Any parents on here raise a teen mom?

[Anonymous]

OP, I volunteer at a transitional living program for young moms with kids in DC. My role as a volunteer is to hang out with the kids who live in the building once or twice a week for 2 hours in the evening while the moms either meet with their caseworkers or have free time.

I believe that it's important for all teenagers and all moms to have some free time that doesn't involve their parents (or foster parents, in your case) or their children. I think it's important to the development of self as well as a sense of independence, which has to happen, even if it's scary right now.

I know the groups of friends you're talking about and agree that that kind of socialization is inappropriate for this young woman. (I also think that it's not a great kind of socialization in general and those groups clog up the sidewalks and I find it annoying, but that's another issue.)

Re: the dance. It's a great example of something that she will have to deal with for a long time: she wants to go to an activity that is not child-friendly but cannot attend unless she figures out childcare. Everyone who has a child will have to figure this out at some point. It's not specific to teen moms. So your starting point is - who cares for the baby? what preparations will she make (food-wise for the kid)? what instructions will she give about the baby's care? how long exactly will she be gone? what sort of compensation can she offer the person providing the care? Those are things that she, as a parent, needs to figure out. You can help her do it, but she has to be the leader.

Re: socialization and how to address her current social structure. I do not think it's reasonable to expect her to completely change her social support network overnight. Even you believe that these friends are inappropriate or toxic or engaged in deviant activities, they are still her friends and she cares about them. It would be a huge mistake to be completely dismissive of that and being dismissive is a really great way to destroy trust, rather than build it.

If I was in your position, I would want to meet her best friends. If it would be weird to have them come to the house, maybe you can figure out an alternative venue where you could meet them and they could meet you. I'm not suggesting that you should take your 15-year-old foster kid to hang out in front of the 7-11 with her 25-year-old friends, but I do think it's important to be respectful of her previous friendships, while also attempting to guide her into a new lifestyle. I think that the suggestion of the PP to help her find a parenting class for others in her situation would be helpful, though given how many moms under 25 I know who have multiple young children, I would worry that most moms in her situation will continue down the path they started.

Good luck. You sound like a good person and I'm glad you're doing this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Ie no friends for the first month, 4 hours a week for the second month or whatever. She clearly needs boundaries but I don't even know how to begin to create appropriate ones.

So I'm not understanding why "no friends" is an appropriate boundary? I understand creating boundaries around where she goes and around time that you are taking care of the child while she is doing fun activities, but that doesn't mean "no friends." There are lots of appropriately supervised ways that she could interact with friends -- and it probably would be good for her to have time to spend decompressing with other teens. You could supervise her and one close female friend -- take them to a mall, drop them off at a movie, you stroll around the mall with the baby for 90 minutes, then take them to lunch/dinner with baby in tow.

And I think also that making sure she has a fun activity to make up for missing the dance would be nice. Don't constrain her so much she busts out and rebels.

I don't get OP's incessant need for adult supervision. I mean....the baby is already here.

Oh well, fuck it, you're right. She's already ruined her life so just let her have at it, hanging in parking lots with shiftless young adults, drinking and smoking all day. Sounds like a plan.

Why doesn't the OP know the teen's friends? How old is OP? I didn't have adult supervision but my mom knew who I was with and they weren't shiftless young adults. Even then, the smoking and drinking didn't come until the much later teen years (17-18) when adult supervision would have been a joke.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Ie no friends for the first month, 4 hours a week for the second month or whatever. She clearly needs boundaries but I don't even know how to begin to create appropriate ones.

So I'm not understanding why "no friends" is an appropriate boundary? I understand creating boundaries around where she goes and around time that you are taking care of the child while she is doing fun activities, but that doesn't mean "no friends." There are lots of appropriately supervised ways that she could interact with friends -- and it probably would be good for her to have time to spend decompressing with other teens. You could supervise her and one close female friend -- take them to a mall, drop them off at a movie, you stroll around the mall with the baby for 90 minutes, then take them to lunch/dinner with baby in tow.

And I think also that making sure she has a fun activity to make up for missing the dance would be nice. Don't constrain her so much she busts out and rebels.

I don't get OP's incessant need for adult supervision. I mean....the baby is already here.

