Becoming a Parent - What Are You Thinking?!
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Babies are cute - without a doubt. But that is no reason to become a parent.
Several years ago I was a therapist to 23 teen moms - all in one high school. Nearly all of these girls had romantic ideas about love, sex and parenting before becoming pregnant. But after having their babies their worlds changed forever - and not in the way they imagined.
Here are some of the misconceptions they had about having a baby:
1. "My boyfriend won't leave me if I have sex with him." Fact - not one of the 23 girls were still dating the boy who got them pregnant by the time their baby was 6 months old.
2. "I want a baby so I will feel loved." Truth - babies don't come into the world giving love, they need love, attention and every minute of your day and night. It is difficult enough to grow up in this world without being born with the job of taking care of the parent's feeling and emotional needs. To be a parent you have to be willing to take care of the baby's needs not the other way around.
3. "I'm old enough to know how to be a mom." Fact - Not one of the 23 girls said they would do it again now that they knew what was really involved in parenting a baby. In fact many of them were seriously depressed because their life had changed so dramatically.
4. "I will be a better mother than my own mom has been." Fact - Your mother was and is your role model, and regardless of how much you fantasize being different, unless you have a lot of training, and counseling beforehand, you will find yourself dealing with life in a very similar way.
5. "My child will never hate me or treat me badly." Fact - Statistics show that children born to a teenage, single parent are 5 times more likely to have troubled family relationships than those born to mature 2-parent homes.
Having a baby is not something to do for any reason other than because you have a stable family atmosphere in which that child will be the center of his/her parent's world.
Several years ago I was a therapist to 23 teen moms - all in one high school. Nearly all of these girls had romantic ideas about love, sex and parenting before becoming pregnant. But after having their babies their worlds changed forever - and not in the way they imagined.
Here are some of the misconceptions they had about having a baby:
1. "My boyfriend won't leave me if I have sex with him." Fact - not one of the 23 girls were still dating the boy who got them pregnant by the time their baby was 6 months old.
2. "I want a baby so I will feel loved." Truth - babies don't come into the world giving love, they need love, attention and every minute of your day and night. It is difficult enough to grow up in this world without being born with the job of taking care of the parent's feeling and emotional needs. To be a parent you have to be willing to take care of the baby's needs not the other way around.
3. "I'm old enough to know how to be a mom." Fact - Not one of the 23 girls said they would do it again now that they knew what was really involved in parenting a baby. In fact many of them were seriously depressed because their life had changed so dramatically.
4. "I will be a better mother than my own mom has been." Fact - Your mother was and is your role model, and regardless of how much you fantasize being different, unless you have a lot of training, and counseling beforehand, you will find yourself dealing with life in a very similar way.
5. "My child will never hate me or treat me badly." Fact - Statistics show that children born to a teenage, single parent are 5 times more likely to have troubled family relationships than those born to mature 2-parent homes.
Having a baby is not something to do for any reason other than because you have a stable family atmosphere in which that child will be the center of his/her parent's world.