Parenting Without A License

A Textbook Student

Posted by Kimberly on November 13th, 2007 — Posted in The Ladies, Kipple, NaBloPoMo

One of the few mementos I have from the year I taught sixth grade is a collage that was made for me by one of my students. Long after the other bits and pieces of that year–the boxes of junior novels, the human body and solar system kits, the posters and the endless parade of apple themed geegaws and mugs–were packed away in my dad’s workshop, that frame still sits in a place of honour on my desk. In fact, I’m looking at it as I type this and thinking about the little girl–now 16 years old and soon to be a mother herself–who made it for me.

I’ll let you in on a pretty open secret here: Teachers tend to like some students more than others. We do try to be fair and to treat every child with dignity and respect, but the simple fact is that we’re human, and sometimes, we connect with kids on a deeper level and sometimes we don’t. So yeah, in bald terms, teachers have favourite students.

What makes a kid a favourite varies from teacher to teacher. For some, it’s the well behaved students, the leaders, and the brains. Not me though. I mean, I like having those kids in my class–they certainly make things easier–but they just don’t seem to have the same impact on me as the…shall we say less than perfect kids do. The ones who sit in the back row, plotting new and interesting ways to wreak havoc in the classroom, the ones who will never get an “A” but who will work harder than any other kid in the class to get that “C,” the troubled and the troublemakers, these are my kind of kids; these are the ones who will stay in my heart long after they’ve left my classroom.

“Kayla” was one of these students–one of the ones whose tough, “I don’t care” exterior protected a scared, vulnerable little girl who just wanted to be valued for who she was. I’d like to say it was a shock when I heard through the grapevine that she was pregnant, but it wasn’t. In fact, if I were being completely honest, it probably would have been more of a surprise if I’d learned that she’d managed to graduate from high school without a baby on her hip. I’m not casting aspersions on her character by saying that. I don’t think she’s a slut or a tramp. In fact, I think she’s a very sweet girl. But she’s also a textbook teen mom.

She’s got the single mom, the absent dad, the lower economic class and the poor school performance working against her–a combination that any social scientist (or teacher) can tell you spells trouble for teen girls looking for a place to fit in and meaning in their lives. When single motherhood is your norm, when you don’t have a particularly good baseline for romantic relationships, when you’ve got some serious rejection issues going on, when you don’t see much future beyond maybe making it to head cashier at the local Walmart, early motherhood doesn’t really seem like such a big deal. It can even seem glamourous or attractive–a way to declare your independence, an opportunity to make a new life for yourself, a chance at unconditional love…It’s not hard to see the allure.

I tell myself not to worry, that for all their superificial similarities–single moms, absent dads, poverty–The Ladies and Kayla are very different girls living very different lives, but I can’t help but wonder, when confronted with this living statistic, what the future holds for them. Will the differences–growing up with a single mother by choice, rather than circumstance, in an environment where paternal rejection is an abstract concept rather than a visceral reality, in a home where education and literacy are the norm–be enough to combat the stereotype? Will my daughters have enough in their lives that they won’t feel the need to have a baby to fill some hole, to make them feel whole?
I certainly hope so. Not because I don’t approve of Kayla’s choices, or feel that she’s disappointed anyone in having this baby. But I remember how alone I felt. How unprepared. And occasionally, how resentful of this new lifestyle that was so far removed from what my friends were doing–and I’d already had a chance to grow up and live a selfish life at that point. Mostly, I remember how hard it was to be on my own as a new mother at 26. I can’t even imagine how much harder it would be to negotiate that path at 16 but I do know it’s a life I wouldn’t wish for anyone’s daughter, let alone my own.