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D R A M A++Q U E E N
Are you a slut, a slob or a sleazebag? Share your shame in
Drama Queen for a Day - - - - - - - - - - T A B L E++T A L K Your child will do anything to avoid using the toilet. Frantic parents seek advice on potty training in Table Talk - - - - - - - - - - R E C E N T L Y The worst mother who ever lived, and other light reading Fly girl How many working fathers does it take to screw in a light bulb? America's war on children The happy prisoner BROWSE THE MOTHERS WHO THINK ARCHIVES - - - - - - - - - - Mamafesto
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CONFESSIONS OF A TEENAGE MOM | PAGE 2 OF 2 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
It was the hippy era of cheap country cottages and living on the dole, and that's what I did, studying part-time until I was able to go back to school on a full grant and take my A levels (pre-university requirements) before I went on to university. By the time I was 18 I had a wonderful boyfriend -- still one of my best friends -- who was an incredible emotional support for two years. But even so, I missed, on my son's behalf, knowing that there was someone else who loved him as much as I did. Dying was my greatest fear; it wasn't until he was at least 15 that I felt he was old enough to survive without me. At 3, my son was hyperactive and his speech was delayed -- an emotional response, doctors said, to my husband's violence. From age 5 to 7, he had to attend a special assessment unit instead of regular school. I felt the full, unshared weight of his tribulations. I took a year off my studies to focus on getting him up to speed. It was worth it -- by the time he went back to regular school he had a reading level two years ahead of his new classmates -- but I wished I could have shared the worry and responsibility with someone who cared as deeply about him as I did. For the first 19 years of his existence all my life decisions revolved around my son. While my ex-husband was off doing whatever he was doing (I heard he became part of a traveling alternative theater group), I was the one who nursed our child through mumps, measles, chicken pox; who didn't go out on New Year's Eve for eight years in a row because I couldn't afford baby-sitters; who yearned to be out having fun with my friends instead of stuck at home; who haggled over the price of clothes in thrift stores; who was assumed to be a fallen woman. And there were missed opportunities; I might have pursued a singing career, but as a young, unsophisticated single parent, the practicalities involved would have been beyond me. But what was good for my son turned out to be good for me. Living as much as possible in one place so he didn't have to keep changing schools was stabilizing for me too. I went to university partly because (unlike work) it fit in with his school hours, but I loved it. I even got my first job in journalism, at Parents magazine, because I was still young enough, at 30, to be a lowly editorial assistant while having 15 years child-rearing experience. People love to pontificate on the evils of teen parenthood, but it worked out for us in the end. I wasn't perfect. I could be irritable, selfish, irresponsible. When I was 17 I occasionally left him asleep in his crib (with the electricity switched off at the main to prevent a fire) so I could shop at the village supermarket. I was only gone half an hour, but I shudder at the thought now. And there were times that I thought I would go mad with cabin fever, trapped in the house, too broke to afford a baby-sitter. I knew very well what I was missing but I also felt that he was worth it. I used to tell people that I wished I could have postponed having the same baby for a few years. But I would not have changed anything -- the poverty, the occasional depression, the missed opportunities -- if it would have meant having a different child. My son has never had a moment's doubt that I adored him: Everything I did right as a mother just developed naturally out of that. And it wasn't all pain and poverty. We also had fun. We grew up together. We liked the same TV shows and movies. When I was at school we did our homework in the evenings at the same time. We were even published together -- my first major article appeared in British Elle magazine the same month that he had one in Sky. He worked as a music journalist for two years before going back to school to get a degree in media studies. I am about to go back to school to study music. We will literally grow old together -- when I am 76 he will be 60. And looking around at friends of my age who are now facing the possibility of never having children, I am constantly reminded of how lucky I am to have him. I'm not advocating teen pregnancies or saying that abortion or adoption aren't
the right choices for other people. I'm aware that I was very lucky in many
ways. I lived in a country that had socialized medicine and a free
higher education system -- and it was still difficult. But it was probably no
harder for me than it would have been for a 39-year-old single parent. And
despite my younger brother's fears for me at the time -- that at 15 I was
throwing my life away -- I didn't entirely miss out on being young and free. By
the time my son was 14 and no longer needed baby-sitters, I was still only 30 --
and, at 41, my life's not over yet. As my brother says now: "At least you were
young enough to bounce back. It could have been worse. You could have got
pregnant at 25."
Tessa Souter frequently contributes to the Times, the Guardian, the Evening Standard and the Independent newspapers in London and writes a weekly column for the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong. She is at work on a novel. Discuss young motherhood in Table Talk's Mothers area. |
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