As a teen mother, the doors of one of the top universities in the world would never have been open to me. Because, when you become pregnant while a teenager, you’re automatically catapulted into the adult world—and the adults in YOUR world (usually your parents) expect YOU to pull your weight and care for YOUR baby. Compared to the number of teen pregnancies, rare indeed are the parents who will rear your child for you while you finish your education. And why should they, when they didn’t choose to become grandparents?

That’s what I was thinking yesterday as I drove to Johns Hopkins University to speak to students in a Family Violence class taught by one of the nation’s top domestic violence researchers. Well, I didn’t think about all of this, but I did wonder in amazement that I was even going to speak to students enrolled there. Me, a teen mom whose multiple pregnancies guaranteed I wouldn’t attend any college, much less one as revered and renowned as Johns Hopkins!

And that’s how I began my speech, when I addressed Dr. Jacquelyn Campbell’s nursing students. I’m not sure how they understood my introduction: Was I not intelligent enough to be accepted, did my parents not have enough money to send me, or couldn’t I obtain a scholarship? But they soon learned what I meant.

This is it: when you, a teenager, become pregnant (or when you father a child while a teen, although not as frequently, since the guys still often walk while the gal bears the brunt of the fallout), your future options are greatly diminished. Thinking of going to beauty school? Okay, who’s going to babysit while you’re in class? Or how about getting a good job? Who’s going to hire you, a high school dropout? Maybe you had plans to model or become an actor. Well, pregnancy doesn’t automatically rule out these two careers, but again, it’s pretty hard to pursue a vocation with a baby strapped (figuratively or literally) to your back.

I’m now a grandmother of two. My eldest daughter did it the right way, the healthiest way: she got an education, got a job and got married. Then, when she had a supportive partner to help her, she got pregnant. My two grandsons have something their mother did not: financial security and an abiding contentment that comes from knowing both parents love you and will care for you, no matter what.

My youngest child will be 26 in April. And last night, his mother walked onto the campus of one of the premiere universities in the world. His mother, once a straight-A student, could have done that at age 17—if she hadn’t instead become a teen mom.

Posted by Daleen at 08:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Already enough has been said about the “Gloucester 17” so I won’t contribute too much to that particular avenue of thought. Instead, I will say there are many problems facing teens these days, and most adults aren’t even aware of what they are, or how to deal with them. In turn those problems lead to adult, family and even societal problems.

Yes, Americans do have sexual hang-ups, and no, they don’t do a very good job at teaching their children about sex and sexuality. But both topics are a necessity if we want to help teens reach their emotional, psychological and financial potential. Because a teen mother burdened with the chore of caring for a baby over an 18-year (usually more like 20 years, plus) period, definitely misses out on her potential. In most cases.

In some cases, though, what happens can be far worse than that. I spoke about one of these scenarios in my Aug. 3, 2007, column at the Cumberland Times-News last year: it discusses mothers who kill their children. Evidently, I wasn’t the only person who thought it was an important issue—the column took second place in the critical thinking category in the 2007 Maryland-Delaware-DC Press Association contest. (See: Many factors involved when mothers kill.)

Reading about experiences like mine, a teen mother of four children who nearly took that route myself, is one way to become educated about the real dangers facing our young people. Another is to look on the Web, where any number of great sites are available to help parents figure out how what the problems are, and then how to help their children.

For instance, Liz Claiborne, Inc., has been working to prevent domestic violence (a very large problem for our families) since 1991. Check out their site at Love is not Abuse. The other site it operates, the National Teen Dating Abuse Helpline (Love is Respect), offers teens great advice about how to remain healthy during dating relationships. The company has even come up with a curriculum for use in schools, to help teens stay free of such violence.

Sites like these are good because teen sex isn’t the only thing too many parents fail to talk to their children about—so is teen violence. In fact, it’s something that few parents are even aware exists. But it does and guess what? If you take a teen, add some dating violence that includes sex, you have sexual abuse. And sexual abuse can and does result in teen pregnancy.

Just ask Joe Klein, the Time reporter who in 1996 wrote a “Public Lives” column, “The Predator Problem,” for Newsweek.

Continue reading "Why today's parents need Joe Klein and Liz Claiborne, Inc." »

Posted by Daleen at 02:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)