. Simultaneously, though, the negative statistics associated with young parenthood I truly believe are not born out of young parents’ lack of ability, but moreso out of the lack of expectation that is placed on them. Even in the young parenting program I worked with, the director of the program had minimal expectations for the class attendees. When the girls voiced sadness about how they “couldn’t” go to school anymore now that they were pregnant (which statistics would lead you to believe!) the director never sat down and said, “Well, yes, this is going to be harder for you to do, but let’s see if we can work out some options. Let’s go talk to your school counselor… let’s visit the alternative school… how would you feel about a GED?” Instead, it was just, “Yeah, I know, I’m sorry…that must be hard.” No one is giving these girls realistic information (at least in mass dissemination) on how to make it work. Instead they are inviting them for interviews in which they hold them up as an example of how your life is ruined once you have a baby because you “can’t even go to school anymore.”

 

Anyteenmom, in closing thoughts on my argument for why I’m right (because, duh, I always am), I am going to play the Jesus Card. (The “Jesus Card” is something my fellow friends who grew up in evangelical settings know about… anything you are asked in church or Sunday School can be accurately answered with a screech of “I KNOW THE ANSWER!! I KNOW IT, I KNOW IT, CALL ON ME!!!!! IT’S JESUS!!!! JESUUUUUUS!!!!!!! THE ANSWER TO THE QUESTION IS JESUS!!!!” because, obviously, Jesus trumps everything else anyone was going to say. You can’t beat Jesus. End of story.) Even God believes in teen moms because back in the olden days of the Bible, God trusted a teenager to give birth to Jesus… Jesus as in the Jesus. If God thinks a teenager is capable enough to take care of the savior of the entire world, I think it’s a safe argument that a teenager should also definitely be capable of raising just a normal non-savior-of-the-world-type-baby. And… BAM. You’ve just been hit with the Jesus Card.

“boobs grew” July 22, 2009

On a totally random sidenote, I just discovered WordPress has this (nifty?) function where it tracks when people link to your blog from a search engine. Most of mine are obvious: “teen mom,” “teen pregnancy,” “most beautiful and intelligent-est girl in the world.” You get the picture. But there, in the middle of my search engine searches that lead precious readers to glorious me was this jewel: “boobs grew.”

 

I’m relieved to know that when people are searching for “boobs grew” that somewhere in that jumble is me and my blog. I’m not sure if the boobs-grew-search-person is equally relieved to have found me, mainly because I’m not sure that I have too much pertinent information on “boobs grew”… but you know, tomatoes, to-mott-oes.

Teen Moms In, On, & Around the Media July 22, 2009

I’ve had a couple friends ask me what I think about teen mommies in the media, especially Bristol Palin, so here is my entry dealing with teen moms in the spotlight. Woot woot!

First of all, social ills that the public focuses on come in waves — the 90s saw interest in teenaged pregnancy, but it definitely waned while other issues rose on the horizon like AIDs, smoking, etc. I think a lot of this is because we haven’t found a way to “fix” any of these problems yet, so after a media-infused focus with little pay-off, people get bored of the issue and want to deal with something else. I would definitely say the pregnancy of Jamie Lynn Spears started turning the tide again towards an interest in teen pregnancy, but it was the announcement that the Vice-Presidential candidate’s teenaged daughter was pregnant that I think solidified this turn of events. There is now one fictionalized TV show dealing exclusively with this issue (ABC Family’s The Secret Life of the American Teenager) and one reality show dealing with it (MTV’s 16 and Pregnant). There’s also been more articles published about it too (thanks, WAG and JFF, for the recent links to articles about teenagers, sex, sex education, and pregnancy). People are interested for the time being, but… I can guarantee you it will wane again for something else once people realize that, gasp!, teenagers are going to keep having sex and because of that, some teenagers are going to keep having… dun dun dun… babies.

