Teen mom

As most of you know I'm addicted to trashy reality TV, really all television but specifically trashy tv.
I've been watching 16 & Pregnant as well as Teen Mom (1&2) since the beginning. I'm not ashamed, although I should be. However, since I've had my own baby I'd say it has sort of changed the way I watch it but I am still watching (sadly). This post isn't so much about the show Teen Mom, as it is a post about teen moms in general.

Growing up in FL we had our fare share of teen pregnancies but it wasn't THAT common. I went to 4 different high schools, and I will say I never had a class with a pregnant teen. I even went to night school to make up credits and didn't have any pregnant teens in there with me. I did date someone who was a teen dad, had two friends that became teen moms (but we weren't really friends at that time) and one of them put the child up for adoption. I also had a college friend that became a teen mom, however I see that as different than a high schooler becoming a teen parent. As I'm sitting here thinking and reviewing my friendships I am thinking there maybe a few more but maybe I wasn't around. Perhaps I never saw the pregnant students because they all got sent to a different, regardless I rarely saw them.

Living here in rural TN I'm seeing tons of teen pregnancies. Every year Jason has had at least one pregnant student. In a 5-12 school with 800 students that seems excessive to me. Now that's he's in a bigger school he's got multiple pregnant students. As a side note one of those pregnant students actually picked a fight in his class, which came to blows. So I decided to look it up, the statistics are mind blowing. It's about 3%.... so per every 1000 students, there should be 30 births. So maybe, just maybe, I lived a sheltered life because really the rate at his old school would have been "less" than average.

As I have aged and become a mom my perspective has changed a little. As a teenager I was dead set against getting pregnant or getting a STD and dying. My dad did a really good job of "scaring me straight" by giving me the Atlas of Aids to thumb through regularly. Not to mention seeing my mom's doula movies. WHOA....  Jason and I got our amazing surprise when I was 30, and honestly I felt a little strange telling people I was pregnant because I'd always been so set against it for so many years. Jason and I had been married for almost 8 years at that point. We'd traveled to Europe a few times, explored a little of the US, completed a couple of degrees, bought and sold our first house, bought our second hours, bought our first new car, we slept in, we napped, we watched trashy TV and scifi, we snuggled for hours then played hours and hours of video games. I feel like we really had a chance to live. A chance to enjoy each other and get to know ourselves as individuals and as a couple.

Parenting is hard. It is a life long commitment to give unconditionally. Babies are nonstop attention hogs... and teenagers (my younger self included) are completely self absorbed. It's just human nature. I cannot imagine having Kelso at 16, 18, hell even at 25 because I was not ready to give myself completely over to mommihood. I know you sort of have to just go with it once it's happening but wow. Before when I saw a teen mom, I didn't think much of it. Now I cannot help but to stop and wonder if they are okay. If they are making it, if they have the support they need, emotionally and finically, thenI feel sad for them. I know I shouldn't and I know it is not my place to feel things for others. Their child may have saved their life, it may have given them a reason to live. However, my own prejudice makes me hate that they had to give up so much, so young. It is the ultimate gift to have a child and I just don't think I could have been the parent I want to be at 18. I'm not even sure I'll be able to be the type of parent I want to be at 30. Turns out babies are not only time consuming they're expensive too. ;)

So yeah, this long rambling blog leads me to three ending thoughts. 1. If you are a teen mom, your strength and selflessness amazes me. 2. I cannot believe the word prejudice is used in my blog to describe me 3. I'm thankful for my life, just the way it is.