AMANDA

Interviewer: Joan Cartan-Hansen

Amanda
My name is Amanda.

JCH
Tell me a little bit about your life before your son was born.

Amanda
My life before I had my son was no hassle. It was not having the responsibility of a kid, of the diapers, of the feeding, the taking care of. I had a life. I had a teenage life. And now it's a woman's life. I'm a kid trying to take care of a kid. It's hard but I do it.

JCH
What did it do to your social life?

Amanda
To my social life? It changed it. I don't have as much socializing with my friends. I have a few friends who have babies too.

JCH
We were talking about your social life before your son was born. What did having a baby do to your social life? What was your favorite thing to do before he came?

Amanda
Go to the movies. Hang out with my friends. Now I can't go out with my friends. I can't go to the movies unless I find a babysitter, somebody I can trust to take care of the baby while I go. It has changed.

JCH
Was that something you expected? Do you think that is something your friends realize now? Before you had your son was the idea of having a baby something that would be really cool?

Amanda
Yeah. Yeah it was.

JCH
Tell me about that.

Amanda
Well, before I got pregnant I wanted a baby. I never thought of the stretch marks, the pain, and the responsibility. I just thought of the little bundle. You know, a little baby. Now, after I have had him, I realize it's not just having the baby. It's taking care of the baby. It's everything that comes with having the baby is being a mother. Before I thought I was just going to have a baby and now I realize there is a lot more than just having a baby. It's a lot more. A big, long story.

JCH
How are you doing financially? Is it tough?

Amanda
Yeah, it is. It's tough. Well, I'm married and I'm getting a divorce. The money part is hard because I have to worry about getting diapers and buying him shoes and clothes instead of, "Oh, what am I going to wear to the high school prom" you know? I have to worry about his shoes and his clothes, his diapers. The money is really hard and paying rent on your own house, the utilities. So money is hard. It's a hard way of life.

JCH
What about his dad? Will he pay child support?

Amanda
Yeah, he'll pay child support.

JCH
How important is that?

Amanda
That is very important for a dad to be in the baby's life. It's really hard because we had some tough times where he didn't really want to be part of our son's life and I had to answer my son's questions. Not really questions but I had to be there when he fell down when he was running after his dad. It's really important for a child to have his dad and his mom and it's good for you to wait until you're old enough and you have a stable relationship with the money and the house and every thing with it.

JCH
What can you say that will influence your peers? If I was a teen and you heard me saying, "You know, this is great. I think I'll get pregnant and I'll have a baby and it will be great". What would you tell me?

Amanda
I would tell you my experience. I would tell you how hard it has been for me. Not really tell you my problems but tell you what exactly comes with just the baby. It's not just a baby. Your whole life changes. You've got to go nine months and you've got to learn basically from A to Z how to take care of this baby. When to take it to the doctor. If it's having trouble breathing you've got to know right then. I've had to learn over the past year how to handle a kid with special needs. I've had to do it all by myself.

My mom is there but some kids don't have their moms so I would just really tell a teenager my age to wait, to wait, to really wait. It's really hard.

JCH
How old were you when you got pregnant?

Amanda
I was fifteen.

JCH
Would you have believed that advice when you were fifteen?

Amanda
My sister also had a teenage pregnancy and I think if she would have sat down and told me exactly what it's like, not just having the baby but exactly what it's like, I think I would have changed my mind. I think I would have really thought about it.

JCH
What goals did you have before your son was born?

Amanda
Before my son, I wanted to get my high school diploma. I had gotten accepted into a modeling school. After I had him, I sent them a picture and they...whatever. I couldn't be a model in the modeling school any more. I'm still working on my high school diploma. It's hard to keep that up with maintaining a job and a house and keeping care of the baby. Those were my goals.

JCH
What will you tell your son when he starts off on his first date, about teen parenting?

Amanda
I would caution him. I don't think it's right for teenagers to have sex but I would caution him to not have sex. Just caution him about every thing. I can't make his choices for him. I can't stop him but I can tell him it's hard and I'm not going to be there to take care of his baby. He's going to have to do it just like I did. I can help him when he desperately needs help but I will not take care of his responsibilities. That is his job.

