I have been thinking about why a child of a teen parent
might want to contribute to this blog. Many people I meet tell me that
they realized –as children- that their parents were noticeably younger than the
parents of their friends. They may have had experiences with Parent-Teacher
nights when the teacher sat in front of the young parent unaware that he or she
was, indeed, the parent. I can remember one such Parent-Teacher night in
particular when the teacher actually said to me, “when do you think your mother
will get here” I replied, “I am the Mother.” We were both uncomfortable and as
she stood, in front of her desk, leaning back on hands firmly pressed
against her desktop, looking at me, sitting in a 3rd or 4th
grade sized chair, looking up at her. I don’t know who was more uncomfortable,
she or I, but I know we were uncomfortable for different reasons. My son sat
watching as I was literally spoken-down-to. Not knowing any other way to
respond, I fell into student mode and looked like I was listening. Not one of
my finer moments as a parent. Once we were on our way home my son said, “why
didn’t she know you are my mom”? I don’t remember how I answered that one or if
I did. I wonder if he remembers it and how
he remembers it?
As adults, our children, the children of teen parents, can
understand that they were raised by a fringe element. Many of them were
aware as children; but as adults, I think, they understand their childhoods in
a larger social context. They understand that their parents, who married “so
young”, should, statistically, be divorced by now. They can understand that
their unmarried parents should not own homes, buy new cars, plan for retirement, or go on
cruises. Teen parents, statistically, should be financially struggling at low
wage jobs that have no retirement plans and Obama-care health insurance, or they
should collect welfare, unemployment, disability, or some other kind of state
assistance. As adults, some children of teen parents seem to understand the
difficulties their parents faced bringing them into the world and raising them. Those are the stories I want to hear.
I am aware of reality shows that reinforce the stereotype of
an ill-equipped young mother and her dysfunctional family. I cannot bring
myself to watch one. It pains me to think that anyone would exploit the
vulnerability of the situation. It pains me to think that anyone would allow
themselves to be exploited in that way, although I do understand the paycheck mentality
that might motivate them to do so. It makes me wonder if a teen parent with a
$10,000 paycheck is more likely to be considered a better more capable parent,
or just a another teenager with too much money. Instead of a paycheck I hope they were paid with a scholarship to a good college or university.
Moreover, I wonder what the children of those young parents will think, as
adults, about those very public “home movies.”
My own mother was technically a teen parent; she was a
married 19 year old when I was born. By the time I was eight months old she was
a 20 year-old parent. Did something fundamental shift in those eight months. Is
there a magic cutoff point when turning 20 marks the moment at which one is
statistically more likely to be a successful parent with successful children?
The same year that I got pregnant another girl in my class
got pregnant and she and her boyfriend got married and continued to attend and graduate from high
school. The high school that I had to leave. Is it the marriage that
communicates social acceptability that allows society to cheer for "struggling" married teen parents? I often wonder if
they and their son were predisposed to the same sociological outcomes that my
son and I were. Did they, as a family, suffer the statistical inevitability of
poverty and dysfunction? I wonder how
their son feels about his younger than average parents. Did he notice as a
child? Does it affect him as an adult? Were they working against statistical
predispositions that were similar to mine as an unmarried teen parent?
Do the feelings that adult children of teen parents have for
their parents, as children, change when they become adolescents? When they become
parents themselves? Do they structure their lives in ways that allow them to
avoid the statistical stereotypes? Are they aware of the stereotypes? At what
age do they become aware? Under what kinds of circumstances? Is the rebellion
of an adult child of teen parents found in their living a life more in keeping with convention: high
school, college, dating, marriage, home and then children? It may be none of my
business but I would really like to know.
Lesliee-
ReplyDeleteThere will be a few posts from me becuase of the character space limit.
Post 1 of 3:
As a kid I didn’t think much of my parents’ age. They had three kids, we lived in a house, and they were strict- all the “normal” stuff. The fact that they were young didn’t seem to factor into my awareness. I realize now that it might have had something to do with growing up in inner city Philadelphia where most of my friends and cousins also had young parents. And I guess as a kid I didn’t really have an accurate gauge of age- if someone was older than a teenager, they were old. For me there wasn’t a concept of twenties or thirties and so on. By the time I could register age, my parents were out of their teens and thus “old” in my mind.
