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Class Notes
Motherhood, absent fatherhood
(Published May 17, 2004)

By MATT WENNERSTEN

May 9 was Mother’s Day. I love my mother. Mothers deserve our love, respect and compassion. Being a mother is hard -- not just the physical trial of birth, but caring for the many needs of a child.

On Mother’s Day, we celebrate the love we have received and appreciate the sacrifices made by our mothers. It should be a day of joy and affection. Yet, as a teacher, Mother’s Day is bittersweet.

That's because, for too many of my students, graduation day comes after their first Mother’s Day. Thirty out of the roughly 700 students at Bell Multicultural High School are parents or are pregnant right now. That’s about 1 in 23. D.C. Public Schools classes are roughly 25 students, so at my high school, you’re looking at a teen parent in every class. In one ninth grade algebra class of 26 students, there are two pregnant girls. It’s hard to celebrate the joy of teen pregnancy and unwed motherhood.

Earlier this month, I was able to go on a weekend hiking and camping trip with 20 juniors and seniors from Bell. The purpose of the trip was to prepare them for life after graduation, when they would have to fend for themselves in the "wilderness" of adult life. As we’re driving in the bus out of D.C., one of the other chaperones, Adrian Valdivia, gave a talk to our kids about sexuality and parenthood, and the choices they will have to make. He’s the Bell pregnancy prevention coordinator. Listening to him, I was struck by how hard his job is. He has to recommend abstinence, knowing that more than 60 percent of our students are sexually active. He has to campaign against babies, knowing that some of our students already have babies and many of our students think that having children is a wonderful thing. It’s even hard to write about. The attitude among students is that "children are so beautiful," when what I see is a tragedy.

I can understand why students think children are great. They are children. They have younger siblings. They are continuously told that every child is a precious gift. It’s ironic that this message, designed to boost their self-esteem, contributes to poor decision making. Don’t get me wrong. Having a child is a wonderful thing, but having children at the wrong time or putting them into a bad situation is tragic. It’s not the child that’s wrong. You’re not an evil person because you’re a pregnant teen. But you’ve made a terrible decision that will affect your life and the life of your child in profound and negative ways. This is an urgent issue. Three out of the 20 kids listening to Valdivia were already parents.

Mother’s Day is also absent-father’s day. When we talk about teen parents, we’re almost always talking about the girls. The fathers are often older, often high school drop-outs, often out of the picture, and often not factored into the equation of teen pregnancy, since men don’t get pregnant. For teens, parenthood is strictly motherhood. Not only are they teenage mothers, they are teenage mothers without any support, emotional or financial, from the father.What’s the answer? How can we make motherhood something to be looked forward to, but not experienced by, a high school student? Despite what the current Republican Congress tells us, abstinence is not the solution. Kids are having sex. Some of this is biology. Young men and women are biologically programmed for high libidos and high fertility. Some of this is marketing. I would estimate for every message our kids get about not having sex and being responsible, they see 10 sexual suggestions, from rump-shaking music videos to philandering politicians or sports stars.

More rules are not the solution either. Recently, an Ohio judge forbid Sean Talty from having any more children until he pays child support for the six children he’s fathered by five different women. In Rochester, N.Y., a couple has been given a court order not to have more children until their four children are out of foster care. These are adults. But even contemplating these scenarios shows how ridiculous it is to make a rule against children. What do you do if these people have more kids? Throw them in jail?

I asked Valdivia about different sexual education programs and he said that scare tactics or abstinence-only programs do work, but not very well. You can show kids pictures of genital warts or HIV infection statistics, and they’ll be scared for a few weeks, but pretty soon they’re making out, then making babies.

The solution is likely a simple one. No one is talking with the kids about sex. During the first night on the camping trip, some of the male chaperones sat down and talked with the young men, and the questions and concerns they had about sex showed curiosity, fear, naivete and innocence. They ranged from the frankly practical "How do you ask a girl if she’s using birth control?" to "How do I get a date?" The first line of information for my students is each other, which is to say, almost no information at all.

One question brought home to me that the kids need comprehensive sexual education, abstinence, contraception, sexual health, sexuality, biology, everything. "How long do you date a girl before you start having sex?" As long as possible! And before you have sex, you need to protect yourself, protect her and understand what you will do if there is an accident and you do conceive a child.

Each year, I see many students who don’t have fathers in their home, and I see fatherless daughters having more children solo. I’m also reminded of Shirlita Colon, 15 years old last year and a student at my school, celebrating her first Mother’s Day, having given birth to her junior high school sweetheart’s child. Shirlita was shot two times in the head by the father, on Mother’s Day 2003. The young man, a teenager himself, later said that "he was too young to be a father." He is now serving a 45-year prison term, and his child is an orphan. I remember Shirlita, and I see all of my kids, and I think of my mother and her experience -- so different from teen parents -- and I hope that next year’s Mother’s Day is as much about responsibility as it is about love.

***

Wennersten is a third-year mathematics teacher at Bell Multicultural Senior High School and a graduate of the D.C. Teaching Fellows program. Contact him at mwenners@yahoo.com.

Copyright 2004, The Common Denominator