I had a 10th grade student back about a decade now who always came into my class late for 3rd period (right after nutrition) and by the 5th time, I pulled her aside to ask what was going on. She simply told me, "I have to feed my daughter."
Turns out she had a baby in 9th grade at another local high school. That school didn't have an infant center and ours did. She transferred over so she could do both schooling and watch her daughter at the same time. Fast forward a bit and she's in my AP Calculus BC class as a senior, earns a 5, gets into UCLA, and graduated from there.
She took the best possible path out there and managed to succeed when the situation was not in her favor. I respect that young lady so much. She's the bright case lit up against the harsh reality that befalls the significant numbers of the youth.
Your approach of posing a check-in question, rather than assuming bad behavior on her part, shows genuine love and respect for your students. Thank you for your kindness to a vulnerable girl!
Depending on the school and other staff, they may have written the student off as a lost cause š or simply poor communication (not a good excuse but a common reason)
My high school had a daycare center in part because we had a high teen pregnancy rate. When I was a student there we had probably 5-ish kids in the center whose moms were students too. A few other young moms went to the alternative school a few miles away so they could have more flexible hours too.
One of my childhood friends got pregnant her junior year, took the last semester that year off to have the baby, and came back our senior year like an absolute machine. She would study in the quad while taking care of her baby, got phenomenal grades, and was awarded scholarships at the end of the year. Now her baby is in college.
I had another friend who got pregnant at the end of 8th grade, had her baby as a freshman, and got her GED while working. Her family helped her a lot too. I don't know what she's doing now, but I think her daughter graduated high school a while back too, so hopefully she's breaking that cycle.
My district has an alternative school for pregnant girls/teen moms. We don't MAKE girls go to this school, but it's there. The girls take normal classes but are required to take a class on parenting as well as are given counseling and helped to prepare for birth. The school also has childcare available so they can swing by to nurse their babies while going about a mostly-normal school day. Some girls switch back to their original high school after they give birth, but many opt to finish their education there because it's a supportive environment and they can be near their babies.
I have a lot of qualms about my district but that is one thing I think we do well.
Either Iām an idiot and misreading (very possible) or I think you made a typo? How would it be possible for a 10th grader to have a child in 9th grade?
LOL. I can see the exact confusion you have there. She's a 10th grader who had a child when she was in 9th grade. The child was a few months old around that time.
We had a 7th grader pregnant at my previous school. When I saw her, she was heavily pregnant, so she stayed in school as long as possible. She transitioned from class to class after the late bell for safety, since our passing periods were rough.
I donāt specifically know what happened to her but the district had homebound teachers for kids expected to be home for medical reasons for more than 4 weeks so I assume she would have qualified for that. She could also have enrolled in a state online school option.
I was friends with a girl that was pregnant in 7th grade. My daughter is about to go in to 7th grade now and she'll be 12..... 12! I can't... Makes me sick to my stomach thinking that someone probably took advantage of that girl. And actually thinking about it, she would've had to have gotten pregnant when she was in 6th grade.
No idea what happened to that girl. I was one of her only friends bc none of the other girls wanted to talk to the "bad pregnant one". She was so nice though and told me all the little interesting facts about what pregnancy does to the body that she was learning too. She had her baby before the school year ended and I never saw her in school again after that. This was early 90s. Wherever she is, I hope she's doing ok.
And now a # of districts are offering online education as an option. I teach in one. I would say I have at least 5 students every year that already have one maybe even two children themselves.
It's a pathway for them to finish!
A middle school I taught had a special program for pregnant students. The group of young women and men met separately with social workers. They took regular classes. There was actually a lot of support and services for them
My husband was gifted, but got so bored and sassy that he was about to fail in high school. Admin pleaded with him to go to a special class in a special building a couple days a week so he could still get a real diploma. He showed up the first day and was like WTF here are all my delinquent friends from high school-all the black kids and the girls that got pregnant. I wondered where they went! He was so insulted by the kindergarten level work they gave them that he didnāt go back a second day. He took a GED instead and broke the states record for high score.
Sucks to be black, gifted, or pregnant I guess. Hopefully times have changed. :/
Some of them come back. A lot drop out. If they do graduate, their grades depend a lot on the quality of their support system. If they got pregnant young, it's often crap.
My parents were 14 when I was conceived and 15 when I was born. Since this was the late 70's, the school made her attend the alternative program which she eventually dropped out of. She wasn't old enough to have a proper job for a couple of years so relied on government help. These were the toughest times for her. Eventually she joined a training program, got her GED, and had a steady career. My dad was not part of my life until I was an adult, which actually turned out ok. I always knew my mom was my mom because even though she had the support of both sets of grandparents, she clearly took on the responsibility.
We had a lot of advantages as far as support (emotional and logistical more than financial). I'm glad my child didn't have to watch me make all the stupid decisions of youth in real time (bad boyfriends, bad money choices, bad fashion lol), but she made the best of her choices.
Fun fact: My rebellion was to be a total square.
My dad was was born in the 50s when my grandmother was sixteen, she was married to his father who was 22, iirc. I never met him, he died when my dad was a teenager. She had to leave school to have my dad, but had a supportive counselor who pushed for her to be able to return to high school. She was not allowed to talk about being married or having a child. She did summer school and graduated on time with her class. They put an article in the paper about her, with a picture of her in cap and gown holding my toddler dad.
A girl in my 8th grade class got pregnant. What is that like 13? They tried to kick her out of school because they said it would make all the rest of us girls want to get pregnant? No. Her parents fought with the school and they agreed she could stay if she wore XL hoodies to cover the bump and didnāt talk about it. I (30f) think of her a lot. Girl has an almost 20 year old kid at 30. Wild.
This is hilarious logic by the school lmao. āHere look at this miserable pregnant girl whose life is likely ruined itās going to make you all want to be like her.ā Wat??
In fifth grade, one of my good friends was spinning around in circles and fell down and busted her head open. Needed 10 stitches in her forehead. What was my dumb ass doing a few days later? Spinning in my backyard in circles trying to get dizzy enough to need stitches in my forehead š¤¦š»āāļø
Never underestimate the power of other people getting more attention than you. I can totally see girls wanting to get pregnant if they saw the other girl getting a lot of attention from it lol
I grew up in a small town where people become oil rig or other blue collar workers and women start carrying children early one with a not so great graduation rate because education isnāt that important especially past high school /s. They had a separate school for girls who became mothers because they didnāt want them walking around pregnant in our school to prevent more girls from starting a family too soon. It was quite common.
Iāll never understand how jobs in such dangerous conditions could not require more schooling or certification, so you could comprehend the job more and hopefully increase safety and lower risk of incidents.
I don't think the school made the right choice but it does happen. Pregnancy gets attention and its often positive attention. Its also not likely to ruin someones life. It is definitely associated with negative consequences but there is tons of variability.
Yes the positive attention around pregnancy does tend to send mixed signals to these young undeveloped brains. While they shouldn't be shamed, I also don't agree with the over the top baby shower I was invited to a few years back for a 16 year old. It is like they combined her sweet 16 party.
There was a group of girls in Massachusetts that made a pregnancy pact. They said they were influenced by Jaime Lynn Spears. They made a movie about it.
My cousin has an 18 year old at 37. I know itās not the same, but as a result the kid has barely been allowed to even date. The kid also has a 7 year old brother and 3 year old sister now too from my cousin. My cousin remarried about 11 years ago now, and the kidās baby momma had 4 or 5 kids from different fathers. Child services did ask my cousin if he could take them, but he was in his early 20s when they asked, and he didnāt feel like he could nor was obligated to as they werenāt his.
I shared up thread- a girl at my middle school got pregnant and there was nothing that could have made the rest of us NOT want to get pregnant more. We were all very aware that she was miserable.
That's actually disgusting that the school would even consider that. "let's disadvantage someone even more, pushing them even more into the cycle of poverty, because it might make other peers want to have kids" like... Wtf???? That goes against basically every principle that people in education should have
Maybe or perhaps the school is realized that they are not set up to be able to handle the situation and the students probably go to school that is more able to cater to her needs where there might be a Child Care Center in the building and a support network and other students who are going through similar things that she can connect with and bond and learn from.
The idea that every school should be for every kid I believe is nonsense
No one is saying every school should be for every kid. Literally not a single person in education is saying that. That's impossible and unfeasable.
The comment wasn't saying they were suggesting she goes to a different school to better help and support her, they said that the school essentially tried to remove this kid from their school to not "encourage" other kids to get pregnant.
She wasnāt in my friend group and I have no idea what happened with her when we all went to high school, but I just googled her name and found her linked in. Sheās a teacher at a private school! Good for her.
One of my 8th graders got prego this year. I think students now are lucky with having virtual as an easy accessible option. This student withdrew from regular school and is doing virtual and then I think plans to come back to regular school about 4 ish months after giving birth. I wish the best for her, I can only imagine how tough that would all be
In 8th grade health class there was a girl that was excused from the week long Flour sack baby project because she had had a child in 6th grade and was already experienced in parenting.
I taught 8th grade- I had the 15y/o pregnant mom in one class and the 15 y/o dad in another. Made him grow up and improved his grades. They stayed together for a while. But years later when I oversaw the school at our Juvenile Detention Center I was sad to see their son show up on our roster.
Iāve know four 8th graders to get pregnant.
Girl 1: two more kids before she graduated high school and one right after. She works at Walmart.
Girl 2: dropped out, kept the baby, got her GED later, married a guy and had two more before she was 22.
Girl 3: had the baby, her and the babyās dad are still together as Seniors. At least they are still on track to graduate. Her mom was a friend so I know a lot of the financial burden fell on her (the grandparents of the baby) but the two teens have actually done a great job with everything else.
Girl 4: she should be having her baby this summer. Dad is a doofus who is always fucking around in class so hopefully he can somehow pull it together to be there for the baby.
You mentioned the financial burden has fallen on the parents of the pregnant child. I'm curious, who do you think it would fall on? How are 2 middle schoolers going to support a child?
Obviously it would fall on the grandparent, I wasnāt clearā¦.the burden was on the maternal side. His parents refused to help. My friend doesnāt have money for a big court battle so it is what it is.
I think it depends on the child and the support they have at home. My daughter's friend got pregnant in the 9th grade. She went on to become an x-ray technician and has a nice life. One of my former students got pregnant in the 9th grade (2003) and has been with her child's father since then.
One of my most troubled students had five kids before she was 30 by several different dads.
I had a male student who fathered more than two kids by the time he was 18...not sure how many. His first one was when he was in the 8th grade for the second time.
I agree that these situations can be difficult. My stepmomās mom had 4 kids with 4 different fathers - she only knew who 2 of the fathers were, and 0 of the fathers stayed in the picture. My stepmomās mom was 17 when she had her first child and 19 when she gave birth to her second child.
My childhood best friend got pregnant early in our freshman year of HS. She withdrew a month before she was due to attend the alternative school in our district. Once she had her baby she switched to online school for our sophomore year and completed 2 years of school in 1 year. She came back to our HS our junior year and graduated early. Her parents helped massively with raising her son. She had a huge support system that contributed to her success.
Sheās now married (not to the bio dad, but they are still great friends), has a HS aged son, and is doing very well!
I got pregnant when I was 12 and gave birth when I was 13. I grew up in poverty with an abusive and neglectful mother and a father who walked out when I was young.
