After conducting several interviews and hearing several perspectives, I have came to the conclusion that I will not be mentally prepared to have a child until I am around the age of thirty or so. I never realized how hard it is to take care of a child before I spoke to actual parents and they told us their experiences.
In class we had two guest speakers, Mr. Marks and Mrs. Plaza. Both are parents, and both came in to talk about the birthing process and how being a parent has changed their mindsets. Mrs. Plaza told us that having a child is” hard work” and that you have to be “mentally ready to have one”. So often on television, we see teenagers having babies at the age of sixteen and seventeen, but we often don’t realize how severely having a baby impacts your life. We watch these shows thinking we don’t ever want to be that person, we don’t want to have a child at such a young age, but in reality we don’t know to what extent having a child really changes you. Mrs. Plaza said she had a case of the “baby blues”, which is like post-partum depression, but a less severe case. She thought about “abandoning” her child, she didn’t care for it for a short time, and she was just always depressed. Mr. Marks also said that his wife had a case of depression after the birth of their child. You would think that having a child would be the most wonderful thing in your life; after all you just continued your family line and brought a human being into the world. But supposedly, having a case of depression is quite common for mothers. It is kind of depressing to think about, knowing that you just went through nine months of pain and several hours of labor contractions in order to have a child, and then you don’t even care for it.
Through this mini-unit, I have to admit I learned a lot about parenting. Recently I have become a fan of watching 16 and pregnant, and I always think “I would probably kill myself if I was that person”. I always wondered how people could have a baby at such a young age, and watching these shows made me think about that even more. After listening to Mr. Marks and Mrs. Plaza talk about “baby blues” and how big a responsibility is to take a child, I don’t think I want to have a child for another ten or fifteen years. I want to be able to have a stable career and marry someone before having a child, because I know myself, and I know I will not be able to take care of a little one. During the summer I work at camp, and I love my kids, but at the end of the day I can just return them to their parents, especially if they are annoying me. Having children are a full time job and I don’t think most teenagers around my age are ready for that job just yet. We’re still young and enjoying life, we can’t take care of somebody else.
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