The Road of Teenage Pregnancy As a senior in high school, I had to make a
very important decision. Did I want to have a baby and finish school, or did I
want to get married and quit school. Although abortion and adoption were the
right choice for some people, I knew they were not the right choice for me.
Regretfully, I chose to drop out of school, marriage and parenthood. Many
teenagers have been faced with the same decision, but how do they know which
road is the right one to take? For each person the same choice may not be the
right choice. In my case, I had seen friends pregnant in school who suffered
criticism for deciding to have sex at such a young age and for not knowing how
to protect themselves against pregnancy. What many teenagers do not realize is
that some children do not have someone to talk to them about these things. I
knew nothing about sex or protection and found myself in a position with someone
who knew nothing about those things either. I decided that I did not want to
place myself in the position to be criticized by these things and quit school.
Quitting school was a very hard decision for me to make. It forced me to decide
what I was going to do with my life once the baby came. Since I took cosmetology
classes at the technical school for two years while I was in high school, I
decided to enroll in a local beauty school to finish the hours I needed to take
the board exam. I went the entire time I was pregnant and graduated by the time
the baby was four months old. I passed my board examination and received my
license by the time she was six months old. I worked as a beautician for three
years and made a decent living. I soon realized I did not want to be a
beautician for the rest of my life. Do I regret the decision I made? To answer
that, I would have to say that I do regret the decision to drop out of school
but have never once regretted having the baby. It was not easy being married and
a parent at the age of seventeen.
We were both too young for the responsibilities we faced. I worked to support
us, went to beauty school, and dealt with pregnancy while he finished high
school. There were times I felt like all the responsibility had been placed on
me, which made me bitter and caused problems with our marriage. I knew our
marriage was over by the time our daughter was four years old so we agreed to
get a divorce. I found out I was pregnant during our separation and quickly
decided that I would not settle on marriage for that reason again. There are
times that I feel like I should have tried harder to make things work, but I
think we would have been unhappy. I would not want to give my children that kind
of life. To this day, I think I made the right decision because our life is good
and is getting better everyday. Many positive things have come from my decision
such as discovering the things that are most important to me. I want to make a
good life and provide my children with the best possible choices. I have also
learned that I do not want people to remember me only because I got pregnant in
high school and dropped out. These thoughts and feeling have pushed me to get my
GED, enroll in college, and to pursue a career in education. I have learned that
children are important to me and I want to make a difference in their life. I
want my children to know the decisions that they will have to face someday, to
know which decisions are the right ones to make, and to know the consequences of
the things they may choose to do. I do not think I would have these feelings so
strongly if I had chosen a different road. Who knows what I might be doing now?
Do the things that have happened mean I made the right or wrong decision? Was
there even a right or wrong decision to make? I believe you have to do the best
you can with the decisions you make regardless of whether they are the right
ones or the wrong ones. You have to take responsibility for those decisions and
do the right thing for the people involved. You should never feel sorry for
yourself and the position you might find yourself. It does no good to punish
yourself or those around you, just take each one as a lesson in life and do the
best with it that you can.
Words: 811