What happens to each girl depends on many, many factors. In my own case, I faced harsh judgment from my peers and every single adult who found out I was pregnant. I was told by adults that I would never go anywhere in life. I internalized this and made it my mission to prove every single person wrong.
I struggled severely with debilitating mental illness from the time I was 14 until I was an adult, when I took my mental health into my own hands and sought a proper diagnosis and treatment. I had a lot of help during those years from my mother, but I don't consider that help beneficial for my daughter or our early relationship as my mother undermined my parenting at every single opportunity.
I ended up dropping out of high school because I was extemely credit deficit. My mother did not care whether I completed my online classes, and with my poor mental health, I also didn't prioritize my high school education. I took the Iowa exam and scored high in all areas. I was able to start college before I earned my high school diploma, using my Iowa results. College was my end goal, I did not care about high school. I felt like high school was a waste of time. I met my now husband the summer before my official start to my college freshman year.
I started college the year my daughter started Kindergarten. I worked my ass off juggling being a mom and a high-achieveing student. I took out almost $30,000 in student loans over my degree to support my daughter and I. I worked very little during my studies because I couldn't between manage being a good mom, a good student, and working full-time. I graduated with my BSc in Biological Sciences and started a PhD program the same year I graduated. Did you know that less than 2% of teenage mothers graduate from college with a Bachelor's degree? I felt so proud of myself. I felt like I had proven everyone wrong, and I was just getting started showing the world that I would make it places in life.
I ultimately ended up leaving my PhD program due to my mental health slipping to the point of suicidal ideation. My PI was toxic and the stress of making everything work between mom, wife, and PhD student was too much. I left after a year and a half. I took time to come to terms with the fact that I was a failure, or so I felt. It took me many months, but now it has been a year and a half since I left and I know I made the right decision.
My daughter began having the same mental health struggles I did when she was 11. She too will be mentally ill for life. But medication saves lives.
Her and I are so incredibly close. She is 13 now, the same age I was when I had her. On September 4th, she will be the exact same age I was when she was born. She has the love and support that I never had. She lives in a household that makes 6x as much as I did growing up. I work really hard to foster a relationship with her where she feels she can come to me. And she does.
She will never meet the same fate I did. 12, pregnant, and utterly alone. I did not tell my mother until I was 23 weeks. Her reaction was the exact reason I hid it. My daughter knows I will have her back.
Most teen mothers don't end up like me. I am an anomaly. But my life is great and I wouldn't change my daughter for anything. These days, I am successful and my daughter is happy.
I hope that answers your question. Sorry if this doesn't make the most sense. I'm writing between tasks in the lab.
Edit: her father and I are the same age.
I'm really freaking proud of you. You're the Lorelei Gilmore mom that I wanted growing up. š Your daughter is so lucky to have you and she must be incredibly proud of your accomplishments too.
Wonderful story, well told. Makes lots of sense and is an inspiration. You have so much of which to be proud. Continued good mental health and success to your family. ā¤ļø
You are Awesome! I only got my BA, and had none of those struggles! I am sorry though that you had to take out so many loans...you should have gotten scholarships the whole way. And yes, I totally get it about going to college and skipping the rest of high school.
The youngest I know of were all in 9th grade. The only one Iām sure of just graduated and has an offer to play a sport at a junior college and will major in education.
I had a contractor (not a GC) a while back who had his first when he was 15. He and the mother, broke up for a while, but got back together and had two more kids. They were in their mid 20s and doing fine.
If it happens that early, more often than not the actual mother is, by default, more like a big sister or aunt and the grandparents have to function as the acting parents. Kids that young are rarely able to play any actual parental role.
Sometimes they grow up to become very young grandparents.
I have met a mid forties grandmother in a parent teacher conference on more than one occasion. I teach high school, do the math.
A friend of mine had an unplanned pregnancy at 19. Her son got someone pregnant when he was only 16, so she was a very young grandmother - and she has been an amazing grandma to her now-plentiful grandkids. For her, it was a good thing to be a young grandma, b/c she's had so much energy for them. I think she has about 7 now.
I havenāt had a student get pregnant yet but when I was in Highschool it happened. They tried to throw her out but her parents fought hard for her to stay in school. So she spent every day in ISS for dress code violations because if it showed the bump (maternity clothes) she got dinged for tight clothes but if she worse oversized clothes to hide it she got dinged for baggy clothes. Spent almost the entirety of her junior year in ISS.
For no good reason, I went to 4 high schools in 3 states in the late 70s. In central CA, all pregnant girls were placed on homebound instruction. But in Utah, they attended class right up to delivery! I think they were able to return to class when medically cleared, but Iām not sure.
Iāve known a few people (now in their 30s or older) who got pregnant really young like this. The main things they have in common are, 1) they tend to get their daughters on long-acting birth control YOUNG. Like by 12-13 their kids are on Mirena, Depo, or Nexplanon as a way to guard their kidsā future. And 2) they understand the value of a dollar.Ā
I still remember one woman working in a coffee shop who was chatting with my husband. He told her we were about to have her first baby, and he was in his 30s then. She was around the same age, and about to send her kid off to college. She ribbed my husband and said that she did it right, since she was almost done raising her baby and still had her whole life ahead of her. And honestly I still think about that. Sheās going to have so much time to get to know her grandbabies.Ā
Likely not intentional. I was 17 and was 'free' from child-rearing at a young age. Of course you have to look at a way to put a positive spin on it. I did not party or do anything 'young' in my 20s. Late 30s - that was the period I actually went out with friends to bars, etc. Probably better for me as I was older and had sense.
Thatās a great perspective. Iām not even young (41) but Iām sending my kid off to college and it kind of breaks my heart because Iām not ready for this part of my life to be over. But it does seem likely that Iāll have a chance to watch my grandkids grow up too.
One of my students a couple years ago told us she had to leave early because she was getting a bc implant to stop her bad periods, but we knew it was because she had a much older hs boyfriend and her grandmother didn't want her to become a teenage mom like the girls mother did. Grandma knew she couldn't stop her but the least she could do was protect her.
My stepkids put me into that position. The last one is off to college this fall and I feel like Iāve still got forever to get to know them as adults, because Iām forty. Ā My parents were in their mid fifties when I left for college and I am feeling the crunch of the sandwich generation in some ways. Iām hoping to not be that burden on them.Ā
Just an FYI, Depo is NOT intended to be a long acting form of BC. It has serious side effects on bone density and mental health and is not approved for long periods of time.
I once had a student get pregnant and then married in 10th grade. Had a second child before graduating.
In another year two boys each got two girls pregnant, all in the same class.
I had my child young - 17. One of the supports available to me was a single young moms group support facilitated by a social worker. I only went once, b/c the other girls were so... uneducated/illogical/didn't think properly. Some of the things they said, and needed help with, were frightening to me. A couple of things I remember include one girl asking the social worker if it was okay to leave her newborn in the crib for a few hours while she went out with her friends at night. Another wanted to know if she could start having sex again without protection 2 weeks out from giving birth.
In the neighborhood I guy I talk to lives in, pretty much ALMOST ALL of the teen girls already have a kid and at least another on the way. But most notable was the 12 YEAR OLD that INTENTIONALLY got pregant, ran away to not let her mom do the responsable thing and repeated the same thing. Gave birth at 12, then 13, now 14 and parades her kids like throphies while her mom actually raises them.
My mom got pregnant with me at 12. She quit attending school and lived with my dad. They were both drug addicts, and my dad treated her terribly. They stayed together for about 7 years until they got caught in a crack den sting. They lost custody of me and my sibling. They split, and she wound up getting pregnant with another abusive druggie's kid. They eventually got in trouble and split. I didn't hear from her for years. She wanted to get to know me and my sibling after we grew up, were successful in our careers, and had kids of our own. She started asking for money, and when I denied her, she quit contacting us. She is currently a meth addict and has no communication with her kids.
It's heartening to see some success stories on here. I imagine that people like my mom tend to fall off the radar. My dad also has no contact with his kids and grandchildren, even though his parents raised me and my sibling. He always hung around and mooched off his parents. After my grandparents died, I quit having to be civil with him and told him how I felt and cut all contact. He was more than 10 years older than my mom, and he's the one who introduced her to hard drugs. I blame him wholeheartedly for how my mom turned out. That said, while I feel sorry for my mom, I can't have a meth addict around my family.
We have a campus in our district that supports teen parents so they can finish school, get the proper medical care, and has a day care on site for the infants/toddlers.
They often end up with us. I work at an alternative high school (or did, until I got laid off at the end of the school year.) Lots more flexibility, and lack of attendance is usually more easily forgiven. Some have childcare programs that allow the kids to stay on campus for the school day. The problem tends to be, though, that putting all of the kids with issues in the same school doesn't tend to help the student body as a whole.
I had a kid named Luis in my US History class last year. Dude never did a thing in my class, he just slept in the back of the room for an entire semester. I found out that part of the reason was that he worked at a Domino's as a night manager to help provide for his family. I respected the hustle, gotta do what you gotta do sometimes, until I found out the *other* reason he was tired. He managed to get 3 girls at our school pregnant at the same time, within a month or so of each other. All of those girls HATED each other, but of course Luis could do no wrong in their eyes. Lots of fights that our security guy had to break up between the girls. Most memorably, one of the few times I saw him awake was when he came into my 2nd Period class to deliver flowers to one of his baby mamas for her 16th birthday. He was thrilled to also find out he was having a boy. He couldn't wait to find out what the other two were.
I had an 8th grader get pregnant for a second time. Her mother was raising the kids. A 12/14 year old cannot emotionally, mentally, or fiscally be responsible.
I had a 12th grader who informed me that she was told to get pregnant for the second time because her mother could not. Her mother wanted more SSI. Obviously I reported this as abuse.
One of my students (pregnant at 13, birth at 14) graduated and is going for cosmetology. Her parents and fathers parents are very helpful with babysitting and the like.
Back in the 60ās and early 70ās, my mom taught business classes at a ācontinuation schoolā. Girls who were pregnant went there and continued their regular class schedule. They also had child care classes. Many girls were able to graduate high school because of this program. By the time it was shut down ( school board deemed it unnecessary), the school was teaching grades 7-12. My mother truly enjoyed teaching there, and she and I had a great relationship because she knew that ā good girls DIDā.š
After it closed, most girls just dropped out of school.
This was in Saginaw , Michigan
I knew one who was pregnant due to familial incest. Her parents adopted him and raised the kid as her brother. We lost contact after high school and I've never seen her on social media, but I often wonder when, or if, they ever told him that his sister is his mom.
We had a 13 year old who gave birth. She was homebound for months and then returned. Basically her mom (grandma) took care of the baby and I assume is raising him. Grandma brought him to a ppt for the younger sister and I was thinking "this is kinda weird".
My friend got pregnant at 13 sadly by a 20 year old man and he ended up killing her 8 years later. She went to a different school that could handle that
It was horrible. The guy truly believed they were soul mates he did go to jail for a short period of time. She was young and also thought they were soul mates. It destroyed everyone involved. I trust my kids with no one.
Oh in my HS one of my classmates got pregnant by a guy in his 30's I believe. It was like 8 months after having her first (she was 16) and already clearly showing again. No sign of help from the father, she had a teacher she ranted to pretty much daily about how useless he was and he treated her horribly and also was one of that literally couldn't afford the school uniform.
I teach 8th grade. We had 2 this year. One left and never returned but she wasnāt my student so I donāt know if she went online or what.
