Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, January 24, 1994 TAG: 9401250261
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: PAULA A. KIRTLEY
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Because I think teen-age pregnancy is mostly a concern to the majority of America only if it is a girl from a poor family who gets pregnant and will be put on Aid to Dependent Children, I will address it from that angle.
People become outraged and show what they truly value when ``their'' money becomes an issue. They think large amounts of their money go to support children and their single parents who live off of welfare, but I am here to say it is only enough money to f+isurviveo not live off of, and the greatest part of welfare money goes for other things rather than to the recipient. In fact, the rich have welfare but it is called something else.
Taxpayer money in general is eaten up by irresponsible elected officials who can spend more on lunches in a day than what we poor, single mothers are issued to raise children for a month. By valuing money more than lives, many are looking at this issue from the angle of not wanting to give any more when, in reality, the issue is we aren't giving enough - of ourselves. Open your hearts and minds to what is really going on here.
The real issue is not money but what happens to people's integrity and to their souls when they are forced to raise their child or children away from mainstream society in segregated, low-income housing communities where lifestyles of extreme poverty breed drug and child abuse, and marginal choices create apathy and despair while cockroaches mightily march where pizza delivery men won't dare enter after sundown. These conditions are as common as soccer practice and predictability are in other communities.
Oh, yeah, but we deserve a rough time because we had children we could not afford and had sex with men who either wouldn't marry us or else did and then left us to survive in a community that blames us for our own victimization. My own mother said, ``You made your bed, now you will have to lie in it.''
Solutions:
So we don't want poor children having babies and going on ADC. I want to say: They won't want it either, after they get it. But living in conditions like this warps you, and when you can't see the way out you embrace your own agony and perpetuate it. So what is to be done?
I am willing to go into the schools, taking a preventive stance and letting the teen-agers know my story and how education is going to be the way I get off welfare and the hell out of Dodge. I will tell them that when I got pregnant when I was 19, I was not able to make good, clear choices for myself and didn't even understand the concept of consequences.
I will share with them how I supported my daughter and myself for almost a decade by typing and cleaning houses and how we lived on oodles and noodles and four for $1 mac 'n cheese in order to pay the rent. I will share with them that when I was 30 and got pregnant, my baby's father had serious problems and I didn't know how to let go. We clinged together, and that's how my baby was born. It wasn't a conscious decision. I am willing to talk to them about fantasy thinking and consequences because I now know them well.
I am also willing to share with them my enthusiasm and hope that things will get better if we are motivated. Whether we are motivated by love or anger won't matter at first because energy can be turned into action and an angry activist is better than a hopeless and discouraged mama who no longer has enough gumption even to fill out applications at Burger King much less to work there.
It is easy to be depressed, bitter and shame-filled when you live where delivery companies don't want to come and what that really means on a day-to-day basis for you and your children. I will share with them on a level that may reach them. I am willing to do that. What are you willing to do?
Professionals only come into our community to pick up the bodies that smoked the crack but didn't pay the dealer or to write down which child was abused and by whom, but I say come into our communities to do more than remove bodies one at a time. Come here to do prevention.
We are easy to find but hard to reach. Many of us don't even have phones. We need you. You need us. We need education. AIDS workshops. Feelings groups. Tons of alcohol and other drug education. Do you dare to bring DARE here to the parents who need it?
Bring your educated minds and your capacity to look at tomorrow as a new day. We need your help and your hope because many of us have become helpless and hopeless. Give us a reason to buy into the system instead of hating it for hating us. Poverty is a crime and, even though I am not a criminal, I can't wait until my sentence is through.
\ Paula A. Kirtley is a Radford University student, graduate of Virginia Western, TRUST volunteer, and a recovering alcoholic and drug addict.
by CNB