As I am now in that “old” category and have a child of my own, I am developing a new appreciation for my parents with each passing day. I am sure some of this is owed to coming out of my self-absorbed twenties. Most of it is coming from being a new parent. Considering all the data and mythology surrounding teen parents, I am amazed by my parents. Yes, I can see where they do fit into some of the statistics that quantify and categorize young parents; however, I can also see how they have broken the stereotyped storylines played out on MTV and in the occasional headline.
My family definitely fit the criteria for teen parents being poor. We were “working poor” or blue collar- whatever phrase best fits having working parents who still struggled to make ends meet. My dad worked laboring jobs and my mom stayed home with the kids unless things were really tight, then she’d find work outside of the house. Things got tight often; something was always breaking down: the car, the washer, whatever. There was always talk of money in our house. It usually was never good talk either- unless it was income tax return time or Friday. Fridays meant going food shopping and eating at McDonalds for dinner and a trip to Toys R Us. I’d linger in the stationary section pouring over pink and aqua Lisa Frank Trapper Keepers. I loved Fridays. While we were living paycheck to paycheck, we were better off than many other families on my block.
When I was in the eighth grade my parents wanted to move. Our neighborhood was going downhill and the dangers of city life were encroaching. It wasn’t uncommon to have to walk past drug dealers and hookers to get to school in the morning. Broken beer bottles and drug viles littered the baseball diamond where my parents helped to put together a community baseball team. Having been born and raised in this environment, I didn’t see it as out of the ordinary or “bad”. It simply just “was”. Everyone in our neighborhood was in the same boat. I did not feel the sting of being poor or being from a decomposing urban environment. I had never been out of the neighborhood long enough to realize that there was even another way of living. Detached single family homes and new cars were just the stuff of television and books. It wasn’t reality. All of that changed once we moved.
Beth, I want to respond in three parts but I'm not sure what it will look like once published. I am still on the learning curve for Blogs and websites.
DeleteThat said, Thank you. I appreciate your sharing your story and part one reminded me of one of my own. Friday night. For most teenagers Friday night is party night. Figuring out how to sneak out or stay out late is only part of the fun. When you already have your own house and children in it, the definition of fun changes significantly.
My son and I had Pizza Paydays. Throughout the week we would eat cereal or try my newest adventure into cooking, which was rarely successful but on Friday we got PIZZA! My son and I both would start the day wondering what kind of pizza we would have that night for dinner. We always got the same kind: pepperoni, mushroom and olive from Joe's. Occasionally, we would try some new item that my son had heard someone talk about at school or I heard about at work. We would then order our pizza HALF pepperoni, mushroom and olive, and use the other half to taste test the new item. Why waste a whole pizza topped with something we didn't like?
I love that your family's Friday paycheck night was McDs and ToysRUs. If we had lived in an urban area I might have thought about that but all we had was a pizza joint and a Thrifty.
I also love that your first obsession was with stationary!
Post 2 of 3:
ReplyDeleteWe moved to the Poconos, where no concrete could be found, only pine trees as far as the eyes could see. I loved it. I dreamed it would be like it was in my Babysitter’s Club books. I’d be the new girl who would have to brave the first day of whispers and side glances, but soon after I’d be chumming around with the popular kids going to football games and hanging out at the local pizza parlor. Some of this came true, much later. But on that first day at my new school I couldn’t see myself fitting in with those popular kids. All I had to do was look around homeroom. Kids were wearing clothes from the Gap- a place I had only seen in commercials. My clothes were purchased at K-mart. That was a big deal for me then. For the first time I was aware of my family’s lack of money. Without waiting to see what kind of class caste system might emerge, I was building it in my mind. I felt inferior and coupled with being the new girl, I felt like an “O”ther. That feeling had stuck with me for a long, long time.
