Beating the odds

This afternoon the kids were all playing happily in the basement together so I decided to tackle the pile of clean laundry and get it folded. I turned on Dr. Phil and got to work. The show today was on a girl who is pregnant at 16. Dr. Phil shared many statistics regarding teen moms.

I became pregnant with Shalyn when I was only 17 years old. I am by no means proud of that, but comparing myself to the statistics he spat out I feel quite proud over what I've accomplished. Here are some of the stats about teen aged moms:

"Only one-third of adolescent mothers will graduate high school, and only slightly over 1 percent of those will earn a college degree." I have done both.

"Children of teen moms do worse in school than those born to older parents — with half failing a grade. Those same children are less likely to finish high school then those from older mothers, and have a lower performance on standardized tests. Many children born to teen moms have behavioral problems, juvenile delinquency and conflict with authority." Shalyn is a straight A student who takes honors and AP classes. She doesn't fit the profile of having behavioral problems, juvenile delinquency and conflict with authority at all.

"Two-thirds of families begun by a young unmarried mother are poor. More than half of all mothers on welfare had their first child as a teenager. " Shalyn's father and I were married for a few years and we never received any type of government assistant. We were completely self-reliant.

"Daughters of teen moms are three times more likely to become teenage mothers themselves." Shalyn is still a teenager so I can't say we've beaten this odd yet, but knowing Shalyn and her standards and values I don't see this happening.

"Eight out of ten fathers in cases of teen pregnancy don't marry the mother of their child, and these absent fathers pay less than $800 annually for child support." Another area where we tried to beat the odds. As I mentioned earlier, Her father and I did marry. Although it didn't work out, he is still very much involved in her life. I also receive regular child support (not necessarily by his choice--thanks ORS).

By no means has our life been easy. There have been many struggles and obstacles that we've overcome. But I can't help but look at myself and Shalyn as a success story.

*Disclaimer--I have no idea where Dr. Phil got these stats from and how accurate they are.