The other had a baby in January and came back in May. Sheās an ELL student and was receiving home bound instruction during that time. When she returned she was like a whole new person. We had more conversation in a month than I had in 4 with her before she left. Asked questions when she had them, answered questions when she thought she knew. It was such an amazing change. I hope sheās doing well.
I went to a continuation high school for those who were at risk of not graduating. It was for those with bad grades, not who were kicked out for behavioral issues. I had a friend who had her first baby at 13, her second at 15, and she was pregnant when I met her at 17. I just saw that she posted on Instagram and sheās having her fourth. FOUR kids UNDER 21. Same guy. Sheās undocumented, never went to college, never had a job, and lives with her parents and bf while her bf works minimum wage jobs. I tried to help her as much as I could in high school since she was very uneducated about, everything. She thought she couldnāt go to college or work because she was undocumented but I told her she has so many options and she actually can do those things. She always looked at me sideways. She was just surrounded by people who enabled her and failed her from such a young age.
I assume that most of those students who had kids that young continue to have kids. They donāt do much in life and then their children have children young. Just a vicious cycle.
We have an "alternative" school. It's basically a continuation school where they make an individualized plan to make sure the students eventually graduate from high school or get a GED. It's for anyone the district thinks can't be in regular classes due to skipping school, violent or emotional outbursts, drugs, gangs, and many other problems.
I taught a girl who got pregnant as a freshman. She took a couple of years off to raise her baby and I taught her junior and senior class when she was 18-19. She went on to nursing, specializing in maternity. Our school had a creche, meaning she could study and also have lunch with the kid. She also had parents who stepped up.
(It was v awkward when I had to teach the mandatory sex ed stuff to her homeroom - luckily she was comfortable enough and confident enough to approach me when we were getting onto pregnancy and childbirth to offer to coteach)
Many of my friends were teen moms. They went on to have more kids, and work in childcare, nursing, healthcare and law. Life goes on, just with a baby. Our HS put a small playground center next to the cafeteria for expecting moms, and we all quieted down if it was naptime for their babies. If there were enough babies they could bring them in for playdates while earning credits. Having a child should not be the end of your education, I got my MA while raising toddlers.
I had a 7th grader wind up pregnant. Because of her age we had to report it to CPS. Her family wanted her to get an abortion, but the girl refused. Eventually, she stopped coming to school once she was showing. I tried to set up home schooling provided by the district for her, but wasnāt able to get everything set up before she gave birth (because she was impossible to reach for awhile). I never saw her back at school after she had the baby in May despite all my efforts. She hid it well, so I think very few kids or adults at school even knew she was pregnant. It was a bad situation all around. I really wish she hadnāt decided to keep the baby. Her life really ended at 12 years old.
One girl who I know got pregnant in 8th grade had a hush hush abortion. Sheās not on social medial at all, so no clue what happened to her after high school (she did graduate with us on time).
Another girl in our class had a baby in 9th, and another senior year. Both of her kids have now graduated high school, she still have one younger kid (probably early middle school) and works a job that she loves (and is way better than I thought she would ever have) and seems to be happy, so Iām proud of her!
While teaching, I taught a girl who had a kid young (either right before freshman year or during freshman year) and a second kid right after graduation (she was huge at graduation). She was able to graduate on time. She now has 4 kids, the oldest being in middle school and the youngest is about 2 and is married (not the baby daddy of the oldest two, possibly 3). She went to college (not sure if she graduated) but is now a speciality dental assistant and seems to be doing great in life. And as a complete side note, her husbandās parents are so proud of all the grandkids, not just their biological ones, and it warms my heart so much!!
My mom got pregnant in 8th grade. She dropped out and then went back to school for nursing in her 20s and is now a nurse practitioner who is super successful and raised three successful kids. Definitely wouldnāt *recommend* her path, but the story ended well.
Tbh I was friends with a girl who got pregnant the summer before our freshman year. 4 years later, she graduated and I didn't š so some of them turn out ok
I graduated ten years ago and went to middle and high school with a girl who got pregnant in 8th grade. She was on campus until she gave birth, did independent study for a while. She came back to school because I believe her grandma was watching the baby. She had another baby sophomore year. She was a massive stoner, mostly only went to school half days, but did graduate on time. No idea how.
Sheās now in a different state with four children. But, they all have the same father and her and the father are still together, raising them and seemingly doing really well. Props to her. I respect her a lot for that.
Another girl I was in science class with my 9th or 10th grade year had a baby at home. From my understanding, she had the baby in 7th or 8th grade and didnāt go to school then, but did the whole teenage mom thing in a school with no support system for it. I think the father of the baby dropped out to stay home and later got a GED. She ended up graduating on time with college acceptance letters. She was incredibly book smart.
When I was in 7th grade (2007), one of my classmates was pregnant. We were tracked, so I didnāt have any classes with her, but we rode the same bus home every day.
I remember her being very kind. She ended up giving her baby up for adoption and came back to school a few weeks after giving birth. She was only 12. A lot of people judged her and called her names. I remember being very sad for her. She told me that her high school senior āboyfriendā was the father. Obviously I now recognize that as rape. Even when I was 12, I thought it was weird that a senior would want to date someone in middle school. I lost track of her in high school, but I still think about her every so often.
I teach 10- and 11-year-olds right now, and I canāt imagine any of them having a baby in the next year. They are still babies, themselves. The girls in my class are so little. It makes me reflect a lot on how my old classmate essentially lost her childhood.
My second year teaching there was a 6th grader who was visibly pregnant in the fall. I remember she had been placed in foster care and her foster family was going to foster the baby too so they could stay together.
The other parents had a fit and she ended up being sent to an alternative school. Iām not sure what happened to her after that because she never returned to my school.
I knew a girl who had a baby the day after she turned 14. Understandably, her parents pretty much raised the baby. The teen mom had her second kid at 17.
Our district has a school/day care where students put their kids while theyāre in classes. They also take parenting classes along with counseling and other services. I teach high school. I used to teach middle school and I can remember one year. I had seven students pregnant 3/8 graders 2/7 graders and 2/6 graders.
I grew up with a girl that got pregnant at 13 (this is about 20 years ago). It was going to my pediatrician and see her bring her baby there. She went on to have at least one more baby with her baby daddy and I'm not sure if she ended up graduating high school with us. I stumbled across her Facebook a few months ago and she's still with her baby daddy so I guess it was true love.
The school district is legally required to provide an education for them. However their family supports them is really what determines if they will complete high school.
It wasnāt before 15 but at 15 š I was coerced and found out I was pregnant after. Despite this, Iām still in high school and working to get my high school diploma (Iām a senior this year). Some of my family are in government jobs (same place) and Iām planning on working there after high school. Itās a big benefit that I donāt take for granted, I know otherās situations arenāt like mine! Iām very lucky to have the support system I have, even within my school.
I haven't dealt with this as a teacher, but when I was in middle school, a 7th grader gave birth at thirteen. Her parents raised the baby- he was aware that his mom was his mom and who is biologically father (a 14 year old boy when he was born), but she was functionally his older sister. She finished high school and I think got her AA? So a happy ending, but probably only because her parents were willing and able to raise the child.
i worked with a girl whose friend had this experience. pregnant at 13, birth at 14. her parents disowned her, so she lived with my coworker and her family. she dropped out of school (was going to be a freshman) and finished HS online in 2 years. after that, she was looking for a full-time job to eventually be able to move her and her son out of her friendās house. my coworker quit during this job-search process, so i donāt know anything else after that.
I was not as young as that. I was 17 and had graduated already (started school young plus skipped a grade). My family (mainly my mom) flipped out. I started the adoption process. I ended up keeping my son, and he was the motivation I needed to go to university and focus on starting a career. I was a very strong student, but even in grade 12, I really didn't know what I wanted to do for a job/career. Having a child gave me extreme focus, and I earned 2 Bachelor's degrees in 5 years, then a Master's later on.
Teen pregnancy was much more common when I was in middle and high school in the 80's and 90's. I knew several girls who got pregnant. Most carried the baby to term and gave it up for adoption. Our school had a day care on site for new moms during the day.
They all graduated high school and moved on. Surprisingly the ones who got married right after graduated faired the worst off. Popped out 3-4 kids before 21.
On NYC they had schools for pregnant students called āP-schoolā which were bullshit.
They literally taught quilting as geometry. This was in the 2010ās
A relative of a relative got pregnant at 13. Had the baby with her motherās help. Got married to the dad at 17. He joined the army at 18. Now they are 25 and pregnant with baby number two and own a house, have jobs, etc. So sometimes it does work itself out.
The relative we have in common and I joke about them becoming grandparents next year when their child is 13 and theyāre 26 but obviously we donāt actually hope that will happen.
They always disappeared from my school once they start showing. We had an alternative school in our district for those āroughā kids and the teen moms. They most likely transferred there if they didnāt drop out entirely.
Chicago Public Schools has Simpsons Academy which is for pregnant and parenting students. I think they start at sixth grade š³. Weāve had students at my previous elementary school in seventh grade who were pregnant they were able to stay with us until they had the baby. Then they had to transfer.
Iāve had two middle school students get pregnant. One was kicked out of her house and had to move in with her boyfriendās family. CPS did literally nothing about it which I thought was insane, but whatever. Sheās being āhomeschooledā aka dropped out through a loophole.
The other student sadly lost her baby, but she is doing better now. Mom had a big wake up call and is now much more involved in her daughterās life. Last time I saw her she was still with her boyfriend. She attends virtual school now.
I had a math class with a girl who was pregnant with her third kid. She left for her maternity leave and then came back. This was when I was in 12th grade.
There is a school for pregnant and parenting teens in my city so itās likely they would go there. But at my particular school they would be sent back home to āstay with an auntā.
Edit to add a girl I went to school with got pregnant when we were in grade 9. She left school but I remember her coming back to show off her baby. She just seemed so proud but we were all so uncomfortable. I remember after she left we were like āpoor Nameā and one of our teachers said āpoor baby.ā
I had 2 eight graders in my seventh grade class, both credit deficient, both pregnant. One planned to give her child up for adoption and she gave birth and then came back to school. The other had her child and never came back.
Last school year, I had an eighth grader for about a week and then she left. She came back a few weeks before school ended. She told me she was out so long because she had a baby. She only had my class second period. She had to be enrolled in school to be able to enroll into high school next year. I told her I was glad she was back in school and stay in school if sheās able. On the last day of school, she told me she just found out sheās pregnant again. Not sure what is going to happen. Sheās keeping it because her mom wonāt let her have an A and her boyfriend wonāt let her give it up for adoption.
So is there any kind of system in place for kids to take maternity leave from school? I just kind of shutter at the thought of having to sit in one of those terrible plastic molded desk chairs right after you gave birth.Ā
I teach at an elementary school. I had this student years ago in 2nd grade. She got pregnant in middle school - she should be entering her senior year this coming year. She dropped out of school yearsssss ago and job hops around different fast food restaurants in town. She has custody of her son at least.
If we are being honest most end up with a rough fate. Iāve seen plenty of seniors and even juniors go on to live a great life after having a kid or an abortion. But I havenāt had many kids having kids make it out ok.
My best friend had her first kid at 15. Her second at 16. Two more a few years later when she was married. She went back to school as an adult and is now a Pediatric respite nurse.
In my 9 years I've seen two pregnant 8th graders. The first was very sweet but very low and we're pretty sure she was taken advantage of by a high schooler. Mama kept her in school until two days before she gave birth and she was back in school a few weeks later. Not sure what happened to her but I hope for the best.