I made it through the school year okay. I made friends, went to dances, acquired my first boyfriend- all the typical adolescent girl stuff that I did read about in books. It wasn’t until that summer that I realized that my parents were “different” from other parents. It happened when I was standing in line to register to play softball. My parents wanted my brothers and me to get involved in the community and really take advantage of all that clean, country living had to offer. This time the fields were well taken care of and we had real uniforms. This was a real league- there was a promise of playing in Williamsport at the Little League World Series if your team was good enough. It was legit; I even needed to show my birth certificate. As the oldest, I was trusted to stand in line on my own and register my self. My mom stood in another line with my little brothers and got them signed up. I was happy to be handling an official document (after all I was going into high school next year, I should be doing more adult things). I opened the envelope to see this symbol of my newfound independence and I saw their ages: mother 15, father 19. This wasn’t new information to me. I knew that they were teen parents, but somehow in this new environment those ages mattered more. At this point I had seen after-school specials with dramatic music and hysterical girls hugging their knees, slouched against bathroom walls. I knew that there was a stigma attached to being a teen parent. All of the sudden I didn’t feel so eager to hand over this paper to the lady keeping track of would-be softball players.
Response to part 2
DeleteBeth, Your writing is so vivid, I can see those After School specials with girls slouching against bathroom walls. I think that was actually a poster for Planned Parenthood at some point in time. Finding the numbers on your birth certificate and seeing your mother's age so close to your own must have been a shocker internally as well as externally. You had seen enough TV to know that was not a good number and you were fast approaching it. I completely understand your not wanting to hand over the document but can you remember how you processed that information as an indicator of your own identity? You were already the new girl but, as you wrote, you had managed to put into place the typical markers of your age group: boyfriend, girlfriends, and sports.
Did you see your mother slouched against that bathroom wall or was it you?
Post 3 of 3:
ReplyDeleteAs I got older and started my teaching position at a high school, the reason I hid my parents’ ages morphed. Yes, I still wanted to protect them from what I imagined people might think about them. But now I was afraid that the “kid of teen parent” stigma would also attach itself to me. Would they think I didn’t measure up to all of the “regular” kids of “regular” non-identified, non-labeled parents? At that point I had graduated from college, interviewed and obtained a full-time job, but I was nervous that if I was “found out” my intelligence and character would be called into question. That should have been a ridiculous, paranoid thought, but nevertheless, it rolled around in my brain. It wasn’t totally farfetched though. Working in a high school there would be talk about what girls were pregnant or less frequently, about boys who got someone pregnant. My colleagues would say things to like “what a waste” or worse. This always made me tense. I wanted to lash out. I should have set the record straight. I should have stood up for my parents, but I didn’t- I feel ashamed of that. I tried to rationalize my reasoning (and my guilt). I’d get angry at the idea of having to feel as though I should have to tell people. No one else had to state their parents’ ages. I’d tell myself it wasn’t worth it to explain any of this to closed-minded people anyway. I am starting to realize it would have been more for my benefit and that’s okay.
I had a soft spot for those kids that were scorned and chalked up to be doomed. Whenever any of them were my students, I congratulated them and told them good luck. I’d tell them that things would be okay. I hope that they remembered that someone was nice to them. I remember my mom telling me about how she would get dirty looks and people would talk about her as she would push me in the stroller. Whenever she tells those stories, she never tells it with self-pity or sadness. I cannot imagine how strong she and my dad must have been. They couldn’t hide their ages, they couldn’t hide their baby, and I shouldn’t have hid their story.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteResponse to part three
ReplyDeleteBeth, thank you for these postings. I have only ever imagined what might have been going through my son's head. I am not saying he harbored the same thoughts you have expressed. I am saying that I do not know, and I wonder if there might be a gender issue here. Maybe boys are not as socially sensitive; after all, as you said, it was the girls the teachers talked about and only occasionally the boys. Is that "boys will be boys" mentality or is there really something deeper that as a culture we "blame” girls for early pregnancies, so girls are more aware of and sensitive to the stigma attached to teen pregnancy. After all, it is not the boys we see slouched against the bathroom walls in those After School specials.
