Marked

photo credit: "A Walk Remembered" by Diane Varner

Being a parent is like saying goodbye to the same person over and over again. ~ Jessica, Daughter of Opinion

Lately I've gotten drawn in to reading Jessica's blog because she went through a pregnancy at an early age, just like I did. In fact, the month I was busily getting pregnant was the same month she had her son. Yeah, I did the math. I can see you shaking your heads from here but I don't care. I have a compulsive habit of fact-checking perfect strangers' life lines against mine once I find something we have in common. I do it to everyone and always have. I guess the only difference is I'm now admitting it. So yes, I know that 9 months after she welcomed her son at the tender age of 16 I had just turned 18 and was giving birth to my daughter. I was born in July of the same year she was born (her birthday's in December). No I'm not a stalker. She doesn't even know I exist.

I guess the point is that I know she exists now and she existed then. I wish I'd had the comfort of knowing about her when it mattered, not that it doesn't matter now. But that year was an emotionally shocking, frightening year for me. And nobody could help me. There were no other pregnant girls to commiserate with nor were there any adults who would admit to having gone through the same thing at my age. I was completely alone and truly felt that I had done something nobody else had done. I felt marked.

So I find comfort now in knowing that the 17-year-old me wasn't alone after all. That I wasn't the only one experiencing the same condescending looks while working twice as hard to show how good a parent I was. Because when you're a teen aged Mom, ever flaw is attributed to your age and your ignorance. "Normally aged" parents get to blame things like fatigue, having a bad day or even hormones. But if you're young, there's simply no acceptable reason for your flaws aside from your age. You can't be sick, you can't be tired, you can't be anything normal without first admitting to your grave mistake.

I thought I'd be free of that once I'd left my teen years behind and certainly once women my own age began having children. But it's always there, that mark. People I don't even know regularly feel the need to remind me that I don't look old enough to have a *insert relevant age of my daughter here*. Responding to them is never as simple as it should be either. It's not that I feel ashamed of what I've been through so much as I sense that those I am responding to think I should or do. Once I respond with "I had her young" and they are freed from their assumptions that I must be of "normal age" and have simply been blessed with near perfect genes, I can see the shift in their eyes. Instantly they are taking in every aspect of who I am from how I'm dressed to where we're located to what line of work I've managed to scrape together for myself what with that grave mistake and subsequent mark and all. It never goes away.

Reading Jessica's site has been like applying aloe to a sunburn. It soothes and takes away some of the sting.

I am not ashamed of my life. And now I feel as though I can stop giving two crappers whether anyone else notices or sees that truth. It's not my job to change global assumptions of young mothers anymore than it's my job to change local assumptions and perceptions of this young mother. What matters and is the only thing that matters, is raising my children so that they're ready for life. What matters is that they feel listened to and part of something. What matters is that they each feel loved for who they are.

There is nothing like my experience as a young mother that highlights that need more. The world is full of people more than willing to label and judge others based on the history of their own assumptions. So my job, the only job that truly matters to me, is making sure my kids are wholly loved. And while I'm not perfect I know even that is important for them to understand so that they're not forced to feel the weight of society's stare both at being raised by a marked mother and being simply human.