The 16-year-old makes her way through the shopping center parking lot, pushing her squirming son in his brightly-colored Elmo stroller.
Shoppers hustling by can’t help but smile at the brown-eyed boy – who is bundled up in a puffy red coat that makes him look a bit like a miniature, armless snowman.
But the smiles the girl and her son receive often fade once the boy makes his relationship to her clear, calling out, “Mommy! Mommy!” as he smiles broadly and points at her.
The 16-year-old – a small-framed, dark-haired girl who looks like she is even younger – sighs and looks at me, a heavy sadness in her eyes.
“See? See that look they just gave me? I get that all the time – that look of judgment. They are accusing me when they look at me. And it’s so, so, well, it just makes me so angry. It hurts to see them look at me that way, day after day after day!”
People who see this young mother only know what is presented outwardly – that she obviously got pregnant very young, and now has a beautiful, inquisitive little boy.
This young lady has no delusions about parenthood – and says she didn’t before she had her son, either. She made a choice that resulted in an unintended pregnancy. And when that happened, with the help of her wonderful, unwaveringly supportive family, she thought things through and decided that she felt she needed to have the baby.
She scoffs at the girls she knows at school who think that being a teen mom is glamorous – a myth she, along with some experts, fear is being propagated by reality TV shows that have turned some young moms into instant celebrities.
“Being a parent is hard. I know that. I knew that then and I know it now. But I knew I had to have my son. And I’m so glad I did. He makes me want to work hard and be a better person.”
The people who see this young mother do not see her best qualities. They do not know that she has a detailed plan for her life – including her career, the schooling she needs to get there, where she wants to live, and the kinds of experiences she wants her son to have as he grows.
They do not know that she is bright – a person who has a memory that is so good it is unnerving. They don’t see that she is incredibly kind – the kind of person who can tear up talking about a friend who has lost a long-time family pet. Or a girl who is perplexed by the world around her – one that is often filled with drug and alcohol abuse, cruel, back-biting girls and people who make up lies about you on social network sites.
And yet, she perseveres. And throughout it all, she carries herself with dignity.
If only the rest of us could see it.
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