I saw a news report about this on T.V., she was a straight A Student who had perfect attendance and everything. Everyone loved and respected her for her skills, but when she started this experiment and people thought she was pregnant, they started treating her like garbage. Even her teachers started looking down on her like she was scum of the earth. The only people who knew she was doing this as an experiment were her school principle, her health care teacher and her father. Her own mother thought she was pregnant.
I mean even her friends turned on her, it was horrid. Very very sad, and as soon as she revealed during an assembly that the pregnancy was false, a lot of people were in shock as she brought up all the horrible things they said and did to her because they thought she was pregnant.
The reason for the experiment was to see how people would react and treat her if they thought she was pregnant, as apposed as to treating her as the straight A “Perfect” student they usually did. And it proved that people were horrible scumbags too her as soon as they thought she was.given that we refuse to properly educate our teens about sex or give them the tools to plan when they’re ready to be parents, at least society doesn’t treat teen mothers like the dirt beneath their feet!
I was a real pregnant 17 year old girl, and I was also an honor student in mostly AP classes. And I was very active in my church (I mean I was on a travelling Youth Ministry Committee and volunteered as a Sunday School teacher and did things during worship services every week, and all that kinda stuff…) I was in the top 10% and the top 25 students of my graduating class, too, which meant there were all sorts of ceremonies and newspaper photos and things that year, many of which featured me “out to there.”
I had some really supportive teachers, and some good friends, and my congregation threw me a baby shower, but I also experienced things like:
-my grandfather crying into his scotch saying all my hard work was for nothing and my life was over
-the principal calling me down to her office to suggest I go to the local “opportunity school” for troubled teens, which somehow included pregnant girls
-my grandmother constantly expressing outrage at who the father was and pressure for me to abort
-being asked by the board at my church to step down as a Sunday School teacher
-several of my closest friends distancing themselves in a big way
-being told by a neighbor that I needed to quit dressing “like a teen mom” if I ever wanted to get any respect
This was in 2000. I had my first daughter the same week I graduated. FOR THE RECORD, for anyone who is reading this and being told their life is over - I’m about to turn 31. My husband and I (not the original baby daddy) own a home and have five kids total. All of my kids have been raised with research and care as individuals. I ended up making lots of choices (breastfeeding, cloth diapering, and homeschooling, for instance) that grouped me in with moms 20 years older than me, and that’s ok.
That oldest, firstborn daughter is 12; she reads (voraciously) at a high school level, plays the cello, has a caustic dry wit, is mind numbingly gorgeous and we recently went to a Florence and the Machine concert together.
I was 19 years old with a baby on each hip, stirring spinach into the scrambled eggs for breakfast and reading picture books on the floor of our apartment. Now I’m in college fulltime and my first book is coming out.
YOU CAN DO WHATEVER YOU WANT, as well as you choose to, and there will be major challenges as well as marked advantages to parenting at any age.
It’s not a decision to be taken lightly, by any means. But all babies are valid humans and worthy of celebration, and all mothers deserve respect.
