What's up, good humans? Welcome to another episode!
You guys requested this one a lot: "SPECTRUM IDEA: Do all teen moms think the same?"
Thank you, Yasmin Rubio.
- We hope you guys enjoy!
"In Texas it's abstinence, abstinence, abstinence...
They told us in the health class just not to have sex.
It's hard, I mean, every guy's nightmare is getting their girlfriend pregnant. And...
sometimes it comes true [chuckles]
[intro music playing]
"I considered an abortion."
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- My first thought was like "I'll get an abortion, I-I'll go to Planned Parenthood
In the end, it just... when it came down to it,
I realized that I couldn't do that.
I understand how other people need to make that choice,
but...umm.
Yeah, I did totally consider it.
- I really had to think about the other women in my life that have had children.
For me, the first thought that came to my mind was my mom.
'Cause she tried so hard to have a baby and if I were to...
have an abortion after that, it's almost like
disrespecting all the work she put in.
And I was like, "Okay, I'm gonna have this baby."
And, then, really it came down to 'Am I going to [go for] adoption or am I gonna be a mom?'
- I planned this pregnancy. A lot of people might think otherwise, and
just be like "she's just saying that because she doesn't want people to think the baby was an accident."
I can't choose for other people, you guys have your own choice,
but there are so many ways you can prevent a pregnancy.
You could have done it beforehand instead of once the baby's already in there
and trying to kill off a heartbeat, because the baby has a heartbeat on his fourth week
And that's usually when everybody finds out they're pregnant.
I don't have a choice for other people, so
I mean, everybody has their own choice, but personally, I'm against it
"I was educated on birth control methods before getting pregnant."
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- The way it happened with me, I mean, I grew up in like a really like Christian household
so like it was always taught like abstinence and, like,
my parents didn't even know that I was having sex and I mean I was using like condoms
but obviously, I was naive, that that was gonna like work in the long run, which it doesn't
I mean, I knew that there were options out there
but it was something that was never like explained to me that I could get this so that I won't get pregnant.
- I'm from Texas and in Texas its abstinence, abstinence, abstinence.
They told us in the health class just not to have sex, so,
I honestly didn't know pregnancy was so common.
I thought like it just happened sometimes when you had sex. Sometimes you would get pregnant.
I really do think that, that should be very mandatory in school starting in like middle school.
- Yeah, I totally agree. I live in the mountains and it's really conservative up there.
The schools are really small.
I look at like my boyfriend's little sister, she's gonna be 12
And, some of the girls in her grade are having sex and she's-she's in sixth grade.
The information they're giving you in schools needs to adapt
to where we are now in society to where it's in the right grades, it's the appropriate information
they're talking about things like the implant that are somewhat new and
they really need to just kind of adapt it to where we are now.
- Yeah, as teen moms we need to take our kids and teach them everything they need to know from a young age
Like I thought my mom was gonna be mad at me
So we need to be open so they don't like they're not like scared to come to talk to us about something, that's so normal
"Relationships change after you have a child."
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- I used to be like super outgoing in like high school, in my classes and stuff. Being pregnant,
as like a college student like there's many times that I feel more timid to speak because I feel like people judge me more
And I mean, maybe that's something I just have to work on but like
definitely like my relationship with myself has changed a lot
I bet you can all relate like you meet your baby for the first time and it's like life just shifts.
Like almost the glasses of like naiveness and childhood just kind of come off
and you see the world from like that point of view like 'you just created a life'
I cried immediately for my mom and how badly I treated her as a teenager before I had my daughter
And I cried for my sister, how I treated them, teachers...
All of the things that we were given and I was entitled to. Now after having a kid it all changed
-- That just changed my mind! [everyone laughs]
Changed! [laughs]
The hardest person to tell for me when I got pregnant was my brother. We're twins.
Right now he's getting ready to go to prom
He's a senior in high school and he's doing all this stuff that I'm missing out on.
I wouldn't take it back for anything
But telling him was the hardest because we've always been so close. We've always been the same age
We've always had the same friends. Now that my daughter's here and she's four months old,
you know, he comes home from work
And he's like, "Oh hey" and he asked me to like hold her and stuff and it's really great and I love it.
So relationships do change for the better also.
Yeah, I would say for sure like, my relationship with my mom has changed like drastically before I even got pregnant like we were close
but like not in the sense that we shared like something like motherhood with each other
because I think that just changes everything that we now see what our
parents went through and what our moms went through and how they felt. My relationship
I feel with my mom has like been really good because of my pregnancy.
