I've often had the same thought as Nancy Williams, in her recent post about
the possibility of educating teen moms about "sequencing."  It seems to
me that encouraging teens to leave their babies to get that high school
diploma is encouraging teens to remain children, rather than encouraging
them to become adults, responsible for mothering thein infants.  This can
only be exacerbated by new federal welfare policies attempting to deny
financial support to teen moms and to force them to live with their
parents.  I remember reading an article a couple years back in
_Mothering_, I think, where a 20-year-old African-American woman was
working as a counselor to teen moms (which she had been, but married her
baby's father at the time).  She stressed that the most important thing
for people working with teens was to stop treating them like kids and
start realizing that as parents, they are now adults.  She felt the
medical personnel were especially bad about this and often gave teens the
"Scarlet Letter treatment" to boot.

Of course the biggest obstacle to teaching the value of "sequencing" to
kids is probably the fact that so few "adult" women consider it of value
themselves.  I wonder how many of a given teen's high school teachers or
counselors themselves stayed home for a time to nurse and nurture their
infants?  If formula and day care was "good enough" for their babies,
will they be likely to react sympathetically to a teen asking to be
excused from class to nurse or pump, or asking to homeschool for the
duration of her high school career so as to be with baby?  As a married
woman almost 30 years old, I myself occasionally get those negative vibes
from some family members and acquaintances.

No easy answers...


Penny Piercy, LLLL, MOM (Patrick 2 1/2) from Bloomington, IN