Telling It Like It Is : Teen-Age Mothers Offer Peers Inside Views of How Life Is With a Baby

A loud, infectious squeal suddenly erupted from the 6-month-old baby sitting on her mother’s lap, prompting scattered giggles from the students in the Friday morning health class at Esperanza High School in Anaheim.

The baby’s mother, used to such distractions, simply smiled at her daughter and continued talking.

The words came easily, without hesitation or embarrassment, as she described how she discovered that she was pregnant last year.

Like the three other teen-age mothers seated with her in front of the classroom with their young children, 16-year-old Amanda Rockwell of Yorba Linda was there to talk.

“I went down to the clinic to get back on the pill, and they said, ‘Your period’s late.’ I said, ‘Well, my period’s always late.’ They said, ‘Well, we have to do a routine pregnancy test.’ I said, ‘OK, that’s fine. Go ahead. It’s a waste of your time; it’s a waste of my money.’ So they did it and I came back and they said, ‘Guess what? You’re six weeks pregnant.’ I felt kind of like this bomb dropped on me. I could hardly even walk out. My friend had to kind of drag me out of the clinic. I was a mess. . . .�

On Nov. 6, 1988--two weeks before her 16th birthday and two months before she received her driver’s license--Amanda Rockwell gave birth to her daughter, Arielle, a blue-eyed strawberry blonde who resembles her mother.

The high school junior was one of four teen-age mothers--and one teen-age father--who recently spent the day at Esperanza High School talking to Bob Claborn’s sophomore health classes, a dramatic supplement to a five-week unit on “masculinity and femininity.�

The young mothers are part of Teen CAST, which stands for Communication About Sexual Truth. The 2-year-old program is sponsored by the Orange County Center for Health, an Anaheim community clinic.

“Encouraging (sexual) abstinence is one of our goals, but what we really want to bring to the classroom more than anything is the reality of being a teen mom,� said Cecilia Esparza, the center’s director of program development.

During the Teen CAST presentations, each teen-age mother tells her own story, describing the costs involved in having a baby and relating the day-to-day responsibilities in raising a child. The young mothers also field student questions--everything from “Were you using birth control?� to “How did your parents react when they found out you were pregnant?�

The Teen CAST appearance at Esperanza was one of 15 presentations made in high schools throughout the county over the past school year. Esparza, who recruits many of the young mothers from high schools that offer teen mother programs, expects to do even more Teen CAST presentations in the fall.

With the number of pregnancies among young girls in the county continuing to rise, Esparza said, there’s no questioning the need for a program that brings “the reality of adolescent pregnancy� into the classroom.

The latest available statistics show that 3,229 Orange County girls and women ages 10 to 19 gave birth in 1987, according to the Orange County Health Care Agency. There were 3,089 births to the same age group in 1986. (Some of the 18- and 19-year-olds were married but not a substantial proportion.)

“More younger teens are having babies than ever, which is a trend that is particularly disturbing,� said Cynthia Scheinberg, executive director of the Coalition Concerned With Adolescent Pregnancy, a nonprofit family life education center dedicated to the prevention of unintended adolescent pregnancy. The Santa Ana-based organization funds Teen CAST.

“One of the programs that many community members have requested for a long time,� Scheinberg said, “is that teens who have experienced pregnancy and parenting talk to other youth as kind of a voice of experience.�

As a prelude to hearing these young “voices of experience� at Esperanza High, Esparza painted a realistic picture of the lives and futures of the typical teen-age mother.

The majority of them, she told the students, have difficulty raising their child. They have unstable relationships with the child’s father, limited financial resources and, due to the responsibilities involved in raising a child, are under more stress than the average teen-ager can handle.

Many teen moms, she added, do not finish high school and have minimal job skills that result in low-paying jobs. They also are more likely to be on government support programs. If married, they face a divorce rate three times higher than average and have a higher incidence of child abuse.

But far more effective than an adult describing the disadvantages that the children of teen-age mothers face in life or preaching to the students, Esparza said, is having someone their own age talk to them about teen-age pregnancy.

“Seeing the attention that must be paid to a 2-year-old running around provides visible support,� she said. “We want to say, this is what they put up with, and to talk about their schedule: when do they get up and go to school and what do they do if the child is sick? We try to let the students know, ‘It’s not the same anymore, guys.’ �

That point seems well taken.

“To actually see it right there in front of you in real life, you think, gosh, it could be your best friend. It could even be you,� said sophomore Bill Ticknor, 16.

Sophomore Kristy Finley said it was “kind of sad� to see girls her own age with babies.

“Because there were little kids rolling on the ground and stuff,� she said, “it showed me it would be a lot of trouble, and I think a lot of the other girls saw that (having a baby) is not just fun--and it can happen to anyone, even if you think it’s not going to.�

Esparza hopes that after listening to the teen moms, the students will leave class feeling that “it’s OK to wait to have sex.�

For Amanda Rockwell and the other Teen CAST members, it is too late to follow such admonitions. And, for them, there is no turning back to those relatively carefree days before they got pregnant.

