COLLEEN

Interviewer: Joan Cartan-Hansen

Colleen
My name is Colleen.

JCH
How old were you when you had your son?

Colleen
I had just turned seventeen when I had him and got pregnant when I was sixteen.

JCH
What was your life like before you had the baby?

Colleen
I was a cheerleader, very active, outgoing. I always was gone out of the house with friends all of the time.

Then I got pregnant and it seemed like all of my friends disappeared. They still had lives and I was stuck at home. A lot of times when they would call and I would want to go out and I didn't have a babysitter.

JCH
What is life like for a teen mom?

Colleen
It's kind of hard because a lot of times you need to be able to sign stuff. You can't sign a lot of the stuff because you're under age. You have a lot of disadvantages because you're under age. You can't just go out and get your own house. You can't get things set up that you need to have set up. People don't give you the time of day. People look at you differently.

JCH
What can't you do now as a teen mom?

Colleen
The thing I can't do is just get up and leave whenever I want to. I'm used to all of a sudden somebody calls and I get up and leave. I can't do that at all. I have to get him ready, get myself ready and that takes forever.

JCH
What's the toughest part of your day?

Colleen
The toughest part would have to be the mornings. First you have to get up, get yourself ready. Then you have to go and get your child ready. It takes you double the time if not triple the time in normally would.

JCH
What happened to your social life after you had a baby?

Colleen
I had a lot of friends before I became pregnant. While I was pregnant it was okay, but I dropped out of school because I was too sick to go to school. All my friends were at school all day and I was home alone, really bored. I'm a people person. I like to be around people and that was hard. Now a lot of my friends, I feel like I'm holding them back because they all don't have kids and I do. I have to get him ready and get me ready and by the time I get ready they already want to go or the places they want to go, I can't because I have a son. Because I am so young.

JCH
What did you want to become before your baby came along?

Colleen
I really wanted to be a dancer but I didn't know if that was going to be in my future or not. Now it is definitely not. They don't like girls with stretch marks.

I wanted to get into computer classes and I'm finally doing that now but it's hard. I've had to go through Job Corp and get a babysitter. It's hard to leave your son.

JCH
How did having a baby change your life?

Colleen
By having a baby, you get a lot of emotional stress afterwards. You don't have your same friends any more. I felt lonely and I felt depressed a little bit I'm used to being around all of my friends and all of a sudden I wasn't.

JCH
What message would you give to other kids? An adult says you have to wait. Pretend I'm a teen who has just sat down here and said, ' I think it's great. I'm going to get pregnant; I'm going to have a baby. I'm going to be able to get away from my parents, I'm going to get welfare, I'm going to get out of here'.

Colleen
I would tell you to wait. I think you should wait. I think you should wait until you are financially secure, until you are already out of your parents' house, until you have a job. After you become pregnant it's a lot harder to get jobs and to get what you need.

JCH
'Oh, it will be easy'.

Colleen
It's not that easy. You have to afford diapers and diaper wipes and everything that a child needs. Tons of clothing. They grow really fast. It's not that easy.

JCH
'I'll be on welfare and that will pay for everything'.

Colleen
I'm not on welfare so I don't know how much they pay but I know they don't pay enough. I know that it only helps out a little bit. It doesn't pay for a full ride.

JCH
One of the things we're teaching in this project is exactly that, welfare it doesn't pay for everything and you've got to work while you're on welfare. You can't just be on welfare. You have to work. Do you think that would surprise people?

Colleen
Yeah. I went to the housing authority and they gave me an application, only the first 24 applications they took and I happened to be the last person. They said that they would hook me up with a place but it’s going to be anywhere from one week to years. One of the other girls here was on it for two years now and still hasn't gotten a house yet. Another thing is I'm a full time student. A lot of apartments won't give me the time of day because I don't have any income at all. I do get $130.00 a month for child support but it's not enough to afford a house.

JCH
Talk to me about child support

Colleen
I think guys should take responsibility and help the mother out. Lots of guys just leave and don't pay child support. The ones who do get charged $130.00 off of minimum wage and that's not enough. $130.00 a month isn't enough at all.

JCH
Do you think guys get it easy in that system?

Colleen
I think guys get it very easy. They don't have any responsibility to take care of the child. They only have to pay child support, which isn't enough. Most teenage guys don't have a good enough job history so they'll only be charged the minimum amount no matter how much they are making. If they don't pay you have to wait so long before they can do anything about it.

If you have a car you have to pay your car payment and a lot of times your car payment is more than what you're getting for child support.

JCH
It's a pretty hard reality for people do grasp. If someone could have said something to you before you got pregnant to have changed the course of your life, what would that have been?

Colleen
I don't know if there was anything. I think a lot of teenagers don't listen to adults. They feel that they have to learn on their own and I think a lot of teenagers do. I was stupid. I was one of those people that had to learn on my own but I wish I had waited. I really do.

JCH
How has becoming a mom changed your goals?

Colleen
It has changed because before it was solely about me, what I wanted. Now I have to take into consideration my son and what he needs. I will go to the store and only have so much money and I'll have to buy diapers instead of what I wanted or I'll go shopping for an outfit for myself and I'll realize that he needs one more than I do so I'll get him one and I'll go without.

JCH
How does that make you feel?

Colleen
It's difficult. I like buying him clothes but sometimes it's hard because I really need a new bra or something and I can't always get it.

JCH
I ask because it's an important message to get out because kids don't know that responsibility that you carry. You carry another person's life in your hands. I'm trying to get out of you that feeling, that understanding so those viewers who are watching will understand. Let me ask it again. Explain to me how this has changed and why it's important to listen to you and what you are teaching.

Is there something someone could have said to you that would have stopped you from becoming a teen parent?

Colleen
I don't know if there is anything that anybody could have said. I think if I had been around someone who had had a kid and seen how much responsibility it takes, especially a teen parent. With adults it is a lot of responsibility. It's not as much responsibility because they are adults. They're legal to sign for everything.

When you go down to Health and Welfare, you can't sign anything. You get thrown back and forth. You can't really get anything done that you need to have done.

JCH
So that's an important lesson to learn.

Colleen
Yeah, and you have to learn so much so quickly. It's a huge responsibility and I think if I would have known how big a responsibility it was, I might have waited or tried to wait.

There is a lot about the welfare system that people just don't understand and stuff that people really need to know. There is a lot of stuff that people need to know about being a teen parent.

JCH
Like what?

Colleen
It's a lot more difficult than people think. You can't just move out all of a sudden, get a house and have a car and have money and be rich and famous like everybody wants. You have to work harder for it.

JCH
Let me ask that question again. What can you tell me if I was a teen to maybe stop me from being a teen parent? You said that if there was someone who had been there for you it might have made a difference. Okay, you're there for me now. Tell me.

Colleen
I would tell you how much of a responsibility it is. How it's not easy. It's not the easy way that everybody makes it out to be. You can't just go get on welfare and have a free ride. It's not like that at all. If you want to go back to school, if you're a full-time student, you can't just go out and get an apartment. If you're a single mom, it's even harder because you have to do everything on your own.

This is something teens need to know.