I mean originally like, of course, she's disappointed in me, but like but then she's just like excited now to become a grandma and stuff.
"My baby's father is still involved in our lives."
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With my husband he's kind of too involved. He's kind of like excluding me.
[laughter]
Yeah, like I could barely grab my baby when he's around. He was planned. But before it all happened, he was my fiancee
Well, I do come from a Hispanic family and also the religion, and you had to be married before having intercourse and having a kid
so we kept the baby a secret for three months, also to make sure he stuck before we told everybody and
We found out I was pregnant on a Wednesday and I got married that Saturday. Yeah, so he's really, really involved. [laughs]
I just want to ask you would you have gotten married if you weren't pregnant?
Would you have gotten married that early I should say if you weren't pregnant?
We were planning to get married the month after.
Okay
We were still gonna get married this young it's just...
He came a little earlier. [laughs]
When I was 14,
I got pregnant and my boyfriend was 14 as well and we had already broken up before I found out I was pregnant.
So when I found out I was pregnant his initial reaction was just like freaking out, get an abortion,
even though you're three months along and
One of the first things he did, was say, I'm harassing him and blocked me. We got a paternity test.
He decided that I was some type of slut after I found out I was pregnant
Even though he was the only person I had ever been with and after the paternity test the court introduced visitation
She was 10 months old. She was... sorry. She was 10 months old and she finally got to meet her dad and umm..
The visitation kept up for a while
but recently he's been getting into fights and...
I mean, he hasn't seen her in a few months and I don't know if I want him in her life
I don't think it's healthy for her. I'd rather do it alone than with him at this point
What you expect from a boyfriend and what you expect from a father are totally different things.
Totally, totally different things and especially,
since men mature way slower than girls...-
-Yeah
-and the fact that we carry them for nine months
and we're up late at night if whether we breastfeed or bottle feeding or whatever
we are just so inclined to these little human beings and for guys...you really have to be there to do that and
sometimes they don't want to be there or they can't be there for that.
-They want to milk the teenage years,
especially since they are still teenagers they are still kids and they want to go party, they want to live their lives.
So sometimes it's hard. I mean every guy's nightmare is getting their girlfriend pregnant and
Sometimes it comes true.
"I would encourage other teens to have children."
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I feel like I wouldn't encourage them, not go up to a teen like "You should get pregnant"
"Hey, you should get pregnant" If that's their choice, that's their choice. If it could be prevented, if they'd feel like they're not ready then...
just...don't, because...
I miss my sleep. [chuckles]
I think it's interesting to talk to you because you planned it.
Yeah, if someone came up to me, I wouldn't say yes or no, I would just be like are you ready?
And I would give them so many scenarios of do you have a job? Are you ready for it?
Are you mentally prepared for it, some people...
-That's the funny part,
it's like everyone always thinks about the
financials and they always think about do you have a place and this and that. I'm like I get it those are so
incredibly huge but like mentally
Every parent that I've ever met, it's like, it's hard being a parent at any age.
-Yeah.
So let alone figuring yourself out and then you're figuring out a little human being as well.
I think there's a huge difference between
supporting teen moms and supporting teens to become moms
I think there's a big difference between that
100%
I think people look at it and they see like what I post on Instagram and this stuff, I, you know, the stuff
I post on Instagram, the things that I post on Facebook.
-The perfect version of it
It's not what being a mom is actually like 'cause it's you know
it's cute little pictures of my daughter in dresses, stuff like that, and that's not what being a mom is like
"Having a baby changed my life for the better."
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It's no longer like I'm just doing this for myself. I mean I can't compare it to you guys yet. 'Cause like I don't have my baby yet.
But like I mean it's as simple as getting up and going to my class
But I have a whole new motivation to do something as simple as that and strive for my best, so...
The hard times became beautiful because at the end of every long cry that I had before her...I
had her and I had you know, our future to dream about.
I'm over here going through some of the hardest things and just she gave me a whole new perspective
So no it didn't get easier. But she turned everything bad and good...better.
Okay, I want hugs.
Bring it in.
You're all amazing...
Yeah, you can just- can I? 'cause I know it's annoying...
No, no, no it's okay. Yeah, sure go ahead.
Can you say hi?
Look there's the babies.
Honestly I just love when we feature very very different types of people and people that you would maybe never
interact with or even knew to in your day
We wanna highlight these stories especially of these groups that are stereotyped.
Teen moms are stereotyped, but we just wanted to combat that
Yeah. Tell us in the comments what other episodes you want to see. We want to humanize
Everybody.
We'll see you guys next time. Live deeper