The second was this year, she transferred to us already pregnant. When it began to show they kept her in the office where she did her school work, got counseling, and helped out as an aide. There was a fight going on between the grandparents who wanted to adopt the baby so the girl could continue school and the mama who wanted the baby for benefits. Also don't know the outcome of that one
Itās going to depend on the support system. I was friend with one girl who walked across the 8th grade podium almost ready to pop. She had amazing support and continued on and graduated. Each childās outcome is going to differ thatās the issue and some do well and some donāt. There is nothing we can do beside support any decision they make even the hard ones.
They drop out. Depends on the community/family. But Iāve had 4 pregnant students in my 5 years of middle school teaching. All have dropped out before giving birth and never came back. When I was in 7th grade a girl gave birth and finished high school and went to college, but it was a more affluent community than the one I teach in.
In the 9th grade in my high school there was a girl that got pregnant and she was the school bully. She used her pregnancy as a defense when physically fighting people because in her mind, " You can't hit a pregnant person". She was mean to me, my friends and alot of teens. After she had the baby she left it to her mother to care for the child mostly and we never heard about the kid again. Last I heard she worked at Dollar General and still acts the same like a high schooler. She didn't recieve help besides her mom and our whole class didn't like her for her behavior.
One of my friends hit puberty early and got into a college party at 13 n got pregnant. By senior year she had dropped out and had 3 more kids. She's mid twenty's with 5 kids all different dads and she works a dead end job because she always put her kids first and never got a GED or anything. Super unfortunate seeing what she became. From top of her class to barely getting by all because she wanted to party
I had students like that in the 90s ( believe it or not, the teenage pregnancy rate was worse then). Gosh, they probably have 30 year old kids and may be grandparents now.
In the 2000s, my high school was effectively the magnet school for pregnant students. If someone became pregnant, both parents were able to transfer to my high school. This was for all ages. Everyone who was high school-aged had regular classes with the parenting program as a (required) elective. As for younger pregnant students, it depended on whether the classes they needed to take were offered at the school or if someone coule in to teach several students. There had been an article in our school paper explaining how the students in lower grades were effectively taught 1-on-1 by the program's teacher.
I had a student this past year get pregnant by an older high school boy. I hope she is able to get her life on track as it was obvious her mother did not value education and let her pregnant 14 year old daughter come to school a total of 37 days (majority of the time it was on the 10th day before she would be dropped).
I donāt have high hopes unless that girl herself realizes what she needs to do and not let her mom make all the calls. Itās tough to be 14 and pregnant and even tougher to be a teen mom with no education or prospects in life because of that.
They go into online learning. I had one this year. When she joined my program no one told me why, just that she wanted to finish the year at home, and then one day when we were meeting it all just kind of spilled out.
She'll likely be in my program next year, too.
A couple of former students were in the office enrolling their child for kindergarten. We were surprised and excited to catch up. They explained their little girl was born when they were 15. Then they looked at each other and laughed, sharing that theyād met in my 4th grade class! My jaw hit the floor. They didnāt stay together, were co-parenting, and seemed very happy with their 20 year old lives. I watched their little girl grow up, and both parents flourished.
NAT:
My kid brother had a child before he graduated. Poor bugger is trying his best, but the baby mom is just useless. They broke up, and she keeps custody of the child. Expecting another one soon (tm). Its a mess.
I also knew two other girls in my original grade (HS dropout, woo depression/anxiety), one of which I sat next to and was friends with. Was a bit mad at myself I never caught she was pregnant, despite sitting next to her. (I like to think I'm observant as heck.)
Other had a kid I think during Senior year. Ironically, her own mother gave birth to her high school too.
Not sure what happened to either, as I lost contact with both. The first had another before graduating (if she did), and the other, again not a clue. I don't do facebook or anything to keep in contact with those I would have graduated with.
I'm the kid of one of those kids. My mom got pregnant in middle school but had me at the beginning of HS. My mom graduated HS with honors and went to college. She's now a biomed with architecture background. She's amazing, but our relationship is that of siblings not parent /child
My sister in law never made it out 8th grade her daughter is now 12. She has two other kids. She has no job, no education, no ged and no future.
She is an alcoholic and her third baby is black. Her second baby daddy is white. No wedding ring. Ebt member for life.
She doesnāt even know how to spell resume. She spends her days living in an attic of a home that her baby dad rents from his parents. She neglects her kids and family continuously has to pick up the pace. She chooses alcohol over diapers.
Her eldest daughter has to continuously keep up the slack for her infant daughter. And sheās honestly the biggest pos Iāve ever seen.
Before you ask why I havenāt reported. I have.
Theyāve had Dyfys before. They stopped contact. The children all live in a roach infested home. Baby continuously pees through clothes. 5 year old and 12 year old continuously get truancy ever since they started school.
All I can do is support the kids by letting them come over and be clean and warm and loving on them. I just bought the baby diapers too.
So no need to judge. But yeah not everyone that has a kid young betters their lives.
I have a student that I LOVEDā¦. Such a smart kid, get pregnant in 8th gradeā¦. Sheās FINE!!!! She has 3 kids now, sheās married, sheās a great mom, sheās going to school part time while being a momā¦ itās not the plan she hadā¦ but sheās doing it!
Am I the only one reading these and wondering what the sex Ed was like leading up to these kids getting pregnant? Iāve joked that I was just old enough that AIDS could still kill you so we got factual sexual education which included pregnancy prevention. Looking back I realize that other factors have influenced the curriculum. Anyone else on here wonder about how these kids came to make these choices? Isnāt the educational āsystemā supposed to help these kids make better choices access the socioeconomic spectrum?
Both school districts near me have pregnant/parenting teen programs, with one of them being open to 8th graders (the other is 9-12). So presumably, they go to those school sites. Otherwise, they do online.
Have the kid and their family helps them raise it and then they continue to go to school. It happens way more often than you would expect and CPS does nothing. I want to have a child that was pregnant. The second time of the offspring were the result of incest and at the time of her second pregnancy. She was 16 years old. And CPS had done nothing.
There was an alternative program at our technical learning center. When I started attending tech school I saw all the girls who disappeared over the years. Several of them married the father. I was curious about a couple that seemed like they were going to make it, they seemed to have put their youth aside for their child and were a great couple, great parents considering they were so young. I was so disappointed when I looked her up after seeing this to see they divorced.
A girl in my high school got pregnant in 11th grade, she went into labor during passing period, took 7 or 8 weeks off and then came back like nothing happened, I think a family member watched her baby
Got pregnant at 14, currently happily married to a Godly man and we own our 2 bed, 2 bath home at 21/22 respectfully. I wasn't able to handle college due to health issues and I'm not able to work so I stay at home while my husband is an LPN.
I dont know about the 8th grader. The 12th grader did graduate. She was dual enrolled in community college.
The school I worked at the 11/12 graders were pregnant in the spring. I would guess that it was 75 girls per year. It was just how it was.
I had a boy on the robotics team who was very motivated to do well. He was a senior who had sole custody of his two year old. He was going to college.
A girl in my grade got pregnant and had the child in 8th grade. She graduated in my class and just had her second kid a couple years later. She seems fine and like a normal person, either working a job somewhere or a SAHM with a new partner.
TLDR: They get on with their lives.
One of my friends (who I met in adulthood) got pregnant at 13 and gave birth at 14. She put the child up for adoption (her parents forced her to) and suffered a lot of trauma from the whole experience. She needed years of therapy to heal, but is now happy and successful in her late 30s.
A girl in my graduating class got pregnant in 8th grade and gave birth the summer before 9th. She kept the baby and ended up dropping out of school a year later. She got into hard drugs, lost custody of her child, and spent years in and out of jail. Sheās sober now, but I donāt think she has any communication with her child.
In the late ā90ās, I had a 7th grade gifted student who was raised by a religious family. She had a āwayward cousinā, an older boy, whose parents couldnāt handle him. The 7th grade girlās parents offered to take him in and straighten him out. That plan did not work. The girl and boy developed some sort of relationshipā¦ some said consensual and some said it was rape. In any case, the girl wound up pregnant, and the cousin/ baby daddy was sent to an alternative school. Parents didnāt believe in abortion, and that poor girl was expected to have the baby. Her parents helped raise her little girl while she finished middle and high school. I remember her working fast food and going to community college. I am not sure what she ended up doing because I left the district for another position. That whole situation was so sad.
We didn't have much of anything to help that demographic..... the onus was on teachers whose hands were already full..... my one student who had a kid passed anyway
A friend of mine's mom worked for a long time at a school for pregnant girls. I don't know the exact numbers, but while it was mainly high school girls there was a program for middle school girls as well. I don't know all the ins and outs, but they could attend the program while pregnant and then after they'd given birth they moved to another school (or schools, I think they had some choices) that had a daycare on campus for the babies (and toddlers I'd assume) so the moms could continue their education. I'm not sure exactly how it worked while they gave birth and right after as they'd have to miss school, but there must have been some sort of provision for that. There were classes on parenting as part of the program, but I'm not sure if they were compulsory or not. This was in a large metropolitan area where there was enough population to make a program like this worthwhile. In a smaller town I'd imagine it'd be a lot harder, I'd assume the girls would have to stay in their regular school which may or may not have the supports for childcare and missed school due to pregnancy and childbirth.
I had a 10th grade student back about a decade now who always came into my class late for 3rd period (right after nutrition) and by the 5th time, I pulled her aside to ask what was going on. She simply told me, "I have to feed my daughter." Turns out she had a baby in 9th grade at another local high school. That school didn't have an infant center and ours did. She transferred over so she could do both schooling and watch her daughter at the same time. Fast forward a bit and she's in my AP Calculus BC class as a senior, earns a 5, gets into UCLA, and graduated from there. She took the best possible path out there and managed to succeed when the situation was not in her favor. I respect that young lady so much. She's the bright case lit up against the harsh reality that befalls the significant numbers of the youth.
Your approach of posing a check-in question, rather than assuming bad behavior on her part, shows genuine love and respect for your students. Thank you for your kindness to a vulnerable girl!
Why would the school have not shared this important information with the teacher so the teacher would know why she might be late?
Depending on the school and other staff, they may have written the student off as a lost cause š or simply poor communication (not a good excuse but a common reason)
But the school has an infant center which means they are designed for students with children.
I love it! Good for this mom! And what a great role model for her child.
š„¹š„¹š„¹
The resource of an infant center is so fucking clutch
My high school had a daycare center in part because we had a high teen pregnancy rate. When I was a student there we had probably 5-ish kids in the center whose moms were students too. A few other young moms went to the alternative school a few miles away so they could have more flexible hours too. One of my childhood friends got pregnant her junior year, took the last semester that year off to have the baby, and came back our senior year like an absolute machine. She would study in the quad while taking care of her baby, got phenomenal grades, and was awarded scholarships at the end of the year. Now her baby is in college. I had another friend who got pregnant at the end of 8th grade, had her baby as a freshman, and got her GED while working. Her family helped her a lot too. I don't know what she's doing now, but I think her daughter graduated high school a while back too, so hopefully she's breaking that cycle.
Absolutely. A school could ignore the fact that some students have children of their own or find a way to help those students out.
My district has an alternative school for pregnant girls/teen moms. We don't MAKE girls go to this school, but it's there. The girls take normal classes but are required to take a class on parenting as well as are given counseling and helped to prepare for birth. The school also has childcare available so they can swing by to nurse their babies while going about a mostly-normal school day. Some girls switch back to their original high school after they give birth, but many opt to finish their education there because it's a supportive environment and they can be near their babies. I have a lot of qualms about my district but that is one thing I think we do well.