You have touched upon so many topics. Adult children of teen parents may be impacted by the "age factor" more than younger children, but children may be just as aware. Your story is fascinating not only because it seems as though you became aware in grade 8, but the impact did not occur until you became an adult. It is as if the awareness was fully present in eighth grade and sort of planted itself, waiting to knock you off balance, when you became an adult.
The guilt you feel for not "standing up" for your parents when you are among your teacher peers is also interesting to me. I completely understand it, intellectually. In my heart I just want to say, "that is not your job." But, this is not exactly right either because not standing up for your parents seems to equal not standing up for yourself, I think. Listening to your teacher peers dismiss those girls was a dismissal of girls like your mom and perhaps it dismissed you and all that you had attained.
If you became aware of your parents' ages and the stigma attached to that situation, is it fair to say that you then also became aware of the statistical inevitability that you were not expected to succeed? There you stand in the hall chatting up your teacher peers, you have done everything they have done academically and, most likely, socially, and probably better than many of them had done. However, because your parents were teen parents you somehow do not feel you can claim your accomplishments and celebrate yourself. You were still that eighth grader holding the document in her hand and not wanting to share it. This is something I have not considered.
I know that as a teen parent, my accomplishments refuted the stereotype but I really have not considered how my identity as a teen parent might lessen the value of my child's accomplishments.
I really made a huge deal out of my son going to and graduating from college. When he did graduate I made it an epic moment because, for ME, it was the top rung in the ladder of MY success. I had raised him, he did not die, he was not in jail, he had no apparent addictions, and he had a college education. Job well done. If he went to college only because of my ambition and his sense of duty how might that color his sense of his own accomplishment?
I am now thinking about the movie _Juno_ and the TV series "Raising Hope." In both cases the characters lead healthy, happy and extremely quirky lives. Is this what is takes for a teen parent and/or a child of a teen parent to live life fully and secure in the knowledge that our accomplishments are just as valid? I will write a longer piece on this topic. Beth, if you are willing to share (or anyone reading this) what is it that prompted you to go to college (to become a teacher)? Was it simply your love of stationary? Was it prompted by a desire to put yourself in a position whereby you could wish those "unfortunate" girls good luck when no one else would? Were you looking for a career rather than a job and teaching was just simpler or easier? Why, if I may be so bold, did you even go to college? Was it your dream or your parents' dream? These are real questions. I am not being facetious.
Hi Lesliee-
ReplyDeleteI love all of your questions and memories. I definitely plan to respond when I get a longer chance to write.
While reading over your responses, I realized that I mistakenly left out a portion while trying to copy and paste everything in. And AHHHHHHH it is an important part to me.
So, here is part 2 1/2:
This part should have come just after handing over my birth certificate:
I don’t remember how the rest of that interaction went down, but I know from that point on, I dodged conversations about my parents’ age as much as I could. I have tried really hard to figure why I did this. The best explanation I can offer is that I didn’t want people to judge my parents or me. I was always afraid that if people knew my mom and dad were teen parents they would think they were trash or stupid- all of the stereotypes that go along with having your kids at a young age. They weren’t trashy or stupid. I was proud of my dad’s talent with fixing and building things. I had always bragged that he could build a whole house inside and out if he wanted to. My mom was always reading books and seemed to know how to handle herself in any situation. She had high standards for us and reminded us of that all of the time. So to avoid having to defend my parents (against the imaginary vitriol) I wouldn’t ever bring up the idea of age. I don’t think it ever really came up that often, but I thought about it a lot. If anyone ever asked, I’d just say that they were “young” when they had us, and hope they would just assume they were in their early twenties. I feel a tremendous amount of guilt for doing that. I should have been proud to let people know that my parents did a great job raising my brothers and me and that they worked incredibly hard and sacrificed so much to give us a good life. They weren’t just a statistic and they would have been model parents no matter what their ages were.
Thanks! I will post again :)