Oh well, fuck it, you're right. She's already ruined her life so just let her have at it, hanging in parking lots with shiftless young adults, drinking and smoking all day. Sounds like a plan.

Why doesn't the OP know the teen's friends? How old is OP? I didn't have adult supervision but my mom knew who I was with and they weren't shiftless young adults. Even then, the smoking and drinking didn't come until the much later teen years (17-18) when adult supervision would have been a joke.

*how old is the teen

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Ie no friends for the first month, 4 hours a week for the second month or whatever. She clearly needs boundaries but I don't even know how to begin to create appropriate ones.

So I'm not understanding why "no friends" is an appropriate boundary? I understand creating boundaries around where she goes and around time that you are taking care of the child while she is doing fun activities, but that doesn't mean "no friends." There are lots of appropriately supervised ways that she could interact with friends -- and it probably would be good for her to have time to spend decompressing with other teens. You could supervise her and one close female friend -- take them to a mall, drop them off at a movie, you stroll around the mall with the baby for 90 minutes, then take them to lunch/dinner with baby in tow.

And I think also that making sure she has a fun activity to make up for missing the dance would be nice. Don't constrain her so much she busts out and rebels.

I don't get OP's incessant need for adult supervision. I mean....the baby is already here.

Oh well, fuck it, you're right. She's already ruined her life so just let her have at it, hanging in parking lots with shiftless young adults, drinking and smoking all day. Sounds like a plan.

Why doesn't the OP know the teen's friends? How old is OP? I didn't have adult supervision but my mom knew who I was with and they weren't shiftless young adults. Even then, the smoking and drinking didn't come until the much later teen years (17-18) when adult supervision would have been a joke.

*how old is the teen

Read the thread and come back so we don't have to explain this all to you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Ie no friends for the first month, 4 hours a week for the second month or whatever. She clearly needs boundaries but I don't even know how to begin to create appropriate ones.

So I'm not understanding why "no friends" is an appropriate boundary? I understand creating boundaries around where she goes and around time that you are taking care of the child while she is doing fun activities, but that doesn't mean "no friends." There are lots of appropriately supervised ways that she could interact with friends -- and it probably would be good for her to have time to spend decompressing with other teens. You could supervise her and one close female friend -- take them to a mall, drop them off at a movie, you stroll around the mall with the baby for 90 minutes, then take them to lunch/dinner with baby in tow.

And I think also that making sure she has a fun activity to make up for missing the dance would be nice. Don't constrain her so much she busts out and rebels.

I don't get OP's incessant need for adult supervision. I mean....the baby is already here.

Do not want another baby!

[Anonymous]

Thanks all for the comments. We've decided to let her attend the dance (as a result of this thread) because we want to encourage school sponsored activities and seeing her friends in appropriate settings.

We will tell her tonight and address it in a larger conversation of these (ie school dances) are "appropriate activities" while xyz are not appropriate. As well as addressing the before and after of her life now that she has a baby. Lastly we will address the responsibilities involved with outings (providing for the baby in her absence, making arrangements for care etc).

I talked to two social workers today. One is putting me in touch with other foster parents in similar situations. The other is generally supportive but had no specific recs.

Thanks to all who chimed in, I really appreciate your help.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do you have a counselor who can help you negotiate rules together? To me, this situation screams for a trusted, thoughtful third party mediator.

Agreed. Where is the social worker? Or did they just give you legal guardianship of this teen and her child and say "good luck!"? If anything, a social worker should be partnering with you to explain these things to the child. And yes, she is a child - of 15. A child "raising" a child. Oy.

As a side note, the defensive former teen moms need to back off OP. She's doing something not many people would do and needs help. If you can't provide thoughtful responses, you probably shouldn't respond at all.

This has often been my experience with foster care.

[Anonymous]

OP,

I'm the pp who had my first child at 15. Thankfully I had, and still have, an incredibly supportive family. Thank you so much for taking this on. I pray that the teen Mom is open to your help and that she uses this opportunity as a building block towards having a successful life.

Very happy that you're doing this, OP. Best of luck to you, her and the baby.

[Anonymous]

Talk to her about adoption (of the baby). She's 4 weeks pp and probably doesn't really want this new life. I know it isn't pc to suggest adoption, but honestly.