As Amanda told the students, before she got pregnant “my social life was my life.�

Today, her life revolves around school, home and Arielle.

But while being a teen-age mother has drastically altered her life, having a baby at 15 actually proved to be somewhat of a blessing in disguise in Amanda’s case.

She said it provided the incentive for turning around a rebellious life style that caused untold grief and anguish for her parents--a three-year period of drug abuse, failing school grades, running away from home and an arrest for the possession of marijuana.

“My sweetie’s waking up. She’s trying,� Amanda said softly, standing at the foot of her daughter’s antique brass and iron crib--the same crib Amanda slept in as a baby.

It was 7 a.m., a school day for Amanda and Arielle.

Before she had her baby, Amanda said, she would sleep until 6:45, take a shower “and just throw my clothes on and leave.�

Now she wakes up at 5 a.m. to nurse Arielle. She falls back to sleep for another hour or so and then gets up, showers, dresses and begins getting Arielle ready for the day.

Seth, Amanda’s younger brother, peered around the doorway and knelt down next to the crib.

“Are you a tired baby?� he said gently, as Arielle, her eyes now open, smiled brightly at her 10-year-old uncle.

“It’s bath time, let’s get undressed,� Amanda said, picking up Arielle and placing her on the changing table.

The bedroom, like Amanda herself, bears little resemblance to the way it looked 18 months ago.

At the time, Amanda’s blond hair was dyed purple and she wore it in a Mohawk with shaved sides. She wore heavy black eye makeup and dressed in black. As her mother, Toochie, says, “Everything was black. Her attitude was black. It was terrible.�

Amanda’s bedroom matched her outlook. The walls were papered with punk and heavy metal posters and “deathly type stuff,� including dead roses hanging on the wall. Depending on the type of drugs Amanda was taking, her moods would swing from mellow to belligerent. There were holes in the walls from slamming doors and shattered glass where she put her fists through the window.

At the peak of Amanda’s rebelliousness, she ran away from home several times, once getting as far as Colorado. She was kicked out of the eighth grade after being caught at school with Quaaludes, Amanda said. The Rockwells joined Toughlove, a family support group, to try to turn their daughter’s behavior around. But Amanda was still out of control, taking, as her mother says, every type of drug available short of heroin. In the 10th grade, she was arrested for possession of marijuana and spent time in Juvenile Hall.

But that’s in the past.

Today Amanda’s bedroom walls are painted aqua and violet and her bed is covered with a pink-and-white bedspread. The room is filled with framed baby pictures and a frilly white pillow in the crib bears the inscription, “Jesus Loves Me.� While she was pregnant last summer, Amanda worked in a warehouse to buy a new carpet, a stroller and baby clothes.

“I keep the room clean too,� Amanda said. “Before, it didn’t matter if it was messy.�

Amanda picked Arielle up and took her into the kitchen for her bath. A tray of chocolate chip cookies, which Amanda had baked the night before, sat on top of the stove.

Amanda bathes Arielle every morning in the kitchen sink.

“She usually doesn’t give me any problems when she’s taking a bath,� Amanda said. “She wakes up smiling and goes to bed smiling. She does have her moments, that’s for sure. I think she saves it all up and then lets it out.�

Bath done, Amanda wrapped Arielle in a blanket and carried her back to their bedroom to get dressed.

Amanda’s mother stood in the doorway as her daughter dressed her daughter.

“This has been a year of change--two of my children just moved out on their own, then the baby comes,� said Toochie Rockwell, adding that when they found that Amanda was pregnant, Seth and her two older children rallied around their sister.

“The biggest change is I’m back at home,� Amanda said. “I’m back at school and not on drugs anymore. I did a complete change. I’m happy with myself, finally.�

Her mother acknowledged they had a “really tough couple of years. Her pregnancy was really the push that made her do as well as she has done.�

The baby now dressed, Amanda put tiny white bows in her hair. Carrying Arielle into the living room, Amanda stuffed diapers, a change of clothes, a few toys--and her schoolbooks--into a blue knapsack.

“I’ll see you later, mom!� she shouted before heading out the front door and strapping Arielle into the baby seat in the family van.

“I dreaded her getting a license,� Amanda’s mother said. “I thought she’d be hell on wheels. But she’s like a little old lady. It’s amazing what responsibility does for you.�

At 7:50, Amanda’s van rolled into the parking lot at nearby El Dorado High School in Placentia. She unstrapped Arielle from her baby seat and mother and daughter walked to the on-campus child-care center.

The School Age Parenting and Infant Development program at El Dorado, which serves pregnant teens and teen-age mothers primarily from the Placentia Unified School District, allows the girls to finish their schooling.

