| ok, so my life hasn't turned out terrible. I graduated high school, went to college and I am now working as a licensed insurance agent which pays well enough to support my family. My husband and I are getting along great, both of my children are happy and healthy and we just bought our first home! And at only 23 years old, that's not half bad! By looking at us today, you'd never know what it has taken us to get here! Unfortunatley, according to statistics, I am an exception. Most girls who find themselves pregnant as young as I was, drop out of school and can only find low paying jobs, need government financial support and have had a few more children by the time they do reach adulthood. Without saying anything about what kind of parents we are or how we young mothers choose to raise our children, just HAVING them at our young age increases the chance that they will follow in our footsteps and become teenage parents themselves. Young women who grow up without fathers are twice as likely to have sex at an early age and do drugs. These are only statistics. But why would you want to give your children more chance to do anything EXCEPT thrive and succeed? My children mean the world to me. I sincerely believe that God has given them to me and they are a great blessing. I struggle everyday to make healthy choices for them and to teach them to be good people. Sometimes it gets tough. I am being very honest here. As a child myself, really, I fear I do not have the knowledge or the experience to raise them the way they deserve to be raised. No child should have to be afraid at night because Mommy & Daddy are fighting, or worried about whether or not there will be anything to eat for breakfast. Still, being the best mother I think I am capable of, my children HAVE had theses concerns. It is not because I am a bad person, or even a bad mother. I consider myself to be a great mother who has accomplished many things in a short amount of time. It is simply because I was not ready to parent my children and therefore I did not/do not have the resources they need. When Shantal was a baby, I worked and went to school. From 6 am to 6 pm she was in a daycare center. I had to do that in order to make a better future for us and in order not to rely on goverment assistance. But looking back now, I do not remember when she crawled or said her first word. I was probably not there. People have complimented me on working and being self supportive, but really I would have lost either way. Lost her infancty, or our future. It is a hard thing to admit, that I really am not the best parent any child could ask for, but it is reality. The stress does wear on me sometimes. Making my marriage work is a everyday project! We are desperatley trying to break the cycle of violence and unhappiness which has plagued both Andrew's family (my husband) and mine for generations. Shantal has dyslexia and ADHD and can be a difficult child when she wants to be and Mercedes is a typical three year old who drives us all nuts! (but we love her) My point is that teenagers who think they are ready to become parents do not often think about the future for their child. When thinking about 'raising a child' they thing about 'raising a BABY'. Changing diapers, losing sleep, missing the prom-although those are some of the consequences of having a baby, those are the EASIEST parts! The child will not be a baby forever! Do you have patience for a 2 year old? Can you teach your 2nd grader about socialization? Do you understand geometry so you can help your 6th grader with their homework? Can you help a teenager make healthy choices about sex or drugs? What if your child is not an average one, and happens to be sick, disabled, or both? Are you emotionally ready to handle that? These are the questions that teenagers or ANYONE considering having a child needs to be asking themselves. And anyone with a child knows that these are not easy questions. Adult parents struggle with issues like these. The bottom line is parenting is VERY difficult, and children don't come with instructions. They depend on us as parents to know the answers and provide them with what they need. In my opinion, which you may not agree with if you're not a christian, is that the devil has a plan for this society. You see men are called by God to lead the household and be the 'head' spiritually and emotionally. Just as Jesus is the head of the Church, man is the head of his family. (Ephesians 5:22) Now the devil knows that if you cut the head off of something, the body will die. That is why so many people, especially men, are not doing their jobs inside of the home. A lot of them are on drugs, cheating, abusing their wives and children, not working and so on... So as a result women have to live the role God intended to be the man's. Working to support their family, disiplining and building a home for their children. That is why I believe children are not getting the disipline, direction and love they need to become successful loving adults. In turn, they grow up and follow in their parents' footsteps also not doing their jobs if that is what was modeled to them. So the girl ends up pregnant (too young because she was looking for love outside of the home) and the boy leaves her because he does not know what to do and was probably also looking for love or direction in his out-of-control life as well. And it becomes a cycle of women looking for love, their untrained fathers never gave them, as they grow up in such broken homes lacking the very basics of what a healthy family needs. And that is, I believe, the cause of the teen pregnancy epidemic, singled out as one of the MANY problems our society has today. How do you fix it? I wish I knew that answer. |