How did you get through being a teen mother?

I was not a teen mother but I was a single mother from conception and I think that that probably has a lot in common with many teen mothers… My son is three and a half now. It has been and is the toughest thing I do. It has changed my life immeasurably..it is a different world.

I love him dearly but I am not free. My life is his and that is as it should be.

Having my daughter just shy of 18 meant I grew up & became responsible very, very quickly. It was very tense for the 1st several years as I struggled to support the two of us (my marriage fell apart pretty quickly & I couldn’t depend on
him for support.) I had left an abusive home and neither asked for or got any help from my parents. Most of the time i worked as a waitress, but i wss able to move up to nicer restaurants where the tips were good. She was 5 before I was able to enroll in a college.

At the time, I didn’t think of it as being deprived of anything. I brought her into the world and she was dependent on my care. I lived in fear of anything ever happening to her.

To be honest, in many ways she kept me grounded. I had to make decisions based on my parents bad example and decide what I thought a good parent was.

Being a single parent so much of the time, I was terrified that if I wasn’t very careful, I’d lose her – to child services or worse.

I’m not saying I didn’t make mistakes. I’m sure I made many. One Christmas when she was 3 all her presents came from a thrift store. I wrapped them up as best I could. She was too young to know – but I hated it. I’d buy “gently used” clothes and bring them home as if they were new, or sew them for her.

I did receive WIC when she was a baby and I was breast feeding, but other than that never asked for any type of assistance.

I wouldn’t recommend it to any teen. I’m not trying to make it sound easy because it wasn’t. I learned not to depend on anyone but myself. She never knew a string of men in and out of my life. That made relationships with men probably harder than they needed to be later on. I’m just relating a small part of my life.

She’s 34 now, by the way, and a wonderful person – someone I’d want to know even if we weren’t related.

Not me but my mom was married as a teen and became pregnant her first year even though she’d been wanting to leave and divorce the man. My grandparents encouraged her to go through with the divorce and pledged to support her and raise me themselves until she could prove herself stable, responsible and interested in parenthood on her own or become remarried. My mom took them up, gave me over, remarried and then took me back later. She says if abortion had been legal in those times then she would have chosen that instead of going through with the pregnancy and I can empathize with her entirely.

I had my oldest daughter, Kylie when I was 16 in 11th grade. She is now 4½ and I am 21. It wasn’t easy then and it still is not easy. My mom was horrified, but she eventually got over it. Luckilly, I was able to live with her and finish highschool. I also lived with her for my first year of college and then met my husband. I’ve had an easier time financially then many people. If I didn’t have the help of my mom, my daughters father’s mom, and now my husband, I wouldn’t have made it to where I am now; in nursing school.

Besides financial concerns, it is stressful to have a child sometimes! I love my daughter and wouldn’t change anything about my life BUT it is stressful. You don’t really get time to yourself ever because by the time they go to bed, you’re ready to head there yourself! lol. Being a mother is wonderful and children are the greatest gifts in the world, but it’s a 24/7 job and I am still trying to do it correctly!

It bothers me to hear a 16 year old say “I want a baby”, because they have NO idea what caring for a child entails. It’s not a walk in the park. When I was 16 I wanted to have a baby soooo bad and I did. BUT up until I met my husband, I never went anywhere without my daughter.. A lot of teens are not able to sacrifice their social lives. My advice is to at LEAST finish college before you have a child.

2 months ago, I lost a baby when I was 6 months pregnant. She died inside my stomach. It has been so hard. I am now pregnant again and hoping for the best…. Kids are great but they also take a lot of work and you have to be willing to put the work in. :)

By the way, I got through being a teen mom by devoting my life to my daughter. That’s all you can do! :)

My mother wishes her life would have been different and her parents wish their only child’s life would have been different. My stepfather who met and then married her wishes she’d not been a divorced teen mother.