Amanda put Arielle’s diapers into a plastic bin, filled out a chart noting when Arielle was last fed and changed, and filled out the baby’s menu for the week. She then sat down in a rocking chair to nurse Arielle and, just before 8, spread out a blanket on the floor with a couple of toys.

A student in the child-care class sat down on the floor with Arielle, and Amanda left for her first class: a study hall where she catches up on her homework. She had been getting mostly Ds and Fs, Amanda said, and now maintains a B average in classes including English, history, sociology, typing and parenting.

Amanda’s school day includes returning to the child-care center during a 10 o’clock break to nurse Arielle and again for half an hour at lunch. After school she takes Arielle home and her mother baby-sits while Amanda goes to her Regional Occupational Program class, a back-office medical class where she is learning to draw blood and give injections and take blood-pressure readings.

She is home by 4:30.

Barbara D’Arcy, director of the Parenting and Infant Development Program at El Dorado High, said Amanda is typical of the teen moms doing well in the program.

“I don’t look at having babies as teen-agers as being a positive in any teen-ager’s life,�she said, “but I think for her, at least, it has awakened her to responsibility. And she now has an extremely positive attitude.

“She has a good deal of support at home and that, I find, is the key to their success.�

“Growing up she really wasn’t a rebellious child,� said Amanda’s mother, seated on a sofa next to her daughter after school.

She said Amanda was involved with horses and played soccer for nine years. Her father, Allan, operations manager at a tool supply company, served as her team’s coach.

She said her daughter’s “downfall� began in junior high school. Amanda smoked marijuana for the first time when she was 11 and by 13 was heavily into drugs. By eighth grade, Amanda said, “I was drinking a lot before school, taking Quaaludes before school, smoking pot after school.�

“We had no idea then,� her mother said. “We had the ‘All-American family,’ middle class, dad’s involved in sports and the kids. She’s an athlete. We just never expected this. My husband and I don’t even drink or smoke.�

Unbeknown to her parents, Amanda first began taking birth control pills when she was 13. She went off the pill, she said, “just because I was lazy and quit taking it. The whole time I was with my boyfriend, I hadn’t gotten pregnant and wasn’t really worried about it.�

At 15--after spending time in Juvenile Hall--she began seeing her former boyfriend again. But when she decided to go back on the pill, it was too late.

She told her boyfriend, who was then 21, that she was pregnant the day she found out. “His initial reaction was: ‘It’s not mine.’ I said, ‘Of course, it’s yours.’ Then he said, ‘You can’t have the baby because of the drugs, your parents will kick you out, you’re too young. . . .’ �

Despite their previous problems with her, Amanda’s mother said that discovering that her 15-year-old daughter was pregnant made her feel as though they had “closed the door on her childhood.�

Although an estimated 6,000 Orange County teen-agers had abortions in 1987, according to the Coalition Concerned With Adolescent Pregnancy, Amanda said she never seriously considered having an abortion.

“It probably goes through every girl’s mind that this happens to,� she said. “And especially since they (at the clinic) made it sound so easy: you don’t have to pay a penny, no one’s going to know, just go do it. But I knew I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I did that.�

She ruled out putting her baby up for adoption. “I felt I was ready to make a lot of changes within myself and ready to take on the responsibility of being a mother,� she said.

Amanda said she has not seen her former boyfriend since shortly after she told him she was pregnant. They talked twice on the phone after Arielle was born, she said, but he has never seen his daughter.

Although his absence made her feel “alone� during her pregnancy, Amanda said, “it doesn’t matter now.� She said she is not going to press her daughter’s father to pay child support. “I just feel I’d like him to be as less involved as possible,� she said.

Her mother describes Amanda as “a loving mother, very consistent.� But, she said, she herself has to be careful not to overstep her bounds--�stepping in and being a mom for the baby myself.�

Amanda doesn’t see many of her old friends anymore. “They’re just back in the same old stuff.� She said most of her friends are the teen moms at school because “we’re all going through the same thing. We can all relate. It’s tough to relate to all the kids on campus because they don’t know--they’re not up in the night. They’re not taking care of the baby.�

Amanda said the value of Teen CAST is that it gives girls her age a glimpse into what it would be like to be a teen-age mother.

“Most girls have the attitude it will happen to someone else,� she said. “My main message is, take a look. I’m your average girl just like you. I didn’t think it would happen to me, but it did.�

As for early sex, she said, “I’m against it completely. That’s another thing I try to get across. It’s not that important. It’s not something you have to rush into.�

Amanda has just begun a summer class where she is learning medical office secretarial work. She will graduate from high school in January--a semester early--and plans to go to Fullerton College before transferring to Cal State Fullerton. She will continue to live at home, she said, until she has finished college.

She only recently started dating again. But before she agrees to go out with anyone, she said, she tells them two things.

“I tell them right from the start, ‘I have a kid and I’m not going to have sex with you. If that’s what you’re looking for, look somewhere else,’ � she said. “It sorts out the losers, the guys you don’t even want to waste your time with.