Going Beyond the Stigma of Teen Parenting

When someone hears that a teenage couple is expecting a child at such a young age, the initial reaction is one of shock, pity, even disgust. Everyone automatically assumes that the parents will be dead-end 'welfare cases', doomed to a future as trailer park trash. In some cases, this may be true, but the fact that this is the automatic assumption is rather unfortunate, as it doesn't always end this way. Most people reading a piece such as this are already recalling solemn statistics and negative stories from daytime television or news specials. Rarely do they fathom to think that some teen parents adjust, adapt, and thrive. Why do I have the right to defend the existence of successful teen parents? I am one.

At the age of 15, neither I nor my beau Jessica were prepared for the news that we were about to be teen parents. We were the last kids anyone would expect to be in our situation. We were both high honor students, active in the school band and various extracurriculars, and we were one of the unofficial, 'class couples' - everyone knew we were together and very much in love. Our family members' reactions ran the full emotional spectrum. Jessica's mother was in a daze and worried, her father quite infuriated, my father standoffish, and my mother (the most liberal and open-minded of the bunch) was cautiously optimistic and the first to get excited about the new addition.

We heard nothing but horror stories from adults, and we must have been told adoption was the best option at least 100 times a month. Jessica and I were not about to give up our baby, regardless of our fears and insecurities, and there was nothing anyone would say that would change our minds.