My biggest issue with a lot of the “education” and “prevention” being done in the teenaged pregnancy realm is that A) it’s alarmist and B) there are no successful teen mom role models available. Teenaged sex is lumped in with anti-smoking/drug campaigns that boil down to “just say no!”, yet you will find plenty of people talking about their success battling cigarettes or heroine… you don’t find people talking about their success making it through teenaged parenthood. I don’t like the alarmist approach to anything — I like rational and pragmatic approaches — but… to each his own. My biggest concern is that there is no “success” side to teenaged parenthood to give young mommies hope because everyone is so focused on the prevention side.

Let’s use drug addiction for example… you go through D.A.R.E. in school, but as a young adult, you find yourself with a drug addiction. You can go to rehab or a substance abuse support group where you will be able to find people who are either going through what you’re going through, have been through what you’ve been through and succeeded, or are qualified to counsel you on the issue. You have support — there is light at the end of the tunnel. Not so for teen pregnancy. You go through abstinence-only sex education and you find yourself pregnant… and that’s it. Birds are cheeping, crickets are chirping (and maybe your sex ed teacher going, “I told you so!!”)… there is no teen mom form of rehab. There isn’t always a group where you can find support in the form of people going through what you are going through (the availability of groups for teenaged parents waxes and wanes with the popular culture’s interest in the issue), but even when there is, I have no idea where you are supposed to find people who’ve been through what you’ve been through and succeeded and, additonally, who knows where you would find someone “qualified” to counsel you on teenaged parenthood besides fanatics who may have good intentions, but no real leg to stand on other than their pro-life convictions.

All this to say… teenaged motherhood is an interesting social ill because it is handled so differently. Much blood and sweat is poured into prevention, but there is nothing there for the people who find themselves in the midst of it, which is ridiculous because I would definitely argue that teenaged parenthood is way less life-threatening than a drug addiction.

Annnnyteenmom, all of this brings us around to the main topic of this conversation though which is teen moms in the popular media <coughBristolPalincough>. Of course all of this is my subjective opinion, but Bristol Palin is simply a puppet for her mom’s sex education agenda, and a very poor one at that. (Can you tell I’m slightly opinionated?)Her recent interview with one of the celebrity magazines following her high school graduation was a bitter disappointment. While Bristol is one of the many examples of  the failure of our very-not-working sex education system, she also has a very real platform to be a role model for girls who already are pregnant or parenting as a teenager. Her interview took on the usual alarmist tone of “I didn’t get to go to prom. If teenagers knew how hard this was, teenagers wouldn’t be having sex. Blah blah blah.” Ok, duh. Parenting is hard. But it is definitely not the end of the universe! Teen moms need to see others who have been there, but have experienced success. Kudos to Bristol for finishing high school and having plans for her future — why not have focused on that? It’s as if the public is afraid of congratulating teen moms for overcoming hardship for fear that, by some magical-ness, they will be causing teenagers all over the country to start having BABIES! so that they TOO! can overcome HARDSHIP! Puh-freaking-leaze. Please show me a study where putting a daycare in a high school made girls have babies because it was there. That is the most ridiculous argument I have ever heard of, yet that is the attitude much of our culture has about teen pregnancy.

Anywho, the culmination of my thoughts here boils down to one basic idea: we have plenty of media sob stories about teenaged parenthood… it’s time to hear something more positive. I think when there are resources, support, and qualified counsel for girls going through teenaged pregnancy that we will begin to see a turn-around. Maybe not necessarily in terms of numbers, but moreso in terms of the statistics that are stacked up against teen moms. With appropriate programming in place, you would see more teen moms finishing high school, going to college, having healthy babies, and most importantly, having futures that involve more than scraping by.

Annnnd I’m done. Somehow I’m always on a soapbox.

HIPA Laws July 8, 2009

So, as mentioned in the Mistaken Identity post, I went to visit a crisis pregnancy center a few weeks back to volunteer my services as a (former) teen mom. I could tell when I was finally shuffled into the right room with the director that she had no idea what to do with me. I mean, I don’t think it would be that progressive to offer girls facing a difficult decision the opportunity to talk to someone who has been there and hasn’t fallen into a million pieces, but maybe that is just me. Anywho, I finally heard back from the director the other week in the form of this friendly email:

Dear Kimberly,

Thank you so much for your interest in helping at our center.  For the moment we are mostly in need of volunteers to man the front desk in the center to cover the hours when we are  in operation.

