Friday, September 10, 2010

The First Guest Post....and Flog Yo Blog Friday

Not a whole lot going on with me right now. I did get 100% on my first math quiz last week so I'm damn proud of myself. Peanut went to the zoo last week and I have been a slacker and not posted pictures, but I will be doing that tomorrow.

On to my first ever guest post...I am super excited about this post and it made me cry the first time I read it. It goes back to this blog's theme and I think everyone will love it. Draft Queen from The Drafts Folder it the author of this awesome post.

It's all your's Draft Queen.

Have you ever seen the movie "Riding In Cars With Boys"?


I love that movie.


In case you haven't seen it, it's based on a memoir by Beverly D'Onofrio. In the movie she gets pregnant at 15, marries the father, though she knows he's not "the one" for her but because her Daddy says so and proceeds to try to balance being a wife, mother and student.


She screws it up.


But I love it because I screwed up a lot as an 18 year old mother. (In real life, Bev was 18 when she got pregnant.) And sure, That Guy I Married has never once touched any drugs, let alone had a heroin addiction, but I still knew he wasn't the "one" for me. He loved me as the movie portrays Ray as loving Bev.


And they struggle.


And it was real.


She makes mistakes. She is selfish and immature despite her efforts.


Looking back: that was me. It probably still is me.


You know what I don't find "real"? Bristol Palin preaching about being a teen mom. As if her life is typical. I mean, this young woman gets $15,000-$30,000 a pop as a speaking fee. Teen moms don't make that kind of money. And for what? To tell other young people not to do as she did and have premarital sex? It just seems hypocritical and disingenuous.


Teen moms (because even getting knocked up as a legal adult you're still a teen mom if your age has the word "teen" in it) get a bad rap. We're "welfare queens" and "trash" and all around no good parents no matter what we do. And therefore our kids are nothing but trash.


This is the message I heard when my kids were smaller.


I'm a good mother. I've made mistakes. I've made selfish choices.


But for the most part, I'm a good mother.


The day I gave birth to my daughter, I had to stop being a teen and start being a mom. She didn't discriminate my parenting based on my age. Only recently has she really figured out just how much younger I am compared to her friend's parents.


That didn't stop other people from doing so. Once, while doing laundry at a laundromat, complete with my 1 year old daughter, a woman lectured me about wasting her tax dollars using the dryer when "people like me" shouldn't get such privileges. I should have to hang my wash (there was 2 ft of snow on the ground and below zero) and save that extra $2 to feed my child.


Wasting her tax dollars. First of all, if I was using welfare money to wash my laundry I think it would be an appropriate use. It's not like I was buying booze or drugs, I was cleaning my clothes. Secondly, she assumed I was on welfare incorrectly. I worked nights and her father days to pay our bills.


We bought a house in a small town when she was 5 and her brother 3. We wanted them to have a good public school to go to. When the parents saw how much younger I was compared to them (they well into their 40s, I was 23) they discouraged their children from befriending mine.


It's assumed that because I was a parent so young I didn't breastfeed. Or love my child. Or provide appropriate care.


They are wrong.


And now that I'm a "old" lady, contemplating a 3rd child at the "right" age I can tell you this: my parenting will remain the same. Sure, I have a better foundation financially now, but I won't love another child any differently than the one I had at 18 or at 21 (he was planned, but most people assume otherwise.) I'll still strive for an unmedicated birth. I can't wait to breastfeed again and have that cuddle time with a new life, just as I did when I was a decade younger. Bedtimes and vegetable eating will be enforced-- just as it was when I was a mom in her very early 20s.


But for some reason, no one will think I would be anything but a great mom, just because I'm "old enough."


Woman like Sarah remind me of the struggles I had being a teen mom. And I'm sure she'll, unfortunately, have to deal with issues related to the proximity of her age to her son's.


Being a teen mom doesn't automatically make you a bad mom. It doesn't make you love your child less because you missed out on some things. Sure, we'll make some mistakes, but all moms do.


We're great moms, regardless of the number of years we've been alive.




Here is the Flog Yo Blog List, there are some really great ones if you need more to read.

<3 Swt

4 comments:

  1. Great post Draft Queen. And great blog Sarah! I look forward to hanging out with you from time to time ...

    www.DeepFriedFruit.blogspot.com

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  2. I am the daughter of a teen mother - she was barely 16 when she had me. My biological father was gone the day he found out she was pregnant.

    She was a wonderful mother.

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  3. Great post Draft Queen. So much truth in there. Best of luck to you Sarah. I look forward to watching you prove 'them' all wrong.

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  4. Yay for Sarah and for The Drafts Queen! You both amaze me. I know I wouldn't have been able to handle going through what you've been through. I love you, Sar.
    -The Fairy God Diva

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