I have been thinking a lot recently about teenage moms.

I wasn’t a teenage mom myself – I was 21 when I got pregnant – but I looked like a teenager, and was often treated like a teenage mom. In other words, strangers felt they could make derisive comments about (a) my assumed inability to parent, as attributed to my age, (b) my assumed lack of responsibility, as evidenced by inability to use birth control, and (c) my assumed poor choice in a job as a nanny, because clearly I was too young to have my own child.

The thing was, I knew I could parent well, that I was responsible, and that I wasn’t too young to have my first daughter. I had an inner core of strength and belief in myself and my little family that I’m not sure many teenagers have.

The way to help families, even families with teenage parents, is to hold them, strengthen them, support them. Negative and assumptive comments by strangers, acquaintances, or friends do not support families.

I am reminded of a book I like, You Look Too Young to be a Mom, by Deborah Davis. It’s a collection of writings by teenage mothers and adults who use to be teenage mothers. Here is one poem that I think expresses teenage pregnancy well:

#9 Bus by Caitlin Crane

He unfolds like a Japanese fan

and I can feel his slippery feet

kicking my ribs like fence posts,

his head growing between my bones,

jumping with hiccups.

I can feel where his heart is beating

and where his fists, juicy plums,

beat out moon-music.

I want to move my swollen feet,

dance,

brave and hysterical,

down the narrow aisle.

I want to say to

this woman sitting next to me,

watching rain from the open window drip onto her sweater,

“My son is signing, can you hear him?”

To the bus driver, who has never heard of reggae,

who spent the seventies in a cathedral with Elvis,

I want to say,

“Listen, he is singing God songs.”

To the pretty girl with red hair and two babies,

who drinks orange juice out of a water bottle,

and coughs into her fist

I want to say,

“Why are your eyes apologetic?”

But when I turn to speak,

my mouth open and half a word hanging out,

I can see it in their skin.

Their faces thin over hard lines,

over, “Get her out of the welfare office, get her out of my wallet.”

Over, “Another one.”

And, “Poor baby, poor girl. She doesn’t even have a chance.

My son is coming,

And I don’t have the time to wait for you.

My son is coming

and he will dance to your echoes of injustice,

his face to the sun.