I do appreciate your heart for our ministry and I will keep you in mind if we have a client who may need help with parenting options.  Due to HIPA laws we are unable to share our client’s names with others that are not working in the center.

In JESUS,
<name redacted>

This email makes no sense at all to me, on a number of levels. First of all, I am a sociologist, please don’t ask me to “man” anything… especially a desk at a pregnancy support office. Secondly, what are HIPA laws? Is that the same thing as HIPAA laws? I would assume that the fact I went in to get information on becoming a volunteer would qualify me as “working at the center”… not that I was asking for random people’s names so I could call and harass them. On another note, when I actually met with the director and explained I would be fine with being contacted if girls were looking for someone to talk to, she also informed me they couldn’t give out my information due to HIPA(A?) laws. I’m not super-up on my Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, but I’m pretty sure it doesn’t outlaw me giving permission to be contacted by clients in a mentoring capacity.

So all of this boils down to my frustration with services being offered and the fact that these same people who are “manning” these centers will turn around and complain about the fact that they see 20 girls a week, two of whom place their babies for adoption, and many of whom will be back again in a year or two pregnant again. Um… DUH. I don’t understand why this is a suprise. There is absolutely nothing supportive about this environment other than you are saving people the $10 they would’ve spent at CVS on a pregnancy test. As I’ve said (maybe a few times) before… we don’t live in an environment where girls are placing their babies for adoption. It’s just not that common. But agencies such as this one are still slaving away with the notion that they can change this trend for their personal agendas. It’s futile and the people suffering are these women and their children.

I don’t think it is so far-fetched to imagine a place that offers pregnant girls information on all of their alternatives, especially when that comes in the form of advice from someone who has actually been there, but you know… I could be wrong. Oy veh. More to come.

(Even) Teenagers Can Be Good Parents July 8, 2009

So here is something they forget to tell you in parenting books, A Baby Story, and in life in general: motherhood is a choice. Yes, yes, perhaps the conception scenario is a choice, but I am talking about the moment that little baby enters this world… it’s a choice to be a mother – it’s not an instantaneous split where suddenly you stop wanting to read Vogue and start wanting to read Parenting… it takes time and committment to make that relationship happen. 

I always imagined based on things I’d read and seen that when I gave birth to The Daughter, the skies would open and the heavens would sing and glitter and sparkles would reign down on us in a fit of blissfullness and it would be glorious. Don’t get me wrong… Upon meeting The Daughter I loved her in that obligatory maternal instinct sense, but definitely not in the way I have grown to love her over the years as I’ve gotten to know her as a unique and awesome human being. At 10:32 on September 6, 2002, she was a little bundle of strangeness to me. And I just really wanted chicken nuggets. And a nap.

While a large portion of older moms embark on parenthood with their peers (therefore, they have others around them choosing to be mothers), teen moms don’t have this same comraderie. The choice between teenagedhood and motherhood is challenging and from my experience working with ze teen mom population, a lot of  the girls believe that A) the baby is going to offer something they’re missing in their life and B) that on  some level they’re just magically going to be mothers (tada!) upon bringing that baby into the world. In other words, having the baby is going to make them a mother. And yes, in a technical sense, having a baby makes one a mother, but it can’t stop there. There’s plenty of great moms who have not given birth to their children and there’s plenty of terrible mothers who have given birth.

By most people’s standards, I was a “good” teen mom, but it was really a struggle at times over the years as I watched my friends do things I wished I could do. On a certain level, I thought The Daughter was going to replace my old “teenaged” desires with new ones like cooking, cleaning, and being an all-around domesticated creature, but that wasn’t the case. On Friday nights, I still wished I was going out with my friends, when Spring Break rolled around I forlornly listened to tales of my friends’ crazy experiences at Myrtle Beach… sometimes I was down right jealous of them and felt I was missing out on something. But, the difference for me was that I kept making the choice to be a mom. And, yes, it got easier. 

