Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, October 31, 1993 TAG: 9310300267
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By BETH MACY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
She smiles proudly at her granddaughter as the 7-month-old gums the corner of her pocket-sized pamphlet, ``Daily Inspirations from the Bible,'' a line of drool extending from the baby's wide grin.
``It was devastating for me when she got pregnant,'' the 31-year-old grandmother says of her daughter, August Robinson. ``I had big hopes for her, wanted her to finish school, go to college.''
She wanted her daughter to have the things she never had: a high school diploma, a decent job, a husband and children - in that order.
She didn't want her to face the ordeal she'd faced herself as a teen mother, 14 years old and pregnant, with no father in sight.
``We'd talked about sex and birth control before, but I'm one of those that doesn't believe my child would do something like that,'' Robbie says, her granddaughter's tiny hand wrapped around her finger.
``It just never occurred to me she'd do it and not tell me. But then I tend to understand why she didn't ... You're scared. I was a teen once, too.''
It was like looking into a mirror when her daughter gave birth to Tamaria seven months ago:
August was 16, a mother and - once again - there was no father figure in sight. Like her mother before her, Robbie does what she can to help out, baby-sitting and giving them a place to live. ``I was hurt, you know, but she is my child and I stick by her 100 percent, like my mother did for me.''
She brushes her granddaughter's tiny curls with her hand.
``Now I have a beautiful grandbaby, and I just thank the Lord we're making it OK.''
August Robinson is a quiet girl. She was studying piano at Ruffner Magnet Center last year, getting mostly A's and B's. At night she entertained her mother on her keyboard.
Her favorite music to play is ``up-to-date'' and sometimes classical. Her mother loves to hear her play Beethoven's ``Ode to Joy.''
She was a sophomore, 15 years old, when she started hanging out with a guy in his mid-20s - she's not sure exactly how old he was.
``I knew about birth control from my cousins,'' August says. ``After they had their babies they took the pill.''
For reasons she can't or won't explain, she still had unprotected sex.
``There are lots of reasons girls get pregnant - they want someone to love them, or maybe their boyfriends want a baby,'' explains Delois Ollie, who helps the family through the Roanoke Health Department's
Resource Mothers program. ``But August, she was just experimenting and got caught. It was a total accident.''
August went to Roanoke's School for Pregnant Teens. Unlike most teen-age mothers who even tually drop out, she returned to her home school after the baby was born.
The father of the child has refused to help or acknowledge his paternity. A court hearing and paternity test was set up recently by the Department of Social Services. August says she dreads facing him at the hearing.
She receives $231 a month from Aid to Dependent Children, plus $60 worth of food vouchers from Women Infants and Children. Her mother baby-sits while she's at school, and her stepfather works two jobs.
It's hard being a teen mom, she says, ``especially staying up all night with her sometimes and knowing you gotta go to school in the morning.'' If the baby wakes up August's younger siblings, ``they wake me up and say, `Get up and get that baby.'''
Labor was the worst experience of her life. ``I was in labor for three days and I couldn't eat at all,'' she says. ``The baby, she came out screaming and crying, just like me.''
Still, Tamaria gives her young mother a reason for hope - a reason to go to school every day, a reason to sit down at her keyboard to practice her classical and up-to-date music.
``She just makes me feel good,'' August says. ``Even when I'm mad, she just smiles.''
Delois Ollie knew she had a tough job ahead. As a resource mother, she focuses mainly on practical things like giving pregnant teens rides to prenatal appointments, registering them for WIC and ADC, signing them up for GED programs, arranging donations of baby clothes and helping them get on birth control.
But some families need someone just to talk to.
August and Robbie needed both.
``Robbie is a real caretaker and enabler,'' Ollie says. ``And August was concerned that her mom would take over her baby.''
It's a common scenario: The grandmother takes over the role of mother, while the mother eventually settles into the role of sister.
``At first I didn't wanna hear what Delois had to say,'' Robbie recalls. ``But she helped me to see, you got a grandbaby on the way, but it's mom's responsibility.''
Although Ollie has had just one repeat pregnancy so far among her 15 clients, she worries about August succumbing again to unprotected sex. ``It's like a badge of honor anymore for these girls to have a baby,'' she says.
August agrees, adding, ``Since I had Tamaria, it seems like everybody's getting pregnant.''
Although she was put on the pill shortly after Tamaria was born, August couldn't continue taking it for medical reasons. She's dating an older man again - this time, a 19-year-old - but insists she's being careful.
``No hanky-panky, absolutely not,'' her mother interjects. ``I have a thing about that; I don't wanna even think about no more children, especially for her. I tell her, if she didn't like the pain of childbirth, if she doesn't want no diseases, I just tell her - NO.
``I think she's learning from her experience. Some kids, you just have to give them some reality and let them see themselves.''
by CNB