On Being a Teenage Mom

As a writer, I am a huge fan of Ariel Gore, who, in addition to being an awesome writer, is also a single mom, who had her first child as a very young teenager.  A young reader of her blog wrote an open letter, which Ariel posted on her blog, about the “joys” of being a teenage mom.

I am not Jamie Spears. I am not a millionaire fake celeb. I am not Bristol Palin. Do you think either of these girls will walk into their local welfare office and wait hours, just for that extra $100 a month in foodstamps? Will they ever spend week after week on the phone with operators hired by a privatized Medicaid system, trying to find a doctor who will actually see their asthmatic child? Will they spend years fighting the Attorney General’s office for child support, waiting a year just to get to court? Will they ever try to pay for their generic can of beans with WIC coupons and be treated like a leper? Have someone roll their eyes as they buy food with food stamps after they just got off an eight-hour shift standing on thier feet, cutting nasty hair?

Have you ever heard your child scream for you as you left for work–the seventh day in a row? Have you ever had someone look at you like you were a piece of shit simply because you had a child as a teenager, stuck around, raised them alone–not because of your religion, not because of your stance as a Dem or a Republican, not because of your education, not because of your beliefs about abortion, not because of anything the media or a pastor or a rabbi or your parents or your teachers or your friends or your baby’s father told you to do, not because of what they think the right “choice” is.

I did not have my kids because of any of these reasons. I had them because they were wanted, and they are loved.

You ought to read the whole thing.