...with a 7yr old.
Its interesting how I am faced with my past every single day. Ive been working with teen parents for the past 3 years, mostly with teen mothers (and with teen fathers for about a year), so even while being still a teen parent myself, i worked as an advocate for them. Its created a kind of weird dichotomy in my head, a dualiy in several senses. Im trying to counsel them, guide them through issues that I was (am) still myself dealing with, nurturing my own maturity while trying to help them develop their own sense of responsibility and maturity. Even now, I struggle between still young, in many ways, still immature, 22 yr old me and the me that has to be forced with many responsibilities. So, to be in the position of trying to help them can be a bit ironic. Yet, there is a difference, I find, in their experiences and my own that does allow me to take on a leadership role with them. I recognize that Ive had many opportunities, that I had some advantages that allowed me to achieve what I have so far. I capitalized on these opportunities, and Ive been very fortunate to have had people who believed in me. The counselor or professor who saw my potential and pushed me to maximize. i wanted to give up so many times, came close, but i always had people in my life who inspired me to keep going, namely, my child and wanting her to have unlimited choices in her life, comfort and stability in her life. in terms of the standard of success, in comparision to the vast majority of young black mothers, i have been turned into a role model by organizations that ive worked with, that i go out and speak to, by people who have recognized me in various ways, and i carry that burden. it means so much to me that i should have it, i love working with young parents, showing them what is possible for them, that they dont have to settle for what they have been told about themselves by society or by family or by the masses or whomever, but at the same time, its like, its so much pressure. this pressure, this standard that i have to live up to that surrounds me, it pains me sometimes. i wont cry over ghosts of past dreams, but i do wonder what would have happened if i had chose another path, if i had seized other avenues. that thing, that illusive thing, called the pursuit of happiness. how many of us truly have the option of going on the hunt for their piece of happiness with life circumstances being as they are?
so at both of my two current jobs, i work with teen parents, and in my spare time i work with teen parents and with all three, they all literally overlap in a million ways. At one job at a law firm, the bulk of my work is going out to different community organizations in Philly and give legal rights presentations to staff who work with young parents or young parents themselves. I also go out to different high schools all over the city who have teen parent programs called ELECT (that i was in when i was in during high school). I just started doing that this summer. But I have been indepedently working with ELECT consistently since my freshman year of undergrad, 2002, as a guest speaker and example of a success story of their program in publications and stuff like that, volunteering my bit of free time. So now, when I go out to give legal presentations, I know all of the counselors in all the schools, and they always kinda have me give their young mothers an impromptu imspirational speech and pep talk, tell them my story and that its possible in spite of their odds to go after what they want, in addition to what i came there to do, which was to give a workshop on legal rights. Im always happy to do it. I dont want them to see me as someone above them, but as someone who went through what they went through. Often when Im talking about legal rights concerning custody and welfare and things like that, Ill readily offer them my own experiences with it as a young mother. im eager to give them the type of information that i didnt have, to show them how valuable it is to know their rights, how crucial it is to plan for the future for themselves and their children. So anyway, thats one job. The second job is at an organization that provides parenting classes to young mothers in different places throughout the city. Its such a wonderful program. Every week, we have a discussion group, and it alternates between mothers only groups and mother and baby groups (this week was our first mother-baby playgroup.) Its a wonderful outlet for them, a safe space, and a place to develop their relationships with their children. so, i just started this job this fall. Im a co-facilitator at one of the groups. This job overlaps with the first job as well as my volunteer work because I have given legal rights presentations at their schools with the firm, and/or have been a guest speaker at some event they were at. and then, the second job had me give the legal rights presentation from my first job at a staff meeting, and wants me to give the presentation to all of the teen mom discussion groups. Needless to say, I get paid for both jobs at the same time, lol. Or, at some of the organizations that I now present the legal rights workshops, I have either worked with them previously as a guest speaker to their young moms, or, if i havent worked with them before, theyll call me back to come give an inspirational talk to their moms. There are some more interconnections, but Im sure you get the point by now, dear reader. Its cool, I really love doing what I do, I love working with young mothers, it makes me happy. How can that be bad? At the same time, it feels weird sometimes. Tonight, at the discussion group, the moms were calling me ms. rasheedah. i want to say so badly, just call me rasheedah, but thats kinda the little rule, call the facilitators miss. but it feels so weird. im no more than 4 or 5 years older than most of the girls, some, only 2 or 3 years. i want them to view me as their equal, but then again, i realize that i am in this position, as their co-facilitator, so they kinda have to see me as something more. and im cool with that, i guess. i guess i want their respect while at the same time wanting to be their friend, someone they feel comfortable talking to, maybe a big sister type, not so much as a teacher type. it will take time, i know, and we just started. but i just dont know how to play both roles sometimes. then, i feel like they may view me as out of touch with their own realities. i dont know. im rambling. i have so many concerns, lol. i can go on and on about this, but i wont. perhaps the bottom line should be that i enjoy what i do, and it makes me happy, it takes my mind off of my own problems, and it makes me feel empowered a bit, hopeful a bit, even though i regard hope as dangerous sometimes. perhaps i should be grateful for the ability to even be able to contemplate this all, for having the awareness, the honesty with myself that i, sometimes, let being in law school overshadow that happiness. and that i sometimes let a little bit of regret slip in with choosing this path over that of some of my other dreams. grateful for the honesty with myself that i sometimes feel overwhelmed by the responsibility of the commitment that i have to my community and how that clashes with a general lack of hope for for mankind, with my thoughts of how i think that my efforts may ultimately be pointless, because i will never be able to cure poverty, child abuse, racism, capitalism, sexism, and any of the like. i should be grateful for that clarity of self, right? i should be grateful for the wonderful interconnections in my life, the synchronicity, right? i am. i am grateful. there is some sense of purpose, then, however false it may actually be. i havent explored that topic fully yet, the topic of purpose and it how it fits in with my new sense of spirituality. but i will, i shall.