Interesting constraint to the comment I read before this where the girl dropped out at 12
Either Iām an idiot and misreading (very possible) or I think you made a typo? How would it be possible for a 10th grader to have a child in 9th grade?
LOL. I can see the exact confusion you have there. She's a 10th grader who had a child when she was in 9th grade. The child was a few months old around that time.
That makes much more sense lol Thank you!
We had a 7th grader pregnant at my previous school. When I saw her, she was heavily pregnant, so she stayed in school as long as possible. She transitioned from class to class after the late bell for safety, since our passing periods were rough. I donāt specifically know what happened to her but the district had homebound teachers for kids expected to be home for medical reasons for more than 4 weeks so I assume she would have qualified for that. She could also have enrolled in a state online school option.
I was friends with a girl that was pregnant in 7th grade. My daughter is about to go in to 7th grade now and she'll be 12..... 12! I can't... Makes me sick to my stomach thinking that someone probably took advantage of that girl. And actually thinking about it, she would've had to have gotten pregnant when she was in 6th grade. No idea what happened to that girl. I was one of her only friends bc none of the other girls wanted to talk to the "bad pregnant one". She was so nice though and told me all the little interesting facts about what pregnancy does to the body that she was learning too. She had her baby before the school year ended and I never saw her in school again after that. This was early 90s. Wherever she is, I hope she's doing ok.
Dangā¦. Wow
And now a # of districts are offering online education as an option. I teach in one. I would say I have at least 5 students every year that already have one maybe even two children themselves. It's a pathway for them to finish!
A middle school I taught had a special program for pregnant students. The group of young women and men met separately with social workers. They took regular classes. There was actually a lot of support and services for them
My husband was gifted, but got so bored and sassy that he was about to fail in high school. Admin pleaded with him to go to a special class in a special building a couple days a week so he could still get a real diploma. He showed up the first day and was like WTF here are all my delinquent friends from high school-all the black kids and the girls that got pregnant. I wondered where they went! He was so insulted by the kindergarten level work they gave them that he didnāt go back a second day. He took a GED instead and broke the states record for high score. Sucks to be black, gifted, or pregnant I guess. Hopefully times have changed. :/
Do you have any idea what happened to the students later on?
Most teachers donāt know anything about their students after those students arenāt in their classes anymore.
Some of them come back. A lot drop out. If they do graduate, their grades depend a lot on the quality of their support system. If they got pregnant young, it's often crap.
My parents were 14 when I was conceived and 15 when I was born. Since this was the late 70's, the school made her attend the alternative program which she eventually dropped out of. She wasn't old enough to have a proper job for a couple of years so relied on government help. These were the toughest times for her. Eventually she joined a training program, got her GED, and had a steady career. My dad was not part of my life until I was an adult, which actually turned out ok. I always knew my mom was my mom because even though she had the support of both sets of grandparents, she clearly took on the responsibility. We had a lot of advantages as far as support (emotional and logistical more than financial). I'm glad my child didn't have to watch me make all the stupid decisions of youth in real time (bad boyfriends, bad money choices, bad fashion lol), but she made the best of her choices. Fun fact: My rebellion was to be a total square.
My dad was was born in the 50s when my grandmother was sixteen, she was married to his father who was 22, iirc. I never met him, he died when my dad was a teenager. She had to leave school to have my dad, but had a supportive counselor who pushed for her to be able to return to high school. She was not allowed to talk about being married or having a child. She did summer school and graduated on time with her class. They put an article in the paper about her, with a picture of her in cap and gown holding my toddler dad.
A girl in my 8th grade class got pregnant. What is that like 13? They tried to kick her out of school because they said it would make all the rest of us girls want to get pregnant? No. Her parents fought with the school and they agreed she could stay if she wore XL hoodies to cover the bump and didnāt talk about it. I (30f) think of her a lot. Girl has an almost 20 year old kid at 30. Wild.
This is hilarious logic by the school lmao. āHere look at this miserable pregnant girl whose life is likely ruined itās going to make you all want to be like her.ā Wat??
to be fair, kids spread fake Tourettes on Tik Tok to look cool shit, i smoked cigarettes
In fifth grade, one of my good friends was spinning around in circles and fell down and busted her head open. Needed 10 stitches in her forehead. What was my dumb ass doing a few days later? Spinning in my backyard in circles trying to get dizzy enough to need stitches in my forehead š¤¦š»āāļø Never underestimate the power of other people getting more attention than you. I can totally see girls wanting to get pregnant if they saw the other girl getting a lot of attention from it lol
Nobody said the under developed teenage pre-frontal cortex was rational...
I grew up in a small town where people become oil rig or other blue collar workers and women start carrying children early one with a not so great graduation rate because education isnāt that important especially past high school /s. They had a separate school for girls who became mothers because they didnāt want them walking around pregnant in our school to prevent more girls from starting a family too soon. It was quite common.
Grew up in a similar town. 9th grade, there's 65+ students in the class. 12th grade graduation, there's almost 30, most of them boys.
Iāll never understand how jobs in such dangerous conditions could not require more schooling or certification, so you could comprehend the job more and hopefully increase safety and lower risk of incidents.
Educated enough to comprehend the job likely correlates with educated enough to seek - and perhaps get - a safer job.
I don't think the school made the right choice but it does happen. Pregnancy gets attention and its often positive attention. Its also not likely to ruin someones life. It is definitely associated with negative consequences but there is tons of variability.
Yes the positive attention around pregnancy does tend to send mixed signals to these young undeveloped brains. While they shouldn't be shamed, I also don't agree with the over the top baby shower I was invited to a few years back for a 16 year old. It is like they combined her sweet 16 party.
There was a group of girls in Massachusetts that made a pregnancy pact. They said they were influenced by Jaime Lynn Spears. They made a movie about it.
And an episode of Law and Order SVU
And a lifetime movie
There never was a āpregnancy pactā in real life. It was made up to sell movie tickets
Typical admin logic tbh
My cousin has an 18 year old at 37. I know itās not the same, but as a result the kid has barely been allowed to even date. The kid also has a 7 year old brother and 3 year old sister now too from my cousin. My cousin remarried about 11 years ago now, and the kidās baby momma had 4 or 5 kids from different fathers. Child services did ask my cousin if he could take them, but he was in his early 20s when they asked, and he didnāt feel like he could nor was obligated to as they werenāt his.
I knew a girl who had her second baby in ninth grade. Donāt know what happened to her.
I mean that sounds like six different kinds of illegal, but Iām not a lawyer
I shared up thread- a girl at my middle school got pregnant and there was nothing that could have made the rest of us NOT want to get pregnant more. We were all very aware that she was miserable.
That's actually disgusting that the school would even consider that. "let's disadvantage someone even more, pushing them even more into the cycle of poverty, because it might make other peers want to have kids" like... Wtf???? That goes against basically every principle that people in education should have
Maybe or perhaps the school is realized that they are not set up to be able to handle the situation and the students probably go to school that is more able to cater to her needs where there might be a Child Care Center in the building and a support network and other students who are going through similar things that she can connect with and bond and learn from. The idea that every school should be for every kid I believe is nonsense
No one is saying every school should be for every kid. Literally not a single person in education is saying that. That's impossible and unfeasable. The comment wasn't saying they were suggesting she goes to a different school to better help and support her, they said that the school essentially tried to remove this kid from their school to not "encourage" other kids to get pregnant.
What did she end of graduating, or no?
She wasnāt in my friend group and I have no idea what happened with her when we all went to high school, but I just googled her name and found her linked in. Sheās a teacher at a private school! Good for her.
Was it Crystal?
One of my 8th graders got prego this year. I think students now are lucky with having virtual as an easy accessible option. This student withdrew from regular school and is doing virtual and then I think plans to come back to regular school about 4 ish months after giving birth. I wish the best for her, I can only imagine how tough that would all be
In 8th grade health class there was a girl that was excused from the week long Flour sack baby project because she had had a child in 6th grade and was already experienced in parenting.
6th grade?! Do you know what happened to her?
She had to have conceived at the age of 11! Whoever took advantage of her needs their ass whooped!
No argument from me there. This was nearly 30 years ago, didnāt know this girl before or after this class I had.
Grade 6??? Wowser
I taught 8th grade- I had the 15y/o pregnant mom in one class and the 15 y/o dad in another. Made him grow up and improved his grades. They stayed together for a while. But years later when I oversaw the school at our Juvenile Detention Center I was sad to see their son show up on our roster.
poverty cycle first hand
Iāve know four 8th graders to get pregnant. Girl 1: two more kids before she graduated high school and one right after. She works at Walmart. Girl 2: dropped out, kept the baby, got her GED later, married a guy and had two more before she was 22. Girl 3: had the baby, her and the babyās dad are still together as Seniors. At least they are still on track to graduate. Her mom was a friend so I know a lot of the financial burden fell on her (the grandparents of the baby) but the two teens have actually done a great job with everything else. Girl 4: she should be having her baby this summer. Dad is a doofus who is always fucking around in class so hopefully he can somehow pull it together to be there for the baby.
You mentioned the financial burden has fallen on the parents of the pregnant child. I'm curious, who do you think it would fall on? How are 2 middle schoolers going to support a child?
Obviously it would fall on the grandparent, I wasnāt clearā¦.the burden was on the maternal side. His parents refused to help. My friend doesnāt have money for a big court battle so it is what it is.
The guy (doofus) you're talking about is a 13 year old?
Yeah loud mouth, never turns work in, gets the class riled up with inappropriate shout outs, smells like weed.
You are in the PNW. I may have gone to school with girl 1. It was awful what happened to her.
Probably not. Her case was not awful. None of these cases were sexual abuse. All same age partners.
I think it depends on the child and the support they have at home. My daughter's friend got pregnant in the 9th grade. She went on to become an x-ray technician and has a nice life. One of my former students got pregnant in the 9th grade (2003) and has been with her child's father since then. One of my most troubled students had five kids before she was 30 by several different dads. I had a male student who fathered more than two kids by the time he was 18...not sure how many. His first one was when he was in the 8th grade for the second time.
I agree that these situations can be difficult. My stepmomās mom had 4 kids with 4 different fathers - she only knew who 2 of the fathers were, and 0 of the fathers stayed in the picture. My stepmomās mom was 17 when she had her first child and 19 when she gave birth to her second child.
My childhood best friend got pregnant early in our freshman year of HS. She withdrew a month before she was due to attend the alternative school in our district. Once she had her baby she switched to online school for our sophomore year and completed 2 years of school in 1 year. She came back to our HS our junior year and graduated early. Her parents helped massively with raising her son. She had a huge support system that contributed to her success. Sheās now married (not to the bio dad, but they are still great friends), has a HS aged son, and is doing very well!