JCH
Is that hard for teenagers to learn?

Amanda
A teenager doesn't even know how much a gallon of milk costs. How are they going to learn to take care of a baby when they don't even know how to go to the store and spend fifty dollars on every thing you need? It's going to be very hard.

JCH
What could someone have said to you when you were fifteen before all of this happened that would have changed the course of your life?

Amanda
I think that if they had sat me down, I would say my sister. No, not my sister, just if anybody had sat me down and put a video on of the labor that would have changed my mind forever. Nobody would have had to say anything. They would just have to show me that and the whole three years of a child's life. If they could have shown me the future, that probably would have changed it. Nobody can show the future but I'm here to say that there is nothing I can say to stop teenagers but hopefully they will listen to me and some of the other teenage mothers that it is worth it but wait.

JCH
Did people treat you differently when they found out you were a teen parent?

Amanda
Yeah.

JCH
Tell me about that.

Amanda
When my friends found out I was a teen parent and I was pregnant, and a lot of people in my town, there were a lot of harsh names saying I was too young. Just a lot of really bad things were going around. Everybody was into my business, like who's the father, are you going to stay with him? What are you going to name him? Are you going to put him up for adoption? People would say to have an abortion and that kind of thing. That's the kind of attitude I got from it. Nothing good. Everybody just thought I was so low.

JCH
Now pretend you are talking to a teenage boy who is a teenage parent. He says, "Well you know, I don't have to deal with this baby. It's her problem. It's not my problem."

Amanda
It is your problem. You don't have to stay in the child's life but you will have to pay child support. You will not have a life. You will have a life but you aren't going to be able to go out and play basketball with your friends, football. You aren't going to be able to go to parties. You aren't going to be able to go to anything.

You are going to have to work and pay that child support. If you don't pay that child support there are consequences. You will go to jail, get your driver's license away until you pay it. If you don't pay it you'll just stay in jail. You'd better think about those reasons and also that your baby needs you. You're not just going to go out there and have a baby and not take care of it. What's the point?

JCH
Do you know any teenage boys who are in that situation? Do they think they're going to get away with it?

Amanda
I don't. There aren't very many fathers who are actually around. They take off and nobody can find them or whatever. I don't really know any.

JCH
That must make you so angry that they get away with this.

Amanda
Yeah it does. The moms and the dads have a choice. The dads are always the ones who seem to get away with it because they are "dad". They can get away with anything. A lot of moms run away from their kids too. I'm not saying that. I'm saying they both have equal parts but in the cases I've seen, the dads run more than the moms and I've seen the moms hand their kids over to their moms. That just really gets to me because they're the ones who went out and had sex. They had that baby. They carried that baby and it's theirs, not anybody else's. If they can't take care of it and can't take their responsibility seriously, they should never have had sex and never took that chance.

JCH
Oh, but teens say, "It's not going to happen to me. I'm not going to get pregnant."

Amanda
That's what I said and it happened. That's exactly what I said and the day that I was going to get some birth control, I kept saying it wouldn't happen and I found out I was pregnant. From that moment, it changed my life. It just turned my life in a circle. My doctor mentioned abortion, adoption but that wasn't a choice for me because it's my baby. I made the choice. I had sex. It's my baby, my responsibility. It will happen. To you. To who ever have sex, it will happen. Just give it some time, it will happen.

JCH
It's tough to teach that lesson because we're so invincible. What was your reaction when you found out you were pregnant?

Amanda
Well, my mom was out in the waiting room and I had to catch my breath there for a minute. I went out there and I told her that Barbara, my doctor, wanted to talk to her and I was going outside. My mom was like, "No, you're coming back there with me". She knew. I cried. I was scared but for me there were no other options. I was going to raise this baby. Nobody else would take my responsibility. He was mine.

JCH
Why are so many teens thinking that it's not going to happen to them?

Amanda
Because they are immature. They don't understand what sex is. They have had no sex education. If somebody actually sat down and made them sit there and listen to them, it would make them think. At least it would make them think. A lot of the teenagers are just really immature and they don't know anything. Me, I just thought it was a baby. Just a little baby coming before I had him. I never thought anything but the baby. It's not just the baby, like I have said. It's everything.