my daughter is great. i enjoy her curiosity, her creativity. she asks me great, thoughtful questions, and im witnessing the development of her mind, her personality. Its fun, its wonderful but difficult at times. Its crazy how much our own decisions, dysfunctions, qualities, views will impact our children. So I attempt to be aware of that all times, but its hard because, again, Im still maturing and developing my own sense of self. And then, there's the matter of how I answer her questions, because I want to promote her having her own views, and being skeptical of adopting the commonly accepted view. Taking all of this into account, I have to keep reminding myself that she is only 7, albeit a sharp 7yr old, but 7 nonetheless, so I have to try to break things down to her to follow her 7yr old "logic". She asks me things about time, and the moon, and magic, and advertisements and everything. Very observant. So Im answering a litany of questions all evening, and i have to try to think fast to tailor which response will best suit her maturity level, her logic, and will help her to learn to adopt her own views but knowing what the commonly accepted view is, and a whole bunch of other things. For example, last night, we were talking about writing stories, and she asked me to help her publish a book, and somehow, we had this great philosophical conversation:
I told her that I used to write my own stories and "publish" my own books when I was her age, and she was asking me about that. Then she asked "Mom, when you were my age, what was I to you? Was I your baby?" Immediately, a million ways to respond to that ran through my mind, whether I should give her a clinical answer about birth and babies and the inability of 7yr olds to have babies, or some type of little kid answer, a philosophical answer about existence, a religious /spiritual one (taking into account her own still-developing view of God, as her and I had discussed previously), would this be the time to inject something about sex or what? The answer I came up with was a combination of all of the above, I suppose, but the conversation became very interesting, very insightful. I used a bit of questioning to get her to come up with the answer herself, something like "Well, when I was your age, how old was I?" I asked. "7." she answered from the backseat. "Do you think 7 yr olds can have babies?" "Nooo." she responded, in little kid exxageration. "Ok, so, I was too young to have you, right? I was just a child, like you are. When I was 7, you werent born yet, so you werent anything to me yet, you werent my baby yet, you werent in existence. But you were born to me when I was 14, and then you became my baby. But I am always your mother, I have always been your mother, you have always been my baby." I said, with a smile on my face and in my voice, thinking I had given an adequate technical, age-appropriate explanation while simutaneously injecting to my motherly love. Then I saw the opportunity to talk to her a bit more about me being so young, because at this age she notices how young I am in comparison to her friends' parents. asked "How old do you think a woman should be before she has a baby?" I asked her. "Ummmm, 30!" she answered. I chuckled out loud. "Yes, exactly, thats a great age. I had you at a very young age, you know. I was a teenager at the time, and so was daddy. Teenagers often arent mature enough or prepared to have children, which is why people should wait until their grown to have children," I told her, trying to drop the moral of the story on her. Its funny how her little brain makes its own little connections. There was a moment's pause from the back seat as she processed what I just told her. Then - "So mom, Im confused. Are you a teenager or an adult? You look like a teenager." Lol. Seriously. I was at a loss for words, really. It was a great question. Again, I had to find a way to respond, given her currently developing sense of time and years. I can tell her, of course, Im an adult. Im 22. However, I also had to tell her that I am still young, because 22 is not adult in the way she may currently consider an adult, given how all of the other adults in her life, with the exception of her dad and I, are older adults. Then, I wanted her to see that age does not really determine one's maturity level. I tried to take the middle road as the light changed from red to green and I proceeded to round round the corner to turn on to my street. "Well, thats a good question. I am only 22, so I am an adult, but I am still very young, and a young mommy. I just became an adult almost 3 years ago [while saying this, in my head Im struggling on whether or not to tell her that adulthood began at 20 because i was no longer a teenager in the general sense, or whether or not to go by legal definition of adult which is 18 in some areas and 21 in others. lol. this all ran through my mind in like .6 nanoseconds, but I settled on using the word teenager so she could understand easier], because I was nineteen, so I was a teenager, and when I turned 20, I was no longer a teenager. Now Im 22, so Im an adult, but Im just a young adult." I said, as I pulled up in front of the apartment. "Well, you look like a teenager." she said, in kid sarcasm. Kids, man. Theyre so perceptive. I laughed, because she had a point - I mean, I really had just left my teenage years. She had been at my high school graduation but 4 years previous. And she, of course, associates teenagehood with being in high school, she associates adulthood with having a career and driving, etc. "I had you at a young age, Iyonna [exaggerating her name in response to the sarcasm-laced voice], and youre right, I do look youg. I was just a teenager. But now Im an adult." I knew I hadnt really answered the question, because she was asking me something that went a little bit deeper than age, and her question, it cut right to the heart of my own internal dualities with maturities, responsibilities, physical age and mental age, and I was cut short for words. As we hopped out of the car and grabbed our respective bookbags, I asked her one last question. "Do you think I act like an adult?" She pondered it for a moment, choosing her words, perhaps. "Yes. But you still look like a teenager." We laughed together as we walked up the short flight of steps to greet our front door.