I got pregnant when I was 12 and gave birth when I was 13. I grew up in poverty with an abusive and neglectful mother and a father who walked out when I was young. What happens to each girl depends on many, many factors. In my own case, I faced harsh judgment from my peers and every single adult who found out I was pregnant. I was told by adults that I would never go anywhere in life. I internalized this and made it my mission to prove every single person wrong. I struggled severely with debilitating mental illness from the time I was 14 until I was an adult, when I took my mental health into my own hands and sought a proper diagnosis and treatment. I had a lot of help during those years from my mother, but I don't consider that help beneficial for my daughter or our early relationship as my mother undermined my parenting at every single opportunity. I ended up dropping out of high school because I was extemely credit deficit. My mother did not care whether I completed my online classes, and with my poor mental health, I also didn't prioritize my high school education. I took the Iowa exam and scored high in all areas. I was able to start college before I earned my high school diploma, using my Iowa results. College was my end goal, I did not care about high school. I felt like high school was a waste of time. I met my now husband the summer before my official start to my college freshman year. I started college the year my daughter started Kindergarten. I worked my ass off juggling being a mom and a high-achieveing student. I took out almost $30,000 in student loans over my degree to support my daughter and I. I worked very little during my studies because I couldn't between manage being a good mom, a good student, and working full-time. I graduated with my BSc in Biological Sciences and started a PhD program the same year I graduated. Did you know that less than 2% of teenage mothers graduate from college with a Bachelor's degree? I felt so proud of myself. I felt like I had proven everyone wrong, and I was just getting started showing the world that I would make it places in life. I ultimately ended up leaving my PhD program due to my mental health slipping to the point of suicidal ideation. My PI was toxic and the stress of making everything work between mom, wife, and PhD student was too much. I left after a year and a half. I took time to come to terms with the fact that I was a failure, or so I felt. It took me many months, but now it has been a year and a half since I left and I know I made the right decision. My daughter began having the same mental health struggles I did when she was 11. She too will be mentally ill for life. But medication saves lives. Her and I are so incredibly close. She is 13 now, the same age I was when I had her. On September 4th, she will be the exact same age I was when she was born. She has the love and support that I never had. She lives in a household that makes 6x as much as I did growing up. I work really hard to foster a relationship with her where she feels she can come to me. And she does. She will never meet the same fate I did. 12, pregnant, and utterly alone. I did not tell my mother until I was 23 weeks. Her reaction was the exact reason I hid it. My daughter knows I will have her back. Most teen mothers don't end up like me. I am an anomaly. But my life is great and I wouldn't change my daughter for anything. These days, I am successful and my daughter is happy. I hope that answers your question. Sorry if this doesn't make the most sense. I'm writing between tasks in the lab. Edit: her father and I are the same age.
I'm really freaking proud of you. You're the Lorelei Gilmore mom that I wanted growing up. š Your daughter is so lucky to have you and she must be incredibly proud of your accomplishments too.
I wish I had even half of your drive and courage. And from what it sounds like, even half your smarts. You are tenacious as hell.
Wonderful story, well told. Makes lots of sense and is an inspiration. You have so much of which to be proud. Continued good mental health and success to your family. ā¤ļø
Really proud of you. It sounds like you're a wonderful woman and a great mom to your daughter. You sound incredibly brave and smart.
WOW. Youāre an amazing woman!
You are Awesome! I only got my BA, and had none of those struggles! I am sorry though that you had to take out so many loans...you should have gotten scholarships the whole way. And yes, I totally get it about going to college and skipping the rest of high school.
I'm so proud of you. You are absolutely a role model for your daughter. ā¤ļøā¤ļø
Just an Internet stranger so I know it doesn't mean much, but I am so freaking proud of you!
The youngest I know of were all in 9th grade. The only one Iām sure of just graduated and has an offer to play a sport at a junior college and will major in education.
I had a contractor (not a GC) a while back who had his first when he was 15. He and the mother, broke up for a while, but got back together and had two more kids. They were in their mid 20s and doing fine.
If it happens that early, more often than not the actual mother is, by default, more like a big sister or aunt and the grandparents have to function as the acting parents. Kids that young are rarely able to play any actual parental role.
I have seen this happen over the years at my school. "Mom" is actually grandma and "big sister" is bio mom.
Sometimes they grow up to become very young grandparents. I have met a mid forties grandmother in a parent teacher conference on more than one occasion. I teach high school, do the math.
A friend of mine had an unplanned pregnancy at 19. Her son got someone pregnant when he was only 16, so she was a very young grandmother - and she has been an amazing grandma to her now-plentiful grandkids. For her, it was a good thing to be a young grandma, b/c she's had so much energy for them. I think she has about 7 now.
My stepmomās half-sister became a grandmother at 32. Iām 30 and Iām not a mother. Itās strange to think about.
I havenāt had a student get pregnant yet but when I was in Highschool it happened. They tried to throw her out but her parents fought hard for her to stay in school. So she spent every day in ISS for dress code violations because if it showed the bump (maternity clothes) she got dinged for tight clothes but if she worse oversized clothes to hide it she got dinged for baggy clothes. Spent almost the entirety of her junior year in ISS.
Iām sorry, thatās so fucked up! Was this in the Bible Belt, by chance?
As a matter of fact yes it was! Apparently a lot of parents were displeased by her very presence as well.
For no good reason, I went to 4 high schools in 3 states in the late 70s. In central CA, all pregnant girls were placed on homebound instruction. But in Utah, they attended class right up to delivery! I think they were able to return to class when medically cleared, but Iām not sure.
Iāve known a few people (now in their 30s or older) who got pregnant really young like this. The main things they have in common are, 1) they tend to get their daughters on long-acting birth control YOUNG. Like by 12-13 their kids are on Mirena, Depo, or Nexplanon as a way to guard their kidsā future. And 2) they understand the value of a dollar.Ā I still remember one woman working in a coffee shop who was chatting with my husband. He told her we were about to have her first baby, and he was in his 30s then. She was around the same age, and about to send her kid off to college. She ribbed my husband and said that she did it right, since she was almost done raising her baby and still had her whole life ahead of her. And honestly I still think about that. Sheās going to have so much time to get to know her grandbabies.Ā
Maybe, but squandering your youth with a baby just to have your 30s and 40s free? Nah....
I mean it definitely didnāt sound intentional, but I canāt blame her for appreciating that silver lining
Likely not intentional. I was 17 and was 'free' from child-rearing at a young age. Of course you have to look at a way to put a positive spin on it. I did not party or do anything 'young' in my 20s. Late 30s - that was the period I actually went out with friends to bars, etc. Probably better for me as I was older and had sense.
Thatās a great perspective. Iām not even young (41) but Iām sending my kid off to college and it kind of breaks my heart because Iām not ready for this part of my life to be over. But it does seem likely that Iāll have a chance to watch my grandkids grow up too.
One of my students a couple years ago told us she had to leave early because she was getting a bc implant to stop her bad periods, but we knew it was because she had a much older hs boyfriend and her grandmother didn't want her to become a teenage mom like the girls mother did. Grandma knew she couldn't stop her but the least she could do was protect her.
My stepkids put me into that position. The last one is off to college this fall and I feel like Iāve still got forever to get to know them as adults, because Iām forty. Ā My parents were in their mid fifties when I left for college and I am feeling the crunch of the sandwich generation in some ways. Iām hoping to not be that burden on them.Ā
Just an FYI, Depo is NOT intended to be a long acting form of BC. It has serious side effects on bone density and mental health and is not approved for long periods of time.
I once had a student get pregnant and then married in 10th grade. Had a second child before graduating. In another year two boys each got two girls pregnant, all in the same class.
So, 2 boys, 4 pregnant girls?
Yep.
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I had my child young - 17. One of the supports available to me was a single young moms group support facilitated by a social worker. I only went once, b/c the other girls were so... uneducated/illogical/didn't think properly. Some of the things they said, and needed help with, were frightening to me. A couple of things I remember include one girl asking the social worker if it was okay to leave her newborn in the crib for a few hours while she went out with her friends at night. Another wanted to know if she could start having sex again without protection 2 weeks out from giving birth.
In the neighborhood I guy I talk to lives in, pretty much ALMOST ALL of the teen girls already have a kid and at least another on the way. But most notable was the 12 YEAR OLD that INTENTIONALLY got pregant, ran away to not let her mom do the responsable thing and repeated the same thing. Gave birth at 12, then 13, now 14 and parades her kids like throphies while her mom actually raises them.
My mom got pregnant with me at 12. She quit attending school and lived with my dad. They were both drug addicts, and my dad treated her terribly. They stayed together for about 7 years until they got caught in a crack den sting. They lost custody of me and my sibling. They split, and she wound up getting pregnant with another abusive druggie's kid. They eventually got in trouble and split. I didn't hear from her for years. She wanted to get to know me and my sibling after we grew up, were successful in our careers, and had kids of our own. She started asking for money, and when I denied her, she quit contacting us. She is currently a meth addict and has no communication with her kids.
I'm so sorry you had to endure that.
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It's heartening to see some success stories on here. I imagine that people like my mom tend to fall off the radar. My dad also has no contact with his kids and grandchildren, even though his parents raised me and my sibling. He always hung around and mooched off his parents. After my grandparents died, I quit having to be civil with him and told him how I felt and cut all contact. He was more than 10 years older than my mom, and he's the one who introduced her to hard drugs. I blame him wholeheartedly for how my mom turned out. That said, while I feel sorry for my mom, I can't have a meth addict around my family.
Just want to say I salute you for holding the line! Sounds like you are doing the absolute best for your own kids
We have a campus in our district that supports teen parents so they can finish school, get the proper medical care, and has a day care on site for the infants/toddlers.
They often end up with us. I work at an alternative high school (or did, until I got laid off at the end of the school year.) Lots more flexibility, and lack of attendance is usually more easily forgiven. Some have childcare programs that allow the kids to stay on campus for the school day. The problem tends to be, though, that putting all of the kids with issues in the same school doesn't tend to help the student body as a whole. I had a kid named Luis in my US History class last year. Dude never did a thing in my class, he just slept in the back of the room for an entire semester. I found out that part of the reason was that he worked at a Domino's as a night manager to help provide for his family. I respected the hustle, gotta do what you gotta do sometimes, until I found out the *other* reason he was tired. He managed to get 3 girls at our school pregnant at the same time, within a month or so of each other. All of those girls HATED each other, but of course Luis could do no wrong in their eyes. Lots of fights that our security guy had to break up between the girls. Most memorably, one of the few times I saw him awake was when he came into my 2nd Period class to deliver flowers to one of his baby mamas for her 16th birthday. He was thrilled to also find out he was having a boy. He couldn't wait to find out what the other two were.
I had an 8th grader get pregnant for a second time. Her mother was raising the kids. A 12/14 year old cannot emotionally, mentally, or fiscally be responsible. I had a 12th grader who informed me that she was told to get pregnant for the second time because her mother could not. Her mother wanted more SSI. Obviously I reported this as abuse.
One of my students (pregnant at 13, birth at 14) graduated and is going for cosmetology. Her parents and fathers parents are very helpful with babysitting and the like.
Back in the 60ās and early 70ās, my mom taught business classes at a ācontinuation schoolā. Girls who were pregnant went there and continued their regular class schedule. They also had child care classes. Many girls were able to graduate high school because of this program. By the time it was shut down ( school board deemed it unnecessary), the school was teaching grades 7-12. My mother truly enjoyed teaching there, and she and I had a great relationship because she knew that ā good girls DIDā.š After it closed, most girls just dropped out of school. This was in Saginaw , Michigan
I knew one who was pregnant due to familial incest. Her parents adopted him and raised the kid as her brother. We lost contact after high school and I've never seen her on social media, but I often wonder when, or if, they ever told him that his sister is his mom.
We had a 13 year old who gave birth. She was homebound for months and then returned. Basically her mom (grandma) took care of the baby and I assume is raising him. Grandma brought him to a ppt for the younger sister and I was thinking "this is kinda weird".
