Society and the Unfair Assumptions About Teen Parents

Finding out you are pregnant can be one of the happiest moments in your life. Suddenly, the idea of adding another to your family number has become real. The next few months will be filled with anticipation as your belly grows, and your due date nears. Most families eagerly await news of a pregnancy. But when you are 16, sharing the news of your newly discovered pregnancy may not be welcomed with such warmth.

From personal experience, I know how it feels to be in those shoes. My boyfriend and I were 17 and 16 when we learned I was pregnant. We were faced with breaking the news to our family, and had the idea that they would not all be happy with our announcement.

We were surprised by the amount of support we got, but we were equally surprised by some of the comments about how our lives were changing. Some were straightforward, and let us know we would not survive without government aid, and that our family would most likely be raising our child for us. Others skirted about the issue at hand, but we were not dumb, and the fact was they did not believe we could do this on our own. But we were determined. If we were going to bring a child into this world, then we were going to stand on our own feet and take care of this child the way any parent should.

Forty weeks of pregnancy flew by, and over those weeks we wed, got our own apartment, and prepared our lives for the arrival of our child. I attended school during the day, which we allow me to graduate on time with the rest of my class. My now husband worked afternoons and evenings to provide for us. We were doing just fine on our own. And then, one very cold afternoon in January, our daughter was brought into the world.

Being a teen parent has opened my eyes to the resentment society holds against younger parents. When I hear a person criticizing someone in their early twenties having a child, I wonder what they would say if they knew my age. And I have to wonder, in a world where everyone wants to be heard, why teen parents are summed into such a group of failures?

It seems to be that many individuals are becoming parents at later ages then before, and they are being idolized for succeeding in their professional live before taking the time to become a parent. Many have reported that they are glad they waited so long, because they just know they would have not made good parents in their twenties or thirties. That seems to cast and even darker shadow on younger parents. If they have children now and love it, and they didn't have them when they were younger, then how could anyone be happy being a young parent?

I have to say, this trend of thinking upsets me from time to time. I am completely happy with my life, my family. Just because I had an unintended pregnancy early on in life does not make me a failure, a burden to society, or a bad parent. The fact is, teen parents can be just as good of parents as any other. We can be just as happy, just as successful in life, and most importantly, we can do things on our own, and it shouldn't always be assumed that we can't.

My husband and I now have two daughters, the second one being born when we were 19 and 21. We are happy with the road we have taken in life, and it saddens me that some people think we must be putting on an act. I think that societies view of teen parents is very skewed, and it needs to be altered. Just as other groups prefer not to be summed together, it is no different for the young parents in todays world.