A representative from a middle school in our feeder pattern visited a club I sponsor and asked for volunteers to mentor 7th and 8th grade at-risk students. She left applications for the mentor candidates to complete. They needed to get recommendations from each of their teachers. One teacher refused to approve this pregnant student’s application. She explained to me that she thought the student should not be a mentor. She told me that if her own child came home and talked about having a pregnant mentor, she would be in the principal’s office pronto.
My take is that this pregnant student would be a great mentor. She is a strong student and has shown me that she will continue to show dedication to her goals. We had a pretty long talk and she has a great message about consequences and how poor decision-making can lead to undesired consequences. I emailed the representative from the middle school to kind of explore her view but I have not hear back from her. It has been several days and I am wondering if she has reconsidered.
She made a mistake X months ago. I don’t think that should necessarily count her out as a mentor unless all the mentors are held to that standard. Do they all have to have perfectly clean records? She made a mistake with a very visible result, but, if, as you say, she has learned from her mistake, and can pass that on to other kids, I think that would be good for everyone involved.
But I got no kids and I don’t know any pregnant teenagers, so you can take my opinion for what it’s worth.
Rationally, I can see how having this girl as a mentor would be an opportunity to open a dialogue about consequences.
On the other hand, having this girl talk to younger students about “consequences and poor descision-making” smacks of “Do as I say, not as I do.”, which is NOT an effective way to teach kids, especially when they are at an age where they are rebelling against authority (which is normal).
If I were a parent, I wouldn’t want a pregnant student mentoring my child either. The safest route is to be as circumspect as possible.
If this girl is really aware of the consequences of her “poor decision-making”, maybe she should accept that one of those consequences is losing the opportunity to be a mentor at this time.
I think kung fu lola makes a great point. Not being accepted in this role may be one of the consequences.
But I will also go off on a little tangent and say that, while formal mentoring is all the rage, there are tons of opportunities to mentor informally day in and day out, and this girl shouldn’t feel bad about using those opportunities rather than a formal program to share what she’s learned through experience.
And on a different tangent, a few girls in my middle school did get pregnant, and maybe that would be the right opportunity for her to step in.
If this were in an employment situation, by the way, the Pregnancy Discrimination Act would likely require equal treatment. I’m going to leave the research of any counterpart law for an educational setting up to someone else, though.
When I was 15 I worked in the school library. The librarian was 23 and pregnant with her 3rd child. (The first one was born the summer after she graduated from high school.) She would talk to me about everything.
I learned so much from her. I learned that pregnancy was not cute shoes and knitting onesies. It was hard work. Kids aren’t cute and precious all the time. They are also dirty and needy and take up all your time.
And let me tell you the most important thing she taught me… Sometimes, labor doesn’t last as long as you think it will. Watching her water break, all over that wooden floor, was the strongest birth control I would ever need.
I think it’s a good idea to have a pregnant mentor.
ISTM that it’s more a case of “do as I say, not as I do or else this can happen to you.” It’s one thing to say “don’t do this. You might get pregnant.” I think it’s in an entirely different league to say “don’t do this. You might get pregnant. I’m your age and I did.” Many teenagers tend to the school of thought that says “Bah, the grownups are trying to control us,” which tends to discredit such things as abstinence education and drug education. However, having an actual student, someone who isn’t far-removed from the school setting (if I read the OP correctly, this student isn’t removed at all), delivering this message seems more powerful to me.
I personally (i.e., I’m not saying “and you should too”) would be more worried about a contentious student mocking this pregnant student than some sort of detected hypocrisy.
I certainly don’t see anything wrong with the pregnant student being a mentor. I was once caught cheating on a test at my high school, but because it was an isolated (albeit absolutely dumb) mistake they still let me mentor middle school children. It was clear that I learned a lesson from the consequences of my actions. The same standard should apply to this girl.
It’s not really clear (at least to me) how old this proposed mentor student is in your description. Assuming we’re talking about a pregnant high school student being a mentor to at risk 7th and 8th graders I think the idea is a highly questionable proposition.