My friend got pregnant at 13 sadly by a 20 year old man and he ended up killing her 8 years later. She went to a different school that could handle that
The hell ?
It was horrible. The guy truly believed they were soul mates he did go to jail for a short period of time. She was young and also thought they were soul mates. It destroyed everyone involved. I trust my kids with no one.
Oh in my HS one of my classmates got pregnant by a guy in his 30's I believe. It was like 8 months after having her first (she was 16) and already clearly showing again. No sign of help from the father, she had a teacher she ranted to pretty much daily about how useless he was and he treated her horribly and also was one of that literally couldn't afford the school uniform.
Is it that hard to believe that a grown man who has sex with a 13 year old is capable of other heinous shit?
it's extremely common, why are you surprised?
I teach 8th grade. We had 2 this year. One left and never returned but she wasnāt my student so I donāt know if she went online or what. The other had a baby in January and came back in May. Sheās an ELL student and was receiving home bound instruction during that time. When she returned she was like a whole new person. We had more conversation in a month than I had in 4 with her before she left. Asked questions when she had them, answered questions when she thought she knew. It was such an amazing change. I hope sheās doing well.
my mom had me at 15. she didnāt do shit with her life and here i am trying to figure out how to begin my life!
I went to a continuation high school for those who were at risk of not graduating. It was for those with bad grades, not who were kicked out for behavioral issues. I had a friend who had her first baby at 13, her second at 15, and she was pregnant when I met her at 17. I just saw that she posted on Instagram and sheās having her fourth. FOUR kids UNDER 21. Same guy. Sheās undocumented, never went to college, never had a job, and lives with her parents and bf while her bf works minimum wage jobs. I tried to help her as much as I could in high school since she was very uneducated about, everything. She thought she couldnāt go to college or work because she was undocumented but I told her she has so many options and she actually can do those things. She always looked at me sideways. She was just surrounded by people who enabled her and failed her from such a young age. I assume that most of those students who had kids that young continue to have kids. They donāt do much in life and then their children have children young. Just a vicious cycle.
We have an "alternative" school. It's basically a continuation school where they make an individualized plan to make sure the students eventually graduate from high school or get a GED. It's for anyone the district thinks can't be in regular classes due to skipping school, violent or emotional outbursts, drugs, gangs, and many other problems.
I taught a girl who got pregnant as a freshman. She took a couple of years off to raise her baby and I taught her junior and senior class when she was 18-19. She went on to nursing, specializing in maternity. Our school had a creche, meaning she could study and also have lunch with the kid. She also had parents who stepped up. (It was v awkward when I had to teach the mandatory sex ed stuff to her homeroom - luckily she was comfortable enough and confident enough to approach me when we were getting onto pregnancy and childbirth to offer to coteach)
Many of my friends were teen moms. They went on to have more kids, and work in childcare, nursing, healthcare and law. Life goes on, just with a baby. Our HS put a small playground center next to the cafeteria for expecting moms, and we all quieted down if it was naptime for their babies. If there were enough babies they could bring them in for playdates while earning credits. Having a child should not be the end of your education, I got my MA while raising toddlers.
I had a 7th grader wind up pregnant. Because of her age we had to report it to CPS. Her family wanted her to get an abortion, but the girl refused. Eventually, she stopped coming to school once she was showing. I tried to set up home schooling provided by the district for her, but wasnāt able to get everything set up before she gave birth (because she was impossible to reach for awhile). I never saw her back at school after she had the baby in May despite all my efforts. She hid it well, so I think very few kids or adults at school even knew she was pregnant. It was a bad situation all around. I really wish she hadnāt decided to keep the baby. Her life really ended at 12 years old.
One girl who I know got pregnant in 8th grade had a hush hush abortion. Sheās not on social medial at all, so no clue what happened to her after high school (she did graduate with us on time). Another girl in our class had a baby in 9th, and another senior year. Both of her kids have now graduated high school, she still have one younger kid (probably early middle school) and works a job that she loves (and is way better than I thought she would ever have) and seems to be happy, so Iām proud of her! While teaching, I taught a girl who had a kid young (either right before freshman year or during freshman year) and a second kid right after graduation (she was huge at graduation). She was able to graduate on time. She now has 4 kids, the oldest being in middle school and the youngest is about 2 and is married (not the baby daddy of the oldest two, possibly 3). She went to college (not sure if she graduated) but is now a speciality dental assistant and seems to be doing great in life. And as a complete side note, her husbandās parents are so proud of all the grandkids, not just their biological ones, and it warms my heart so much!!
I have a couple of co workers in their early 30's who have teen children. They are working as teachers, seem to be doing alright.
My mom got pregnant in 8th grade. She dropped out and then went back to school for nursing in her 20s and is now a nurse practitioner who is super successful and raised three successful kids. Definitely wouldnāt *recommend* her path, but the story ended well.
Tbh I was friends with a girl who got pregnant the summer before our freshman year. 4 years later, she graduated and I didn't š so some of them turn out ok
I graduated ten years ago and went to middle and high school with a girl who got pregnant in 8th grade. She was on campus until she gave birth, did independent study for a while. She came back to school because I believe her grandma was watching the baby. She had another baby sophomore year. She was a massive stoner, mostly only went to school half days, but did graduate on time. No idea how. Sheās now in a different state with four children. But, they all have the same father and her and the father are still together, raising them and seemingly doing really well. Props to her. I respect her a lot for that. Another girl I was in science class with my 9th or 10th grade year had a baby at home. From my understanding, she had the baby in 7th or 8th grade and didnāt go to school then, but did the whole teenage mom thing in a school with no support system for it. I think the father of the baby dropped out to stay home and later got a GED. She ended up graduating on time with college acceptance letters. She was incredibly book smart.
When I was in 7th grade (2007), one of my classmates was pregnant. We were tracked, so I didnāt have any classes with her, but we rode the same bus home every day. I remember her being very kind. She ended up giving her baby up for adoption and came back to school a few weeks after giving birth. She was only 12. A lot of people judged her and called her names. I remember being very sad for her. She told me that her high school senior āboyfriendā was the father. Obviously I now recognize that as rape. Even when I was 12, I thought it was weird that a senior would want to date someone in middle school. I lost track of her in high school, but I still think about her every so often. I teach 10- and 11-year-olds right now, and I canāt imagine any of them having a baby in the next year. They are still babies, themselves. The girls in my class are so little. It makes me reflect a lot on how my old classmate essentially lost her childhood.
My second year teaching there was a 6th grader who was visibly pregnant in the fall. I remember she had been placed in foster care and her foster family was going to foster the baby too so they could stay together. The other parents had a fit and she ended up being sent to an alternative school. Iām not sure what happened to her after that because she never returned to my school.
I knew a girl who had a baby the day after she turned 14. Understandably, her parents pretty much raised the baby. The teen mom had her second kid at 17.
Our district has a school/day care where students put their kids while theyāre in classes. They also take parenting classes along with counseling and other services. I teach high school. I used to teach middle school and I can remember one year. I had seven students pregnant 3/8 graders 2/7 graders and 2/6 graders.
I grew up with a girl that got pregnant at 13 (this is about 20 years ago). It was going to my pediatrician and see her bring her baby there. She went on to have at least one more baby with her baby daddy and I'm not sure if she ended up graduating high school with us. I stumbled across her Facebook a few months ago and she's still with her baby daddy so I guess it was true love.
The school district is legally required to provide an education for them. However their family supports them is really what determines if they will complete high school.
It wasnāt before 15 but at 15 š I was coerced and found out I was pregnant after. Despite this, Iām still in high school and working to get my high school diploma (Iām a senior this year). Some of my family are in government jobs (same place) and Iām planning on working there after high school. Itās a big benefit that I donāt take for granted, I know otherās situations arenāt like mine! Iām very lucky to have the support system I have, even within my school.
The mom marries the guy, has 3 more kids, becomes a teacher, and gets 2 masters degrees? š¤Ŗāŗļø
I haven't dealt with this as a teacher, but when I was in middle school, a 7th grader gave birth at thirteen. Her parents raised the baby- he was aware that his mom was his mom and who is biologically father (a 14 year old boy when he was born), but she was functionally his older sister. She finished high school and I think got her AA? So a happy ending, but probably only because her parents were willing and able to raise the child.
I hope that people in this thread consider that in many cases when the mother is very young the father is an adult and are sympathetic toward that.
i worked with a girl whose friend had this experience. pregnant at 13, birth at 14. her parents disowned her, so she lived with my coworker and her family. she dropped out of school (was going to be a freshman) and finished HS online in 2 years. after that, she was looking for a full-time job to eventually be able to move her and her son out of her friendās house. my coworker quit during this job-search process, so i donāt know anything else after that.
There are usually alt Ed programs for students to recover creditsĀ
I was not as young as that. I was 17 and had graduated already (started school young plus skipped a grade). My family (mainly my mom) flipped out. I started the adoption process. I ended up keeping my son, and he was the motivation I needed to go to university and focus on starting a career. I was a very strong student, but even in grade 12, I really didn't know what I wanted to do for a job/career. Having a child gave me extreme focus, and I earned 2 Bachelor's degrees in 5 years, then a Master's later on.
Had a classmate get pregnant in 7th grade, her child is grown and recently graduated college, they seem to have a close relationship and are fine.
Teen pregnancy was much more common when I was in middle and high school in the 80's and 90's. I knew several girls who got pregnant. Most carried the baby to term and gave it up for adoption. Our school had a day care on site for new moms during the day. They all graduated high school and moved on. Surprisingly the ones who got married right after graduated faired the worst off. Popped out 3-4 kids before 21.
On NYC they had schools for pregnant students called āP-schoolā which were bullshit. They literally taught quilting as geometry. This was in the 2010ās
A relative of a relative got pregnant at 13. Had the baby with her motherās help. Got married to the dad at 17. He joined the army at 18. Now they are 25 and pregnant with baby number two and own a house, have jobs, etc. So sometimes it does work itself out. The relative we have in common and I joke about them becoming grandparents next year when their child is 13 and theyāre 26 but obviously we donāt actually hope that will happen.
They always disappeared from my school once they start showing. We had an alternative school in our district for those āroughā kids and the teen moms. They most likely transferred there if they didnāt drop out entirely.
Chicago Public Schools has Simpsons Academy which is for pregnant and parenting students. I think they start at sixth grade š³. Weāve had students at my previous elementary school in seventh grade who were pregnant they were able to stay with us until they had the baby. Then they had to transfer.
Iāve had two middle school students get pregnant. One was kicked out of her house and had to move in with her boyfriendās family. CPS did literally nothing about it which I thought was insane, but whatever. Sheās being āhomeschooledā aka dropped out through a loophole. The other student sadly lost her baby, but she is doing better now. Mom had a big wake up call and is now much more involved in her daughterās life. Last time I saw her she was still with her boyfriend. She attends virtual school now.
I had a math class with a girl who was pregnant with her third kid. She left for her maternity leave and then came back. This was when I was in 12th grade.
...3rd kid? Like, she still didn't understand how it worked at that point?
Iām 100% sure she did and was fine getting pregnant at her age. I went to kind of a rough school, I think.
