Being a mother is always hard and scary for some. I was one
of the fortunate ones that found it one of the easiest things to do and one of
the best things that I would do in my lifetime. Of course I made it a choice
and not one of those things that just seems to happen to many of the people out
there that do not think of the consequences of having unprotected sex.
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| http://ahhmandah.wordpress.comI |
I lived in Seattle, Washington for a little over 5 years and
one of the many different jobs that I had was working with teen parents. It was
often incommodious to understand that some of these teens would never have
gotten this way if they had a different kind of home life. One of the girls was
taking care of the parents as well as herself and her child. That was one of
the teens that I knew would succeed in life and to this day I have followed her
progression and indeed she is doing wonderful.
Some teens try to do the best they can and find out that they
cannot make a go of it and finally end up giving their child up for adoption. I
commend them for that also. Either way of living is not easy, but a decision
has to be made either way.
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Being a mother at an early age is giving up many things in
your life. You no longer can act like you are the age you are. You MUST grow
up! You cannot have a baby and cart the baby around and treat it like it is a
baby doll. The baby is real and he/she has needs. I say this because one of the
girls did this and I was appalled, but my job was to be her advocate and to
teach her how to be a mother. Of course she was fighting me all of the way, but
that did not stop me from trying. You pray for the best for the baby and work
with the teen so that she can give the baby the ultimate care. All the baby
knows is that is his/her mother and would not know anything different if she
acted like a grown up or like a teen ager.
The best advice that I can give to a teenager is to weigh in
all of your options. Do you have a home for the both of you? Do you have good
support from your family? Would you have someplace to go to help you learn how
to be a mother if it is necessary? Will the father be there to help you provide
for the baby?
There are so many questions that you need to ask yourself
before taking on such a task. Even if you have someplace to go, the bottom line
is this is your baby and you must do everything you can for this baby. Do not expect
anyone else to do it for you. You must learn to feed the baby, change his/her
diapers, learn the signs when he/she is sick, and understand the difference
between a cry for hunger, wet and I just want to be held. Babies do not come
with a “How to Book”.
When I had my first child I was in for a shock. It seemed
like all of the books I read and all of the advice I was given was all wrong.
This baby that I had in my arms was not responding to anything that I was told
or that I read; he just cried and cried. I held him in my arms and had to put
him into a front carrier because he wanted to see what I was doing at every
minute every single day, but before I figured that out I either carried him
around or tried to put him down to do housework or to eat and he was not having
it. One day I was downstairs in my family room and I put him on the couch so
that I could vacuum. I neatly tucked him in with pillows and made sure he was
secure until I could get the floor done. I looked over while I was vacuuming
and he was sound asleep. I’ll be doggone if he did not like the sound of the
loud vacuum or the constant noise to help him go to sleep.
To this day he has to have a hum of a fan on to go to sleep
at night and since then I have discovered things about myself and going to
sleep. Noises that are constant help me go to sleep also. These are some of the
many things that you have to discover about your children. You have to keep an
open mind, be objective and help them discover not only their talents, but
their sense of imagination. I sometimes felt that my children had too many toys
to play with and not enough creativity until one day my son was angry with me
for putting him the time out chair too many times and wished that I would just
spank him and get it over with. I laughed at him because my son was so hyper
that the time out chair was so perfect for him. I asked him why he did not just
make up stuff in his head while he was there to pass the time. He said he did…he
imagined a ball outside the window bouncing up and down, but that just got to
be too boring for him. I told him the only other option for him was to stop
doing the bad things that he was doing to get him into the chair because
spanking was not an option.
To raise a child these days is not just something that we do
anymore like it was back when I was a child. I thought of it as a privilege when
I had my boys because children are precious and need special care the first few
years of their lives. I am dealing with a problem right now that is heart
breaking. This mother is old enough to know better, but has never grown up so
to speak. She is so needy and wants so much attention that she uses the
pregnancies and the children as a way to get that attention. It has taken me
and one other woman years to get these children into a certain state of
reasonable survival so that they can live without looking like they are animals
in the wild instead of little lovable human beings like they are. They did not
even know how to shower and wash their own hair because they were not shown how
to do the basic things.
I cringe when I think that there are worse living situations out there
than these few children that I am managing. This mother was just selfish and other mother’s are
too busy trying to get drugs and other things to pay
attention to even feeding their children. The children that I am referring to at least got fed even
if they had to get it themselves. They were just not clean and not clothed
properly. The mother was too busy trying to figure out what she could do for
herself instead of clothing the children appropriately or paying attention to
bathing them and making sure that they knew how to take care of themselves.
I was watching a clip on the awards Sunday night 3/2/2014 and
I was happy, ecstatic, and elated for the man that won the award and not
because he won the award. Because he was the son of a single mother and was so
proud of his mother and was standing there cheering her on. It is not often
that you hear that from a child of a single mom and especially from a son of a
single mom. Like I said before; it is with great difficulty that you raise
children and to raise them as a single mom is so much more difficult. I cheer
on the mothers that can do it and do it with success and great pride:
http://youtu.be/jmg8wTyht-c
I believe that many women can probably relate to my story: I was
married with three boys and I did not receive much help if any at all with
those boys. As they grew I did not receive any help at all and then they grew to an
age where they wanted to do more in their lives rather than just stay home. So I started
carting them all over the place-soccer, golf, dance…you get the picture. So you
become and single married mother. By the time my eldest was 13 I was finally
single and then I really had a plateful. I not only had to cart them around,
but I had to work and go to college. I know the difficulties of raising
children alone, but financially I did have help. The story that this man talks
about on stage is a miracle to me. She did it alone and I praise that woman for
that.
DO SOMETHING.ORG:
11 Facts About Teen Pregnancy
1. 3 in 10 teen American girls will get pregnant at least once before age 20. That’s nearly 750,000 teen pregnancies every year.
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