I’ve never been married and had children at the same time as my peers, but I imagine even “older” moms deal with feelings of isolation sometimes. Having a baby means changing your life. Period. But for a lot of teen moms, this balance is never laid out as a choice, they are just judged for being selfish because they don’t know how to or recognize that there are very obvious decisions going on. There is a delicate balance between being 17 and being someone’s mom at the same time, and while it involves a lot of sacrifice, it also means knowing that it’s ok to choose to be a teenager sometimes. I was pretty unique in that I went to the opposite extreme of a lot of other teen moms in that I chose being a mom maybe too much of the time. I felt guilty buying magazines not related to parenting; I felt guilty going out on occasion with my friends to see a movie; I suddenly started dressing much more matronly (I remember an unfortunate bra fitting when I needed a new one after my boobs grew like 23846034709 sizes and the sweet geriatric bra-store-lady convinced me to purchase the largest, ugliest bra ever invented. I am pretty sure it was bigger than anything my 250 lb grandmother wore. Sads.). I grew up in a conservative church though, and I knew people were watching me, and it compelled me to be “super mom.” I look back at myself and want to give me a hug and pat my head and tell me it was going to be OK.

So here is a handy-dandy list with examples of good and bad teenage decisions to make once you have a child:
GOOD  
-Going to prom
-Making fashion mistakes
-Taking an obnoxious amount of pictures with your friends

BAD
-Taking baby to a kegger
-Keeping baby out til 2a because it’s “awake then anyways”
-Taking baby to Spring Break in Cancun… that is not a family vacation, sorry

I think a lot of teen moms need to see that, yes, being a mom is hard work, but more importantly, that it’s a choice and not necessarily something magical that just happens over night. Yes, you will still want to do “normal” teenaged things, but sometimes you just have to suck it up and recognize that someone else has to be your priority for a while. Simultaneously though, there are still teenaged things to do that are A-OK and can help combat feelings of isolation. So while getting blackout drunk at a Dave Matthews concert prolly wasn’t in my best interests, it would’ve been OK to buy the cute bra at Victoria’s Secret or read Seventeen every one in a while in lieu of What To Expect: The Toddler Years. Life is not over and I truly believe that (even!) teenagers are capable of being great parents, they just need to be equipped with a little more knowledge on how to make it work.

Mistaken Identity. June 10, 2009

So yesterday, I decided to be a good citizen of my country and go talk to a local agency about volunteering with young moms… While I love to talk about things that I love to talk about, I also realize it’s a good thing to sometimes do a little in regards to those subjects I love to talk about. Whilst living in Tennessee, I volunteered for four years with a program that I definitely think was headed in the right direction. Here, where I’m living now, I haven’t seen anything similar so I decided to bite the bullet and go to a crisis pregnancy support center.

 

Growing up southern Baptist (in the south), I already know about these places. In fact, when I broke the news to my parents, the first place my mom took me was the local pregnancy support center, where the first thing they did was A) ask my best friend who came along for support if she needed a pregnancy test too, and B) start showing me pictures of families who wanted to adopt my Caucasian baby. I think those two points pretty well summarize the world of pregnancy support centers. Faith-based, non-profits, with the goal of convincing girls to not have abortions. I don’t like abortions (who does?!), but there is a small glitch in this whole system. What happens to those hundreds of girls they convince not to have an abortion? We live in a day and age where adoption is much, much rarer and most of these girls decide to parent (hello, I’m included in that!). I think many of these centers started off with the plan of keeping girls from having abortions and then connecting them with adoptive families. The tides have shifted now though, and while random women in the grocery store will still ask you as a preggers teen if you are “old enough” to be having a baby, it’s generally a lot more socially acceptable to have children out of wedlock than it has been in the past. Shoot, even Hollywood has their pregnant teen icons in Jamie Lynn Spears and Bristol Palin. So now these pregnancy support centers have hundreds of girls coming through each of them, with about two of whom will actually give their baby up for adoption, and the rest of whom will go home to have children that they have no support to have. And then they wonder why these girls are back in two years and shake their heads in amazement at these sad, sad girls living off the system. Uhhhh…