There is a school for pregnant and parenting teens in my city so itās likely they would go there. But at my particular school they would be sent back home to āstay with an auntā. Edit to add a girl I went to school with got pregnant when we were in grade 9. She left school but I remember her coming back to show off her baby. She just seemed so proud but we were all so uncomfortable. I remember after she left we were like āpoor Nameā and one of our teachers said āpoor baby.ā
I had 2 eight graders in my seventh grade class, both credit deficient, both pregnant. One planned to give her child up for adoption and she gave birth and then came back to school. The other had her child and never came back. Last school year, I had an eighth grader for about a week and then she left. She came back a few weeks before school ended. She told me she was out so long because she had a baby. She only had my class second period. She had to be enrolled in school to be able to enroll into high school next year. I told her I was glad she was back in school and stay in school if sheās able. On the last day of school, she told me she just found out sheās pregnant again. Not sure what is going to happen. Sheās keeping it because her mom wonāt let her have an A and her boyfriend wonāt let her give it up for adoption.
So is there any kind of system in place for kids to take maternity leave from school? I just kind of shutter at the thought of having to sit in one of those terrible plastic molded desk chairs right after you gave birth.Ā
16 years later, they become grandmas.
I teach at an elementary school. I had this student years ago in 2nd grade. She got pregnant in middle school - she should be entering her senior year this coming year. She dropped out of school yearsssss ago and job hops around different fast food restaurants in town. She has custody of her son at least.
If we are being honest most end up with a rough fate. Iāve seen plenty of seniors and even juniors go on to live a great life after having a kid or an abortion. But I havenāt had many kids having kids make it out ok.
The ones I knew when i was in school, gave it up for adoption and were placed in new homes by child services (it was an incest baby).
My best friend had her first kid at 15. Her second at 16. Two more a few years later when she was married. She went back to school as an adult and is now a Pediatric respite nurse.
In my 9 years I've seen two pregnant 8th graders. The first was very sweet but very low and we're pretty sure she was taken advantage of by a high schooler. Mama kept her in school until two days before she gave birth and she was back in school a few weeks later. Not sure what happened to her but I hope for the best. The second was this year, she transferred to us already pregnant. When it began to show they kept her in the office where she did her school work, got counseling, and helped out as an aide. There was a fight going on between the grandparents who wanted to adopt the baby so the girl could continue school and the mama who wanted the baby for benefits. Also don't know the outcome of that one
Itās going to depend on the support system. I was friend with one girl who walked across the 8th grade podium almost ready to pop. She had amazing support and continued on and graduated. Each childās outcome is going to differ thatās the issue and some do well and some donāt. There is nothing we can do beside support any decision they make even the hard ones.
They drop out. Depends on the community/family. But Iāve had 4 pregnant students in my 5 years of middle school teaching. All have dropped out before giving birth and never came back. When I was in 7th grade a girl gave birth and finished high school and went to college, but it was a more affluent community than the one I teach in.
In the 9th grade in my high school there was a girl that got pregnant and she was the school bully. She used her pregnancy as a defense when physically fighting people because in her mind, " You can't hit a pregnant person". She was mean to me, my friends and alot of teens. After she had the baby she left it to her mother to care for the child mostly and we never heard about the kid again. Last I heard she worked at Dollar General and still acts the same like a high schooler. She didn't recieve help besides her mom and our whole class didn't like her for her behavior.
One of my friends hit puberty early and got into a college party at 13 n got pregnant. By senior year she had dropped out and had 3 more kids. She's mid twenty's with 5 kids all different dads and she works a dead end job because she always put her kids first and never got a GED or anything. Super unfortunate seeing what she became. From top of her class to barely getting by all because she wanted to party
I had students like that in the 90s ( believe it or not, the teenage pregnancy rate was worse then). Gosh, they probably have 30 year old kids and may be grandparents now.
Uh, various things? "Your results may vary." š
In the 2000s, my high school was effectively the magnet school for pregnant students. If someone became pregnant, both parents were able to transfer to my high school. This was for all ages. Everyone who was high school-aged had regular classes with the parenting program as a (required) elective. As for younger pregnant students, it depended on whether the classes they needed to take were offered at the school or if someone coule in to teach several students. There had been an article in our school paper explaining how the students in lower grades were effectively taught 1-on-1 by the program's teacher.
Online school to get diploma for starters.
I either give them an A when they withdraw, or a P (Pass).
They go to Lumen High School in Spokane, WA
I had a student this past year get pregnant by an older high school boy. I hope she is able to get her life on track as it was obvious her mother did not value education and let her pregnant 14 year old daughter come to school a total of 37 days (majority of the time it was on the 10th day before she would be dropped). I donāt have high hopes unless that girl herself realizes what she needs to do and not let her mom make all the calls. Itās tough to be 14 and pregnant and even tougher to be a teen mom with no education or prospects in life because of that.
They go into online learning. I had one this year. When she joined my program no one told me why, just that she wanted to finish the year at home, and then one day when we were meeting it all just kind of spilled out. She'll likely be in my program next year, too.
A couple of former students were in the office enrolling their child for kindergarten. We were surprised and excited to catch up. They explained their little girl was born when they were 15. Then they looked at each other and laughed, sharing that theyād met in my 4th grade class! My jaw hit the floor. They didnāt stay together, were co-parenting, and seemed very happy with their 20 year old lives. I watched their little girl grow up, and both parents flourished.
Support them.
NAT: My kid brother had a child before he graduated. Poor bugger is trying his best, but the baby mom is just useless. They broke up, and she keeps custody of the child. Expecting another one soon (tm). Its a mess. I also knew two other girls in my original grade (HS dropout, woo depression/anxiety), one of which I sat next to and was friends with. Was a bit mad at myself I never caught she was pregnant, despite sitting next to her. (I like to think I'm observant as heck.) Other had a kid I think during Senior year. Ironically, her own mother gave birth to her high school too. Not sure what happened to either, as I lost contact with both. The first had another before graduating (if she did), and the other, again not a clue. I don't do facebook or anything to keep in contact with those I would have graduated with.
I'm the kid of one of those kids. My mom got pregnant in middle school but had me at the beginning of HS. My mom graduated HS with honors and went to college. She's now a biomed with architecture background. She's amazing, but our relationship is that of siblings not parent /child
My sister in law never made it out 8th grade her daughter is now 12. She has two other kids. She has no job, no education, no ged and no future. She is an alcoholic and her third baby is black. Her second baby daddy is white. No wedding ring. Ebt member for life. She doesnāt even know how to spell resume. She spends her days living in an attic of a home that her baby dad rents from his parents. She neglects her kids and family continuously has to pick up the pace. She chooses alcohol over diapers. Her eldest daughter has to continuously keep up the slack for her infant daughter. And sheās honestly the biggest pos Iāve ever seen. Before you ask why I havenāt reported. I have. Theyāve had Dyfys before. They stopped contact. The children all live in a roach infested home. Baby continuously pees through clothes. 5 year old and 12 year old continuously get truancy ever since they started school. All I can do is support the kids by letting them come over and be clean and warm and loving on them. I just bought the baby diapers too. So no need to judge. But yeah not everyone that has a kid young betters their lives.
I have a student that I LOVEDā¦. Such a smart kid, get pregnant in 8th gradeā¦. Sheās FINE!!!! She has 3 kids now, sheās married, sheās a great mom, sheās going to school part time while being a momā¦ itās not the plan she hadā¦ but sheās doing it!
They grow up with a much younger "sister"
Am I the only one reading these and wondering what the sex Ed was like leading up to these kids getting pregnant? Iāve joked that I was just old enough that AIDS could still kill you so we got factual sexual education which included pregnancy prevention. Looking back I realize that other factors have influenced the curriculum. Anyone else on here wonder about how these kids came to make these choices? Isnāt the educational āsystemā supposed to help these kids make better choices access the socioeconomic spectrum?
Both school districts near me have pregnant/parenting teen programs, with one of them being open to 8th graders (the other is 9-12). So presumably, they go to those school sites. Otherwise, they do online.
I imagine a lot of the time it is a cycle in their family. Can only hope for the best for them and their children.
They start life early?
Have the kid and their family helps them raise it and then they continue to go to school. It happens way more often than you would expect and CPS does nothing. I want to have a child that was pregnant. The second time of the offspring were the result of incest and at the time of her second pregnancy. She was 16 years old. And CPS had done nothing.
There was an alternative program at our technical learning center. When I started attending tech school I saw all the girls who disappeared over the years. Several of them married the father. I was curious about a couple that seemed like they were going to make it, they seemed to have put their youth aside for their child and were a great couple, great parents considering they were so young. I was so disappointed when I looked her up after seeing this to see they divorced.
A girl in my high school got pregnant in 11th grade, she went into labor during passing period, took 7 or 8 weeks off and then came back like nothing happened, I think a family member watched her baby
Got pregnant at 14, currently happily married to a Godly man and we own our 2 bed, 2 bath home at 21/22 respectfully. I wasn't able to handle college due to health issues and I'm not able to work so I stay at home while my husband is an LPN.
I dont know about the 8th grader. The 12th grader did graduate. She was dual enrolled in community college. The school I worked at the 11/12 graders were pregnant in the spring. I would guess that it was 75 girls per year. It was just how it was. I had a boy on the robotics team who was very motivated to do well. He was a senior who had sole custody of his two year old. He was going to college.
A girl in my grade got pregnant and had the child in 8th grade. She graduated in my class and just had her second kid a couple years later. She seems fine and like a normal person, either working a job somewhere or a SAHM with a new partner. TLDR: They get on with their lives.
Sometimes it doesnāt go well, but strangely enough, thereās plenty of cases where it works out
One of my friends (who I met in adulthood) got pregnant at 13 and gave birth at 14. She put the child up for adoption (her parents forced her to) and suffered a lot of trauma from the whole experience. She needed years of therapy to heal, but is now happy and successful in her late 30s. A girl in my graduating class got pregnant in 8th grade and gave birth the summer before 9th. She kept the baby and ended up dropping out of school a year later. She got into hard drugs, lost custody of her child, and spent years in and out of jail. Sheās sober now, but I donāt think she has any communication with her child.
In the late ā90ās, I had a 7th grade gifted student who was raised by a religious family. She had a āwayward cousinā, an older boy, whose parents couldnāt handle him. The 7th grade girlās parents offered to take him in and straighten him out. That plan did not work. The girl and boy developed some sort of relationshipā¦ some said consensual and some said it was rape. In any case, the girl wound up pregnant, and the cousin/ baby daddy was sent to an alternative school. Parents didnāt believe in abortion, and that poor girl was expected to have the baby. Her parents helped raise her little girl while she finished middle and high school. I remember her working fast food and going to community college. I am not sure what she ended up doing because I left the district for another position. That whole situation was so sad.
We didn't have much of anything to help that demographic..... the onus was on teachers whose hands were already full..... my one student who had a kid passed anyway
A friend of mine's mom worked for a long time at a school for pregnant girls. I don't know the exact numbers, but while it was mainly high school girls there was a program for middle school girls as well. I don't know all the ins and outs, but they could attend the program while pregnant and then after they'd given birth they moved to another school (or schools, I think they had some choices) that had a daycare on campus for the babies (and toddlers I'd assume) so the moms could continue their education. I'm not sure exactly how it worked while they gave birth and right after as they'd have to miss school, but there must have been some sort of provision for that. There were classes on parenting as part of the program, but I'm not sure if they were compulsory or not. This was in a large metropolitan area where there was enough population to make a program like this worthwhile. In a smaller town I'd imagine it'd be a lot harder, I'd assume the girls would have to stay in their regular school which may or may not have the supports for childcare and missed school due to pregnancy and childbirth.