My friends came through for me in a big way during my pregnancy. I experienced firsthand the power of teen friendships at work. My 15-year-old friends came together with the little they had to throw me a baby shower. That big gesture touched me beyond words. Even more touching were the smaller gestures of support […]
By the time I got to college, I didn’t have child support or help from my parents. I realized I needed additional support so I applied for public assistance for young parents. I needed support like food stamps now called Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). To my surprise my application was denied because I had […]
I understand that support for pregnant teens and young parents can be hard to come by. In my own life, I had the support of my mother who picked me up from school and took me for my doctor’s appointments. She took time off work to make sure I never missed a single doctor’s visit. […]
At this point in my story, I was pregnant at 15 years by a boy I didn’t know and whom I hadn’t consented to have sex with. My secret was out, and the guilt and shame were real. Coping with a teen pregnancy had never featured on my list of things to do before I […]
Surviving teen pregnancy had never featured in any of my plans for my life. In fact, I looked down on other girls who got pregnant. I thought they deserved what happened to them because of their promiscuous and fast ways. Yet here I was in the same boat. A pregnant teen who would soon become […]
Because I was not sexually active, neither I or my parents probably thought they needed to talk to me about how to avoid teen pregnancy. If you had told me I would join the teen pregnancy statistics at age 15. I would have called you a liar. After all, I was book-smart and knew-it-all. Yet […]
There are not many moments when you’re invited to be a part of history. Last Monday, I had the honor of speaking on the program for a major moment in University of Memphis history. As part of the University of Memphis’ initiatives to Eradicate Systemic Racism (I’m on one of the committees), new markers and […]
When I was younger, I didn’t have the best of attitudes. I was stubborn, often disrespectful, and focused on having my way. In other words, I didn’t have an attitude for success. But that all changed when I started to understand that my attitude would determine my aptitude. I had the power to steer my […]
Without a doubt, the teenage years are tough from an angle of self-love and self-realization. For some, it’s even more challenging because not only are they struggling with discovering who they are, they are also trying to learn how to love and accept themselves. That was me. As a teenager, I was still reeling from […]