 

So anyways… even though I’m not even really 1% committed to their cause, I figure I have something to offer to really help out and fill a void in the services they offer: a real world perspective on what it is like to be a teen mom. Someone these women can ask the questions they want to know that someone who hasn’t been there can’t really answer. When people are struggling with something in their life, they relate to people who have been in the same situation. Whether it be a battle with cancer, or a battle with drug addiction… people need relationships with someone who has made it through to the other side in one (mostly) whole piece. Most young moms don’t have this. Sure, their mom or their friend or their cousin may have been in a similar situation, but if those people have not experienced positive successes in their life, it’s going to do little more than cement the fact that the statistics are useless to fight. Whhhhy bother. So all this preachiness to say, perhaps I was being a presumptuous, but I went into this place with the knowledge I had something they needed.

 

So I walk in and the lady I’m supposed to meet with is running late, so they stick me in the waiting room. Right after I come in, a girl comes in with her pregnant friend indicating that she needs a pregnancy test. She fills out the paperwork and they sit down. I wait, wait, wait, and finally, someone comes to the door and calls out my name: Kimberly. I get up and we smile and she takes me into a little room with three chairs and Anne Geddes prints on the wall (you know, since creepy pictures of naked babies dressed in flowers is exactly what you want to look at while contemplating an unexpected pregnancy). The woman is wearing a cheap sort of lab coat and sits down across from me with an obnoxiously sweet smile and asks me how I’m doing. I smile back and tell her I’m “good” and ask her how she is in return. She blinks a few times and asks me, “You’re good?” My turn to blink. This isn’t the usual response to formalities such as these and I don’t like it when people upset social norms (it’s the sociologist in me). I re-affirmed that I was indeed ”good” and tried for another forced smile as she leaned forward in earnest to touch my knee.

 

Awwwwkward. Why is she treating me like this? She has a clipboard and writes something down. Am I in a therapy session? I don’t understand. “So, Kimberly…” Pause. Smile. “Let’s talk about what brings you here.” I’m super uncomfortable, but I begin, “Well, as someone who was a teen mom…” The woman cuts me off: “OH! You already have children?” “Um, well not childREN, but a child. Singular, yes.” “And did you come here when you were pregnant?” “Nooo… I just moved here.” The woman is writing furiously on her clipboard. “Interesting… where did you move from?” I tell her, she asks me what I was doing there and I tell her attending college and graduate school and now it is her turn to look perplexed. “You’ve been to graduate school? Already?” On a sidenote, I know I look young, but seriously?! What is this woman talking about?!? I nod yes in a retardedly slow fashion. She looks at me for a few more moments before she goes, “Well, let’s go ahead and get this show on the road.” At this point I’m contemplating ways to escape the room with tact. Her chair is in front of the door, so I would have to knock her over to get out. Window?

 

She stands up and shuffles behind her and then hands me a cup. I take hold it in my hand and hold it out in an awkward angle from my body. “The bathroom is down the hall to the right.” WTF. “Um, shouldn’t I fill out an application to volunteer or something before you drug test me?” She freezes. “Drug test? We don’t do drug tests?” “Why am I peeing in a cup then?” “Ummm… a pregnancy test??” Blink. “Ummm… I don’t know how I would be pregnant right now.” Blink. “Then why are you here?” Blink. “Because I was going to talk to J*** about volunteering? I’m guessing you’re not J***?”   

 

Of all the names for the girl in the waiting room to be named… she was also named Kimberly. And not only was she a Kimberly, she was a Kimberly A. Talk about an awkward realization on all parts. I was relieved to determine this was not how they treated volunteers, but sadly, I cannot say that the rest of the meeting went much better once the mistaken identities were sorted out. Oy veh.

