The good, the bad and ugly experiences of a young mother.

“When I was a little girl, I used to dream about what my life would look like, when I would meet my dream guy, who resembled a young Will Smith back then. I dreamt about my dream career, my wedding day. Then as a teenager, I had to narrow these dreams and align them with my age, I was frantic about every bit of it, I wanted my life to be perfect.

I graduated high school got into an amazing university, and everything was going great, well until I got pregnant and everything was at a standstill. I immediately thought my life is over. I mean I was still a teenager and almost done with University. It was a weird few months.

I thought about how I was going to miss so much with my friends, and what I had to do and how I had to grow up and probably even put school on hold for a while, I was in full blown panic mode.

My mum then told me to relax and that I was going to be okay and I thought, how am I supposed to that. I decided to push away all my friends and live in my own little bubble.

After my baby was born, I had to decide whether to really quit school or to keep at it because I needed the credentials, long story short, I went back to school and did well academically, however,  socially and emotionally, I was failing horribly.

I made decisions that were seriously stupid and just mind numbingly tedious. I tried to justify them by saying being a young mum was too much pressure, which it was, still is, but not really an excuse.

I had to work twice as hard and I tried to present myself a certain way, but people didn’t want to listen I suppose.

What people saw was that girl that had a baby and drank her life to destruction.”

To put it in a summary, she goes through a lot, and she is still trying to grow up and face the fact that people will never look at her the same way, ever.

Aside from having to grow up, she has to look at taking care of herself, her child, and worry about her child’s father, her education, her career, her friends, her family, her life, the life of another.

It is a lot, and most times, teenage mothers are often viewed as reckless, young, or simply the girl who couldn’t figure out how to use birth control.

Unfair does not come close to explaining what that is, but people don’t really want to hear the story, they prefer to create their own stories and force it on you until you accept it.

It’s a whole new world, there are rights for everyone, including the right to judge and mock everyone, but at the end of the day, we all have our own flaws and our own stories.

In the words of Erykah Badu, “You cannot judge people because they sin differently than you.”