Interview Excerpts

Interview excerpts:

Interview with Aimee Furey, a nursing major at NYU's school of nursing. (Conducted in person at approximately 8 p.m. EST on Sunday, February 28th, 2010).

Sarah Malanga: Do you have any experience with teen mothers?
Aimee Furey: I have experience with young mothers. I don’t have experience with them in labor and delivery, but I have experience with them in pediatrics with their newborns.
SM: What is the view in the medical world about teen pregnancy?
AF: I don’t know if there’s an overall view about it, but I would say that it’s…I think that physically speaking and medically speaking that’s one of the best times to have a baby, just not looking at social factors and everything like that, you’re usually healthy and more fertile as a teenager. You’re body is usually physically able to carry a healthy pregnancy. But socially you have all these other factors like how you’re going to take care of the baby once it’s there and just the access to prenatal care. I think that a lot of teen mothers don’t realize they’re pregnant util later or are in denial or they don’t know that they need to get prenatal care and so when you add those factors in you might not have a healthy pregnancy because of that
So I think that in the medical field, yea physically teenagers might be able to have children and babies, but socially, when you add in the social factors, they’re not. I think that, like the rest of society, it’s something that’s frowned upon, or not frowned upon, but it’s not something you want to see happen all the time.
SM: Can you expand on the medical advantages to being pregnant at a young age?
AF: I don’t know specifics, but most teenagers are healthy overall. Typical teenagers don’t have diabetes or hypertension and other diseases that can complicate pregnancy. That’s not so true anymore because there’s such a high obesity rate in teenagers that you are seeing high blood pressure and other things in teenagers. Your teenager years, your teens and early 20’s are when you’re at you’re healthiest usually. As you get older your eggs get less viable, your reproductive tract gets older and it doesn’t function like it did and as a teenager it does.
SM: Are there medical disadvantages?
AF: All expectant mothers need prenatal vitamins and to visit some sort of health care provider regularly throughout their pregnancy to make sure the pregnancy is progressing normally and I think that teens when they’re pregnant, like I said before, a lot of time they don’t necessarily realize that they’re pregnant or they’re in denial about or they don’t want to tell someone. You know, they don’t realize that they need to get this care to have a healthy pregnancy. I think a lot of teen mothers are also minorities and may not have as much access to health care because of insurance problems, because they’re illegal and luckily, I think, there’s some legislation that says that…Oh Medicaid does cover all pregnant women so they do have access but they may not realize that they have INAUDIBLE…
So I think that a lot of it, it’s not that teens need something medically different than older mothers, but I just think teens aren’t aware that they need it and I think there are all these other factors that impair them from getting what they need.

Interview with Susan Kettlewll, a juvenile defense attorney in Pima County. (Conducted over the phone at approximately 10 p.m. EST on Sunday, February 28th, 2010).

Sarah Malanga: What is your experience with teenage mothers?
Susan Kettlewell: Most of my experience is with teen mothers who are involved in the child welfare system, both as children and as mothers. So, for instance, for whatever reason, as a child their parents were not able to take care of them and they were removed from heir parents custody and then they end up having children and really have no parental or family support because they’ve been wards of the states of themselves,
SM: Is this common?
SK: Quite common. So then what happens is that because, let’s say, they’re 15 years old they have a child they usually have o mean of supporting themselves, they have no financial support, they may be living in a foster home already or a lot f them may be runways and living on the street or in less than desirable circumstance so then low and behold they crop up pregnant and because they’re a teenage parent CPS (Child Protective Services) is usually called by the hospitals when these girls have children. So then CPS takes custody of their children, takes custody of the teenage mother if the teenage mother hasn’t been in CPS already they will be then if they don’t have family that is there ready and willing to take care of the mother and baby. So then what happens is that you have these young girls who are in, you know maybe…For instance, I have one little girl and she’s only 15, historically these girls boyfriends are WAY over the age of 18, so they’re way older than they, but at any rate she had pretty much been living on her own doing whatever she wanted to so. She didn’t’ have any rule, no one was telling her what to do so then CPS gets involved and they take custody of her and her baby and they want her to follow all these riles. They want her to go to school, to have curfew, to let them know when she’s coming and going, where she’s going, who’ she’s going to be with, like a parent would an these girls can’t do it because they’ve been living as though, they’ve just been doing what they want to do because they haven’t had a parent telling them what they should be doing. So then CPS separates the mother from the baby, puts the baby in foster care and the mother’s usually end up running away, again. The moms sty in a group home or foster care an end up leaving. And it’s not just being separates from their baby, at that point they feel like they have nothing to lose so they leave and it starts all over again.
SM: How many cases do you have like this?
SK: Right now I have 3 little girls on my caseload. They’re all 15, one of them is 16 by now, and they all fit that pattern. One of them just had a baby so we’ll see what she does.
SM: Does CPS provide them with parenting classes or anything like that?
SK: Yea, yea, well they, they’ll try to get them enrolled in parenting classes and a lot of them, if they’re going to school, they’re in teenage parent programs, which teach them about parenting. Usually one of the requirements of CPS is that they go for school, but if some reason they’re not going to school they do try to enroll them in parent classes. And they’ll sometimes let them have visit with parent aids whoa re there and will give them tips on how to handle their child’s behavior. You know if they’re acting up you don’t smack them upside the head. And tips on nutrition, the right toys, things like that.
SM: Are many of these girls minorities?
SK: Every one that I’ve had has been. Of course we’re in a community where a large number, you know…But all the little girls I’ve had have been Hispanic.