 

So I guess I will have to be a good citizen of my country at some other fine institution, but in the mean time, I need to go take a piss… and not in a cup.

A Downer Entry. June 4, 2009

So I’m a lover of all things sparkly and happy, and in the words of someone close to me… I am obnoxiously optomistic. Because of these character traits (flaws?), I try to keep even serious subjects light-hearted. I feel the need to take a break from that for this entry, and apologize in advance for doing so at such an early junture in this blogging adventures, but bear with me for just this once.

 

This story is alllllll over the news, even some international news outlets, so I’m sure many of you have heard about the story of the mom who fed fecal matter into her daughter’s line to keep her ill. I am a mom and hearing stories like these really upset me (yes, even teen moms have the ability to have their motherly heart strings pricked!), but this one hits espeically close to home because I know Emily.

 

When I was pregnant, by some bizarre fluke of nature, I managed to be the only pregnant girl at my high school of 1000. Until recently, there were no resources for teen moms in the area I was living at that time, so I felt like a lone island most of the time. Because of this lack of support and feeling like I did not have people who could relate to me, I went on the internet and found a website for teen moms that had a sort of penpal listing to connect girls who were going through a pregnancy as a teenager. I connected with about 5 girls on there who I continue to communicate with even today, some of whom I know in real life as well. Emily was one of those girls. I actually related to her the most because we came from similar situations — middle class, married parents, involved in church, private schools — and we both seemed to be headed in the same direction in life. Whereas some of the other girls I connected with floundered with balancing teenage yearnings with the responsibilities of motherood, Emily was unwavering. She nannied, went to school, was a huge proponent of breastfeeding, and was just an earnestly sweet girl. She got married at 18 and almost immediately got pregnant with her second child who was born 11 weeks premature and was in the hospital for about 2 months with the repercussions of that. Due to her low weight, Emily had been discouraged from having further pregnancies, but almost immediately following her second child’s birth, she found out she was pregnant again. This time, her daughter was born a micro-preemie at a mere 1lb 7oz. The following 8 months were turmoil for their family as Dakota came close to the brink of death. Emily was a dedicated mom though and educated herself and learned all she could about how to best care for her daughter. She kept a blog through all of this, which was how I stayed in the loop… obviously she didn’t have as much time to talk with everything going on. Her daughter came home, but it has continued to be an uphill battle that I have always admired Emily for handling. What a load to bear, but even more so to be only barely 20! Emily had post partum depression after her littlest one, but she seemed to get the appropriate help and treatment. The next 3 years were up and down, with Dakota moving in and out of the hospital for various treatments and operations, but things seemed to be looking better.

 

In April, Dakota got sick again and was admitted to the hospital for bizarre infections and other health-related symptoms. Emily has kept the blog religiously during the time, updating multiple times a day, and I was always struck by how knowledgable she had become and how dedicated she was to be at the hospital 24/7. It as heart-wrenching to follow as Dakota would start to make improvements and then quickly be sent back into intensive care. I definitely feared that she would deteriote to the point she wouldn’t make it back. I noted that Emily’s writings sometimes seemed cold and clinical, but I also was struck with the feeling that since her daughter had been so sick and it was looking so grim, that perhaps she was detaching herself a bit to deal with the very real possibility that her daughter might not make it. Imagine my surprise to learn it had been her that had been making her daughter so ill. I felt sick to my stomach and obviously disturbed that anyone could do this… but especially someone who I thought highly of and related to on many levels over the years. We definitely drifted apart once our lives took different turns — I moved away to college, she got married and had more kiddos – but there was that sense of a common experience that we had when our daughters were born back in 2002/2003 that cemented years of communication.   

