Teenage Motherhood

What is a teenage mother? Many will say a teenage mother is irresponsible, promiscuous, careless, uneducated, ruining her life, undeserving of her child, or just plain idiotic.

These stereotypes lead me to hide my teenage pregnancy for months and months over fear of being doubted or shamed.

The prejudge that exists in this nation against teenage mothers is alive and hateful. There was a 40 something mother in my former local Mother and Baby/Toddler group who ignored me when I politely said hello, who moved her child away from me when she crawled and smiled as I spoke with her, who would not even look at me or acknowledge my son. I frequently get tutted at, heads shaken in disapproval. Teenage mothers are horribly stereotyped as the mothers who don’t deserve the title. Babies having babies.

Every teenage mother I know is completely different from the next, the only thing linking us together is just how lonely we can feel. Teenage mothers need love and support, they do not need to be isolated and excluded. Looked down on or merely ignored. There is a tremendous difference between supporting teenage mothers, and encouraging teenagers to become mothers.

My pregnancy was incredibly life changing. I was 17, I was single, I was terrified. I was in pain. Emotionally and physically. I had no idea what I was letting myself in for, I had no idea if I could possibly be enough.

When I finally gave birth, three weeks after my 18th birthday, a weight was lifted off my shoulders. I felt enough. When I gave birth to my son, the months and months that followed felt like bliss. No matter how hard it was to be a single teenage mother to a newborn, it was a breath of fresh air from a toxic pregnancy. Of course, I had many moments of feeling low in new motherhood but overall I was thriving. Every bottle, nappy, burp, change, cuddle, bedtime, it was all me. Getting into a routine, a beat, my new life. At first, I never wanted to be away from my son, he has always felt like a safety blanket to myself, he still does as bizarre as it sounds. Even though I am his mother, his carer, his provider, his breadwinner, it feels like he takes care of me. I do not know if that would be considered unhealthy, it probably is, but it is valid. It is how I feel. Slowly I started to leave him, maybe for an hour, then two, before I knew it I wanted to apply for college, which meant that he would be attending nursery at 9 months old, 3 full days I would be without my boy. That was a massive turning point in my experience of motherhood so far. I don’t quite know if that was a good or bad turning point really. At first I found that being away from him for 8 hours on the trot was excruciating. I missed him. I wondered what he was doing. What he was eating. Was he crying for his mama? As my time at college went on it made me realise how much I loved being independent and free, how much I was “missing out on” like everyone had said when I announced my pregnancy. I started to want more, and more, and more freedom. I had a taste of life as a teenager and I craved more. Guilt galore came with these wants. I felt guilty for educating myself, gaining a skill that would only benefit my two person tribe. Yet still, I felt overriding feelings of disgust in myself. As these feelings of missing out intensified, my awful depression resurfaced. I became so angry at the world because it was easier to be mad at the universe and those around me, than it was to blame myself. That soon changed, sure enough I started to resent myself too. I went through a really rough patch of feeling so awful about myself and my life that I convinced myself that I was an awful mother for feeling how I was feeling. I convinced myself that my son would be better off without me. Sometimes I felt like leaving, walking away, giving up. Nothing felt perfect anymore. The bliss had disappeared. It is so incredibly difficult to discuss these feelings without fearing that people will presume that I do not love my child. I love him more than any dream I gave up. He was everything I never knew I needed. I suddenly felt like he deserved more than I could offer, more than I was. He deserved the whole world and all he got was little, lonely, confused me. On social media, parenthood is always spoken about in a love filled, positive light. Which yes I understand because the love I feel for him is stronger than any negative notion, however I was and do still feel so many painful fears and worries of not being enough. It is more difficult than words can describe to grow up at the same time as your own child. Teenage pregnancy. Single motherhood. Dating. Studying. Travelling. Playgroups. Friendship seeking. Isolation and overwhelming complications. Every dream is met with millions of boulders standing in your way, a new one appearing every time you think you can take a breath of fresh air.

It took me a very long time (and a prescription to antidepressants) to realise I could both be a mother, and still experience the world and life as a young person. I accept that I cannot completely throw myself into either world: motherhood or freedom. I can however accept that it is okay to have time away from my son to feel like a human being, and it is equally okay to miss out occasionally on what everyone else is doing to be with my little family that is me and my son.

When life is hard, I have felt that I lost everything when I took that first positive pregnancy test; and the second, third, fourth and fifth. I felt like I lost myself, my identity, my future, my ‘everything I ever thought I wanted’. My pregnancy was the worst time of my life. 282 days. 282 days of being lost, petrified and alone. 282 days of constant despair and shame, dread and fear, pain, isolation and depression. I did not know for the life of me how I was going to be a single teenage mother. How I was going to come through for this little, defenceless human. I did not know how, or if, I could do it. Becoming pregnant at seventeen, with a man I barely knew, was definitely never a part of ‘the plan’.

What is it like to be a teenage mother? Being a ‘Teen Mum’ is being a misfit in the world of Motherhood. It’s being on the outside looking in, wishing you could fit in. You don’t fit in with most other mums, yet you also don’t fit in with your peers. It is fighting for every step you make in the right direction. It is learning to look after another human while learning to care for yourself, too. It is putting someone before yourself, and feeling guilty whenever you do something for yourself. It is love, it is pain. It is difficult, yet I would not change a thing.

When I look into the eyes that have stolen my heart and soul, something happens inside of me. My body shifts, my heart expands, my stomach drops, I see the whole world.

I remember that he is so much more than everything.

Having my child was the best decision I never made.