generalparenting

We all hear about the teen parents and how terrible an epidemic it is but what happens to these teens when they grow up? I am an adult teen parent and I look around some days and wonder what happened? How did I get here? and When did I grow up? It’s true you miss your lost childhood and it is definitly hard to be a parent who started as a teen. I was in high school when I had my daughter, giving into pressure from my then boyfriend and having sex before I was ready. I got pregnant the second time I had sex and had my first child two and a half months before my seventeenth birthday. With help from my mom and daycare I made it through most of high school and due to moving I finished with a GED. I got pregnant again and by the time I was twenty one I had three children all with different fathers. While I was pregnant with my son (my youngest child) I went to college for graphic design and graduated with a 3.8 grade average. I was an excellent student and ready and willing to go to work. But let me tell you I was doing it alone and it was NOT easy. I remember the late nights with one toddler, one collicky baby, and a new born crying to be fed. I would sleep holding the youngest with my oldest in my lap while pushing my colicky child in one of those old fashioned swings that you have to crank. Going to school was my break away from the kids. I loved my children, still do of course, but sometimes I just had to get away. I was doing it alone because when the fathers found out I was pregnant they split, being young themselves and scared. I went on to become a CNA and worked hard but my mental illness hit full force when I got to be about 26 and it became almost impossible to take care of my children. I had to rely on my mother again, even though I got married the year before. (he wasn’t a good man) She took care of my kids for about six months while I went in and out of the hospital trying to get medications that worked for me, which didn’t happen quickly. Now I went through about a total of two years where things looked pretty dark but we got through it. Alone again I moved across country, it was a manic thing where I just had to pick up and get away not thinking of the consequences. I got here to Oregon and my life finally got settled. I have had my up’s and down’s with my medications and my illness but now I can focus on being a parent again. In all of that lost time though I tend to have lost my childhood which happens as a teen parent. I didn’t go to prom, I didn’t go to graduation, I didn’t go to formal’s, I didn’t even go to football games after I had my daughter. I missed a lot of typical teenage things the other kids took for granted. I didn’t realize all the work and worry being a parent would be and I had no idea all of the things I would miss out on. Now don’t get me wrong I love my children and being a parent is something I feel I was meant to do but looking back I wish it would have happened later in life. I just didn’t realize what it took to be a parent. Now I have a daughter who is the same age I was when I became a parent and I can’t imagine her having a child of her own. She is so selfish and immature, as most teens are. Was I like that? I wonder. How did I do it? I don’t know, but am taking every precaution to avoid my children making the same mistakes. I put my daughter on birth control the year after she started menstrating and will do the same with my younger daughter and I have been very open and honest with all of my children from a young age about sex and the consequences of having sex as well as what it was like to be a teen parent. I want them to be informed and I want them to be able to talk to me about the pressures they are facing. It wasn’t long ago that I was in their shoes and I want them to make wiser decisions. I know it’s hard being a teen, it’s still fresh in my mind since it wasn’t that long ago that I too was a teen, and I want them to think before they act not to let emotions take over when they need to think and I want them to have the opportunities that I didn’t have.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS