* This post was submitted by an anonymous 15 year old writer.
This summer, I came down from Canada to California to see my aunt, uncle and cousin for the third year in a row. Over the past three summers, I’ve babysat my cousin both in their house and outside in public.
I get looks from tons of people, just passersby, average people. Although the looks I’ve been getting aren’t average. These are dirty, nasty; terrible looks.
It took me until now to realize what they were for. A teenager walking with a child. People are so quick to assume that it’s mine. That I’m a teenage mom.
This never occurred to me as I had no idea that of the stereo types faced by teenage moms. I looked the topic up on twitter and as I refreshed my newsfeed, I read tons and tons of people talking down on teenage moms. I don’t understand why it’s so wrong but its peoples own opinions, I guess.
I was walking back to their house and I was thinking: what if this baby was really mine, if she wasn’t my cousin, what if she were my daughter? I wondered if the looks would affect me more than they do now.
In fact, at the moment they hardly make me turn my head because not only am I used to it, I also know that they’re for the wrong reason. I’m saying this from the prospective of a teenager with their baby cousin in public; what I’m curious of is what it would be like from the prospective of a teenage parent. I’d assume that it’s painful to know that people are so against what you think is right.
Being the summer of 2013, the gay rights movement is all over the news. The state of California has now made it legal, there are marriages going on and more and more people are supporting people’s personal choices for their sexuality.
If someone were to down talk gay rights or being homosexual in any way, there would be someone there to act back, to tell them they’re wrong. But there’s not really anybody there to stand up for any teenage parent who’s chosen to keep their child.
While having a child is an option or a choice and homosexuals are born that way, having children at a young age can be fate as well.
My point in all this is there’s nobody to stand up for the teenage parents and as wrong as it may sound to you; I support them. It was their choice to accept the life change that they encountered by having a child at a young age and not yours.
People need to stop being judgemental and accept. Things happen. Remember; Live and Let Live.
