dorktor
(?)Community Member
- Posted: Sat, 09 Feb 2013 01:09:36 +0000
I brought this to extended discussion with an over abundance of frustration.
I'm a teenage mother (17 years old) and constantly get dirty looks from people who don't know me. I am a graduate with good GPA and am working on getting my own business started.
I don't understand where this overly used bias against teenage pregnancy came from. Back in the time of Kingdoms and castles, Shakespeare, and Renaissance, you started having children when you were a "woman" which was the day you started your menstrual cycles.
My mother is an RN with 7 years of college who condones teenage pregnancy (if the teenager of course, is being responsible) because of how well women do giving birth earlier in life than later. The facts are there. It is highly recommended women above mid-twenties and up don't have more children due to the high chances of retardation in a fetus. This is caused because the body is older and can't catch something wrong with an egg that plants itself. When you're young, your body causes a natural humane abortion if there is something wrong. Yet for some reason everywhere it states women between the ages of 20-30 are "in their prime". I was a healthy infant born to my mother when she was 19. She had twins she carried to 3 months that she miscarried at 25, then she had my sister when she was nearly 27. My sister had a terrible speech impediment for nearly 5 years and had to ride the special needs bus until she was 8. Observing women who had children at later ages, they're often more hyper-active offspring.
I know three of seven mothers who had multiple children for financial reasons at the age of 30-40. Now they have a child with down syndrome.
Another irritating thing to me is there was a woman talking crap about me for being a 17 year old mother. She lives off of welfare, has 5 kids, and smoke/drank through her pregnancies. How is it fair that as much as I try to be a fitting parent, I can't be in the eyes of even the most unfit people just because of my age?
I quit using drugs, I took additional classes to graduate on time, and I saved money and prepared for my child's arrival. Now that she's here, I stay at home with her so that she is given enough love and affection for a proper development.
Of course in the case of a mother being a teenager and passing her child off to go out and party isn't proper parenting. We're discussing when a teenager is willing to be a parent figure instead of a, well, teenager. I know a teenage mother who smoked through out her pregnancy and after her child was born, she would stand at absolute most three feet away from him and smoke cigarettes. Not that she isn't loving, but I believe that's what gives teenage mother's a bad reputation. Yet when we see an adult woman do that, we make a comment usually in our mind and then look the other way.
So Extended Discussion, what is your opinion on teenage pregnancy?
Why is it that I'm a terrible, horrible, unfit parent just because of my age?
I'm a teenage mother (17 years old) and constantly get dirty looks from people who don't know me. I am a graduate with good GPA and am working on getting my own business started.
I don't understand where this overly used bias against teenage pregnancy came from. Back in the time of Kingdoms and castles, Shakespeare, and Renaissance, you started having children when you were a "woman" which was the day you started your menstrual cycles.
My mother is an RN with 7 years of college who condones teenage pregnancy (if the teenager of course, is being responsible) because of how well women do giving birth earlier in life than later. The facts are there. It is highly recommended women above mid-twenties and up don't have more children due to the high chances of retardation in a fetus. This is caused because the body is older and can't catch something wrong with an egg that plants itself. When you're young, your body causes a natural humane abortion if there is something wrong. Yet for some reason everywhere it states women between the ages of 20-30 are "in their prime". I was a healthy infant born to my mother when she was 19. She had twins she carried to 3 months that she miscarried at 25, then she had my sister when she was nearly 27. My sister had a terrible speech impediment for nearly 5 years and had to ride the special needs bus until she was 8. Observing women who had children at later ages, they're often more hyper-active offspring.
I know three of seven mothers who had multiple children for financial reasons at the age of 30-40. Now they have a child with down syndrome.
Another irritating thing to me is there was a woman talking crap about me for being a 17 year old mother. She lives off of welfare, has 5 kids, and smoke/drank through her pregnancies. How is it fair that as much as I try to be a fitting parent, I can't be in the eyes of even the most unfit people just because of my age?
I quit using drugs, I took additional classes to graduate on time, and I saved money and prepared for my child's arrival. Now that she's here, I stay at home with her so that she is given enough love and affection for a proper development.
Of course in the case of a mother being a teenager and passing her child off to go out and party isn't proper parenting. We're discussing when a teenager is willing to be a parent figure instead of a, well, teenager. I know a teenage mother who smoked through out her pregnancy and after her child was born, she would stand at absolute most three feet away from him and smoke cigarettes. Not that she isn't loving, but I believe that's what gives teenage mother's a bad reputation. Yet when we see an adult woman do that, we make a comment usually in our mind and then look the other way.
So Extended Discussion, what is your opinion on teenage pregnancy?
Why is it that I'm a terrible, horrible, unfit parent just because of my age?