SK: I think the thing too is that for these teen moms, it’s going to be such an emotional and financial struggle for the next 16 years of their lives at least.
That’s what so sad about some of these cases that I have because they don’t have anybody like that for them to rely on. [Referring to the lack of familial support these girls have]
Usually they’re prohibited from seeing the baby’s father because CPS is going to say no you can’t see him because he's over 18, which makes it even worse.

Week 2--Success!!

Okay so that heading is a little misleading, but I was feeling quite successful for awhile this past week. On Thursday I went and talked to Iris about my project and told her what I was looking for. She seemed willing to help and told me there was a girl she thought would be a good person to talk to. The girl, however, leaves school early and wasn't there when I was there so I wasn't able to meet her right then and there. There are some pros and cons with the girl the Iris recommended:

Pros-she's a teen mom, she's Mexican and she doesn't spend a lot of time at school, which I think will make life easier since it's hard to get access to public school.

Cons-she has already had her baby, in fact the baby is 3, and I didn't get a good sense of her family life, which could weaken that angle of my story if she lives on her own, doesn't have the support of her family, etc.

Anyway, Iris was supposed to call me on Friday after she talked to the girl to let me know if she agreed to do it, set up a time to meet, etc. BUT there was a snow day on Friday and so no one was at the school. Thus, I was successful and now not so much. I am not giving up hope yet though! I am hoping to hear from Iris tomorrow and if I don't know I will call her again AND call a few other social services type places to find a girl by this week. I'm still keeping my fingers crossed!

As far as interviewing someone, I had a little less luck with that since I wasn't able to have a conversation with a teen mom. As an alternative I talked to my roommate, who is a nursing major, about the medical side of teen pregnancies and my mom, who is a lawyer, about some of the legal issues surrounding teen mothers. Some excerpts will follow shortly!

Week 1 -- No luck

So this week I set out to find a pregnant girl. I started with contacting my source at LYFE (Living for the Young Family through Education). I called her Tuesday. No answer. Wednesday. Same thing. Thursday. Again no response. I was beginning to feel a little annoyed, a little sad, and a lot worried. Since I wasn't having any breakthroughs at LYFE, which is located at Independence High School at 10th Ave & 55th Street, I decided to start calling other places. I emailed and called a few other "pregnant teen resource" centers including Inwood House and Alianza Dominicana. By Friday I was feeling like I would never find a pregnant girl and was upset because this is the project I most wanted to do. And I was also upset because I was beginning to feel like I was SOO far behind on my project when everyone else was getting out there and finding all this great information. Then on Saturday morning as I lay in bed not wanting to get up I realized something...School was not in session all last week! They weren't ignoring my calls, they just weren't there to answer them. This made me feel much, MUCH better. Although I still don't have a subject set up for my project, I feel much more optimistic that come this week I will find one. Tomorrow I plan on calling Iris yet again. Hopefully she'll answer this time and we can set up a time for me to go to the high school this week and talk to some of the girls. I'm crossing my fingers that it'll all work out. If it doesn't, however, perhaps I will move on to option 2: Spending time in ESL class, though I'm reallyyyy hoping I can stick with my original plan.

Photo 1: Sad me. No one is calling me back, I'm going to fail.
Photo 2: Pondering me. Why is no one calling me back?
Photo 3: Aha! me. Because school is out, duh.