 

This is a horrific, terrible thing for anyone to do, but obviously something was very wrong mentally and emotionally that would lead someone to do this. No one in their right mind would make a calculated effort to harm their child that could very realistically lead to the child’s death. It doesn’t take a super smartie pants to know that Munchausens by Proxy is going to be the diagnosis/defense and that this story is going to explode (I’m just waiting on you, Nancy Grace!) because of A) the tittilating factor of such a bizarre condition, and B) Emily is white, educated, Protestant, and pretty. People will speculate, and I’m sure things will come out over the course of her legal hearings and trial that I never knew about her, but I am also saddened as people write horrible commentaries on how she was a “monster” and should be killed for her actions. Don’t get me wrong — what she did is unexcuseable and horrendous. But at the same time, I still have a heart. As I mother, I can’t imagine doing something like that to my child… but that’s just it: I can’t imagine it. I’m almost positive if you asked Emily a few years ago if she could imagine doing something like this, that she would say absolutely not. Something is terribly wrong and she obviously needs help.

 

Another issue this brings to light though is our culture of voyeurism and the subsequent consequences of it (the irony is not lost on me as I write this on my own blog). Munchausen’s by Proxy is brought on by a need for attention. As a young mom, I myself struggled with feeling inadequate as a parent because and desiring and enjoying affirmation on how I was doing. Over the last few years, I definitely don’t feel that way, but I think a lot of that was that I’ve grown a lot as a person by moving away from home, raising my daughter on my own, attending college and graduate school, and getting a job and a (small, non-profit) salary. Similarly, Emily achieved kudos through the experiences she had with her preemies and the opportunities her knowledge and dedication brought about. She became a huge supporter of March of Dimes, was in a promotional video on pumping breastmilk for preemies who were unable to breastfeed, and was interviewed in newspapers on the challenges and triumphs of being a mom to not one, but two preemies. She started a blog that had a lot of followers and supporters, as well as posted YouTube videos on how things were going. So what happens when her babies grow up and start doing better? People stop commenting, reading, being interested — people are looking for drama and uniqueness, and let’s face it, as a general rule reading about someone’s three kids is only interesting to, say, the mom of those three kids. Emily definitely staked out her identity in her children — anyone who just read her blog would’ve known this and this is something we celebrate in moms… a willingness to be self-sacrificing. Emily couldn’t work, she couldn’t stay in college consistently, she couldn’t even sleep because of the needs of her child. She lost sight of who she was as a human being without this spotlight being put on her as a “mom to two preemies.” I could be very, very wrong, but I don’t think Emily has been doing this for years. I think she has been a great mom by all standards, but that once the attention started waning, she didn’t have that to keep her ego and self-image going. Does this excuse her behavior? No, but I am sure everyone’s first reaction to reading or hearing this story is that she was indeed a monster who was tired of her child’s needs and wanted to kill her off. I really and truly don’t believe that is the case… I think she was just falling apart at the seams.

 

I don’t even know why I wanted to write about this, but it’s definitely been in the forefront of my brain as I watch news article after news article come out about her and her family’s terrible situation. Obviously, no one wants to sympathize with someone who does such a wrong-doing, and of course there will be very real consequences to her actions that make my heart break (I doubt she will get to see any of her children for a long, long time, if at all), but at the same time, I hope she gets the help she so desperately needs.

Things I Wish Someone Would Have Told Me… May 29, 2009

OK, so it won’t take a brain surgeon to figure out I am not a huge proponent of abstinence-only sex education… it’s a pleasant theory in concept — I would lovelovelove to believe that The Daughter will soar through her teenaged and college years without ever looking at the opposite sex until, magically, he appears in graduate (medical? law?) school and sweeps her off her feet with a (certified conflict-free) diamond ring and they wait til their wedding night to consummate their marriage and then have 2.3 adorable children — buuuuut… I was a teenager. 3.5 year ago. I was in college. 2 years ago. I know what it’s like. I mean, the Duggers are likely onto something (though I’m not going to lie, I secretly can’t wait til one of their 18 childrens and counting comes out as a bad egg), but sadly, as a former teen mom I don’t have the luxury of moving to the middle of no where, building my own house, homeschooling The Daughter, dressing in weird hybrid-Amish fashion, and most importantly of all, getting an abstinence-only haircut (don’t lie — you know what I’m talking about — the kind of hair that works as an anti-sex aura around your general face and head area… the bigger the better to keep those boys away!). So in the meantime, I have a great alternative plan to keeping kids off the premarital sex: a reality check.

