OVERCOMING TEEN PREGNANCY
As if being a single mom isn't challenging enough, imagine factoring in becoming a teenage mom. How scary does that sound? Having to navigate through the teenage years, "high school hallway" drama on top of bearing the reality of becoming a parent, that is a lot of responsibility on a child. Becoming a teen mom, presents many challenges for the parents and infant involved, because according to the American SPCC most teenage mothers don't seek prenatal care or make it a priority resulting in premature births and low birth weights.
Jennifer Johnson knows all too well the problems of teen pregnancy as she became a teenage mother back in the 90's when she became pregnant at just 15. She depicts the experience as scary and overwhelming.
"It was at a time after my family had relocated us from New York to Virginia. I was having a hard time with the transition, I had left everything I had known, the block I grew up on and the childhood friends, it was my freshman year. I was isolated, I had no friends, and I was depressed," said Johnson.
When she found out that she was pregnant she was afraid to tell her family, but she knew she would need their support.
"I faced a lot of judgement from those around me. Everyone assumed the worst. They thought I wouldn't graduate or amount to much in life now that I had become a teen mom," Johnson said.
The teenage pregnancy trend is a dying trend. It has slowed down significantly over the past two decades according to WebMD. According to the Center for Disease Control, there has been a steady decline in the teen pregnancy rate over the past fifteen years (see above).
Lori Lewis, Executive Director of The Bedford Pregnancy Center in Central Virginia, has over fifteen years of experience serving teenage mothers and attributes the decline to abstinence.
"Public schools have been teaching abstinence as a part of the Standards of Learning curriculum since 2006. We teach a course to the students, called Relationships Under Construction to middle schoolers that teaches them the benefit of abstinence and the dangers of sexually transmitted infections (STIs). When I teach this course, I give the students a visual of how sexual activity puts them at risk for STIs," says Lewis.
The Office on Women's Health attributes the drastic decline to less sexually active rate of teens in conjunction with the use of birth control contraceptions and the affordable accessibility to them through government sponsored programs like Planned Parenthood.
The Bedford Pregnancy Center is an evangelical outreach that serves as a support to the community providing services centered around empowering women to choose life. They have served the County of Bedford for over fifteen years. The organization has provided support from pregnancy testing to parenting classes.
"Our goal is to build relationships that are motivated by faith with the people that we serve. We take the time and effort to build trust with our clients, because we want to make an impact on the lives of individuals that will make an impact on the family as a whole," says Lewis.
Apart from the decline, for those who fall victim to teen pregnancy, there is hope. Johnson was able to defeat all the odds of teen parenthood that were seemingly stacked against her. Although, her son's father was unable to help her parent their son due to his own substance abuse issues, she had a good family support system to help her raise her son. She was determined to work hard to defeat all the odds.
"I wanted to show my parents that I could be independent, so I tried not to depend on them too much for help. I would work during the day and go to night school to finish out my high school term. I would take the bus to work then get off and walk to the sitter to pick my son up," says Johnson.
Today, Jennifer is married with four children including her oldest son, Tyrell, who is now 25 years old. She met her husband David at 18 and this year they celebrate nineteen years of marriage. "It hasn't been easy," she said but David has played an instrumental part in both her and Tyrell's lives. Jennifer is now a college graduate with a Master's degree in law from Regent University School of Law. She works as an entrepreneur life coach and speaker helping people navigate through their own personal journey. Jennifer is also an author. She has written several books titling: All Things Come to An End and The Fragrance of a Resilient Woman. Her latest release is titled Through the Journey where she speaks candidly about her own personal journey through life, the obstacles she faced, and how she overcame them. Jennifer is certainly a great inspiration to any single mom, especially teen mothers and what it looks like to beat the stereotype.