If I’m the parent of an at risk teen, especially a female teen, the last thing I would want is an older pregnant teen mentoring my child. The example that you can be a pregnant teen, and still manage to do wel enough to be a mentor sends entirely the wrong message to teens being tempted by risky options. The pregnant teen is the physical representation that you can “manage” as a pregnant teen, and that is going to speak volumes louder that a “don’t do what I did, do what I say” message.
I would think that this would be exactly the type of person you would want as a mentor to “at risk” kids; someone who has screwed up and then put things back on track. I honestly think that a Richie Cunningham type would be much less effective - unless you’re at Pepperdine.
Joking aside, what’s so wrong with getting pregnent in the first place? It’s only because our society is twisted that women think they shouldn’t have a babe until age 35.
I wouldn’t say that there is anything wrong with getting pregnant. I am sure that at 17, which is the age of this student, pregnancy and raising a child are going to be more difficult than it already is. She will have far more responsibility that I would have been able to accept at that age. I am not a parent. I don’t think I would be a great parent because I can’t imagine coming home after a 12 hour day and concerning myself with spelling words and monitoring the progress of a youngster. I can see myself being horribly self-absorbed. And I am 44. At 17 I would have probably been almost in the criminal category of motherhood. All I wanted to do was hang out with friends, party, be accepted, etc. This is why I think this kid is so exceptional. She has at least appeared to become even more motivated to perform in school and has recognized this tremendously challenging responsibility with uncommon maturity.
I know some parents would be concerned about the message. My take is that if these same parents get beyond the surface, trust a little, and think about some of the points mentioned already, this could be a good thing. I am sure this kid would make a positive impact. The difference is that I see her in action every day. The parents of these at-risk students won’t know much about her. Truthfully, at least a few of them are probably struggling with issues that distract them from being the parents they could be. I certainly do not want to be critical of parenting because I think almost all parents do their best to be the best parents they can be. I guess that would be another thread.
Thanks for all of the feedback. I will be checking in at the end of the day.
Speaking as someone who had my first baby at 17, there’s nothing wrong with getting pregnant–it has more to do with the age of the parent(s), the economic status and maturity of the parent(s). At 17, there was no way I was mature enough to raise a child (even though I thought differently), and I surely was not financially stable to raise a child. If it hadn’t been for damn good parenting classes, YEARS of counseling and the intervention and support of a very good friend, my life, and the life of my children (I had another at 19) could have turned out very, very differently.
Years later, after I got a degree, one of my first jobs was as a Program Co-ordinator of a teen parenting program. Yes, I was somewhat qualified because I was one who dropped out of high school, had a kid at 17, went through hell and back, then pulled myself up by my bootstraps, went to college, got a degree, etc., however, there were times when I felt very uncomfortable putting myself into a “mentoring” position with teen mothers. Getting pregnant at 17 is NOT something of which I am proud, and not information which I care to pass along to others. When people say to me, “Oh, you don’t look old enough to have a daughter who is 20”, I just smile, while on the inside I’m cringing at the thought of them figuring out just how old I’m not.
I have consciously worked very, very, VERY hard all of my parenting life to ensure that my daughters did not become teen parents–and we succeeded. I worked harder at being a parent than I have every worked at anything in my entire life. (And, I worked at it as a single parent.) If someone wants to admire something about me, then they can admire my parenting skills (of which I did take classes to learn how to do, and I did ask for help when I was “lost”), or they can admire my ability to problem solve, or my writing ability, but for crying out loud, don’t admire me because I birthed a child at 17 when I was barely more than a child myself.
Ugh. I am going to come down absolutely on the opposite side and say: No, no, no absolutely not. I would not want my teenage daughter being mentored by a pregnant irresponsible teen. She’ll see enough of it in school, does she have to be taught that this is OK?
As for waiting…oh yes you should wait for pregnancy. Pregnancy in an ideal world would never never occur until you wanted it, the husband wanted it, and you were ready to have a child. New lives shouldn’t be just brought into the world on a whim or an accident.
Perhaps what she should be taught is that life does not end, that every conceivable good thing does not ipso facto get removed from her.
I would like to think that we are sufficiently removed from the days when pregnant teenagers were hidden away, all of them, with aunts who lived a day’s drive away and that nobody ever said anything about their babies when they (the mothers) came back.