 

As previously mentioned, I have definitely been guilty of being involved in “don’t have sex ’til you’re married of you’ll die of a lethal pregnancy/AIDS/herpes trifecta illness” types of public speaking engagements at local high schools (it was East Tennessee! I was 19! I didn’t know better!) but the fact remains that the typical Lifetime after-school special approach doesn’t really work as a “reality check” — babies are still cute. Period. However, I think if abstinence only education took the cutie babies out of the equation and focused on the other, more surly (and less discussed) consequences of pregnancy and childbirth, they might just be on to something. Here they are, in no particular order:

1. The Episiotomy. OK, so I didn’t know about this until I was reading What To Expect When You’re Expecting (post-conception of The Daughter obvi.). I’m sure grown-up moms have had a chance to hear about these, but I only knew that babies came out of the general vaginal area and that if that didn’t pan out, they did a C-Section. I wasn’t so keen on the whole idea of pushing something that weighed pounds out of an area I could hardly get a tampon into without crying, so imagine my horrific discovery about this barbaric procedure: they CUT YOU TO MAKE MORE ROOM. Snip, snip, stitch, stitch. I got queasy and light-headed reading about it and would lay awake at night clutching my poor crotch and wondering if time travel had been perfected so I could avoid this whole situation, but more importantly, avoid this modern-day, hospital-approved torture known as the episiotomy. I don’t know, maybe it was just me who freaked out about this, but it seriously worried me more than most other things like how I was going to pay for diapers or if I was going to be able to finish high school. Now before people start panicking like PETA members around fur coats and schedule their sterilization procedures… As someone who has indeed had an episiotomy, I can now say this: it was no big deal. There was so much else going on I didn’t even feel it or know that it had been done, but… classes of high schoolers in sex ed don’t have to know this. Episiotomies sound scary and that’s all that matters. Video imagery could be especially effective.

2. Hemorrhoids. So maybe you have a senile grandmother who sits around asking for her donut to sit on the relieve her anal pains (or maybe that was just me and you have no idea what I am talking about)… but in addition to giving birth to your adorable bundle of joy, sunshine, and unicorns all wrapped into one precious, heavenly package, you will also give birth to the most obnoxious medical condition known to mankind: hemorrhoids. And it will make you feel like an old lady. You will waddle around and want to take hot baths and worry about things like fiber intake to ensure they never appear in your life (but more importantly your anus) again. Show pictures of hemorrhoids in conjunction with the episiotomy video for maximum effectiveness.

3. The Pubescent, Postpartum Body. Even at 23, I think forlornly of my high school body (I know, I know, I need to shut up because it’s going to get way, way worse from here). Teenagers just don’t know what it is they have. Puberty makes people all kinds of crazy — your arms are too long for a year and you look like an ape, you’re sure your left foot is larger than your right by at least a shoe size, etc etc etc — in high school, those things begin to recitify themselves even though you don’t necessarily recognize it at the time… however, pregnancy puts an abrupt halt to all the fun and games. Weight gain, stretch marks, swollen feet, insane boob size fluctuations (that end abruptly with way less perky breasties), crazy hair growth and its subsequent falling out… and then there’s the related life complications these body changes cause such as the inability to reach one’s feet or comfortably fit into a school desk to take the SAT at Broughton High School. Ouch. The list goes on and on… just bring in a pregnant teenager and have her show the hemorroid pictures and episiotomy video and you might just have the most effective abstinence-only class ever.

 

Anyways, obviously the government needs to hire me to be running their sexual education programming, but in the meantime, make good life decisions and before you are tempted to participate in activities of the romantical nature, just think about this entry and the content contained therewithin. You’ll think twice. You’re welcome in advance.