Many schools still operate under the concept that pregnancy is a communicable disease and shuttle young moms off to alternative schools. Don’t want to cause problems with the “good” kids.
I would have no problems with a pregnant teen being a mentor to my child, or any other kid. Middle school is a hellish time. This student is proof of living with the consequences of her actions. She is carrying on to the best of her abilities, and I commend her for that. Too many girls in her situation drop out of school, either postponing a future, or forgetting their dreams all together.
Would you reject a male mentor if he had a child? Is there a difference?
There’s another issue here than just whether or not a given student should be mentored by a pregnant one. I’m okay with that situation, because the mentor has the opportunity to explain the whole situation to the mentoree. If the mentor does a good job of laying it all out, she is actually more qualified to mentor that student.
There’s the problem: what about all the other kids in the program, who don’t get the whole picture? All they see is, there’s a mentor, she’s pregnant, it must not be that big a deal. Wrong message.
The pregnant teen mentoring non-at risk teens would be less of a red flag than in the mentoring of the at risk teens. In many cases at risk students are already somewhat alienated from the notion of school as a good or useful thing and are considering their options. I plunk a pregnant teen mentor down in front of a group of at risk middle school girls, regardless of what the mentor tells them about how it’s not cool to get pregnant while in school, she will be an intelligent role model to them, who is managing to do just that and do it successfully. One of the main real world object lessons they will carry away is that if she can have sex and make a baby, and still go to school, they can too.
This is not about what a wonderful, caring, groovy human being the mentor is, it’s about the impact of object lessons. Teens who are not at risk socially or academically may well be able to absorb her stated lessons of why pregnancy is not cool for young students (if she makes them). For at risk girls looking for way out of school, sticking an academically successul pregnant teen mentor in front of them is about the most irresponsible thing I can imagine.
Not to mention it shows that the school itself thinks it’s no big deal and is issuing tacit approval to the teenage pregnancy.
This is *exactly * how teens think. Teens don’t (normally) think of the deeper implications. If the pregnant teen seems to be happy and lvoes the baby, they don’t think things like “How is she buying him milk? Who takes care of the baby when she’s at school?” I’m not saying all teens, but the teens generally are a notoriously shallow time.
I still stand by my original position. I would not want in any way for my daughter to think it’s OK to saddle herself with a child at an early age. I’m not saying anything about teaching other things that signify maturity, just pregnancy. Not to mention that kids cannot raise kids appropriately.
I guess you could say I highly disapprove of teenage mothers.
Onthe topic of teenage fathers: I would feel more or less the same way. It’s a lot less strong of a feeling…the pregnant mother has totally different issues than a father. In our society, females are still the primary caregivers. (Although this is changing, albeit slowly).
We had some students from a 12 step program come out and speak to different groups on campus about the hellish life of addiction. These kids made mistakes, paid the consequences, and wanted to help others avoid the same. So, would it be bad for these students to establish an ongoing relationship with younger students, mentoring them through the school year? Would they lose their ability to make a positive contribution to the lives of others? Maybe I am wrong but I don’t think kids hear these stories and think…oh they did this or that and they came through it ok. That means I can too. I think that because people have made these kinds of mistakes they speak a language that other at-risk folks can hear. They have been there. They know first hand what the temptations are, how important it is too avoid these temptations, and what happens when you don’t. Maybe they are not “role-models”. Maybe they are messengers who have a compelling story that really sinks in to kids that are in the same boat.
Oh and it has been more than a week since I have communicated with the representative on the other campus. I am wondering if my email to her got pushed up the chain and if they are going to say…sorry, we think this is a bad idea. I have talked with a couple of people I work closely with. They are against it as well.
When I was a senior in high school (1960), pregnant students were not allowed to attend high school. However, that year a classmate sat next to me who got pregnant, married and had her baby the year before and after some string pulling, was allowed to finish high school. Talking to her did more for me than any number of lectures on the responsibility of sex, etc. She told me what it was like to live in her parents’ basement with her out of work husband and baby. It was not fun or glamorous for her to be a mother and wife at 17. I learned the harsh reality of irresponsible behavior from someone who knew. What more could you ask from a mentor?
