I had this one friend who was in
love, better yet borderline obsessed with her boyfriend. In some strange way, I thought their
relationship was cute; they had been together from sophomore year up until
graduation. In the beginning of senior
year, she got pregnant. And not
surprisingly, she was excited about the pregnancy and even more anxious to
start a family of her own. As her
pregnancy progressed and she was getting closer to her due date, the less you
saw of her boyfriend. After having her
baby, the father was barely existent and didn’t play much of a role to his
daughter as he should. Here she is,
wondering what went wrong, and working three jobs to make ends meet since she’s
the only caregiver. This situation
reminded me of MTV’s Teen Mom Maci and her relationship with her ex fiancé and
father of her child. She realized that a
baby wouldn’t guarantee a guy would stay.
Their relationship shattered once they realized how hard being a parent
was, which is what happens a lot with teens.
A baby is a lot of work, they require much time and patience, and so
it’s not surprising that once a baby comes into the picture, maintaining a
relationship gets harder.
Unfortunately,
many teen mothers relationship with the father doesn’t last as expected. You cant get pregnant and think you’ve
trapped someone into being with you because most likely… It won’t work. That’s another downer to teenage pregnancy,
even though you may not feel 100% prepared, you still have that mother’s
instinct. The father on the other hand
tends to be less actively involved in their child’s life because they typically
don’t take everything as serious as a female would. After separating, many issues can be
involved, such as child support. Chances
are, just like a teenage mother, the father may be jobless, or he may go out
& find a job especially because he has to provide, but males don’t feel as
obligated as a mother would. This is why
many teen moms have such a heavy burden on them; most of them are single
parents of doing things on their own.
Nine times out of ten the mom spends the majority of the time with her
child, so the dad’s role isn’t necessarily equal. Teenagers, especially boys are still not
fully matured, so it’s not surprising to see a teen mom being the primary
caregiver and the dad still being caught up in his life.
Bottom
line, pregnancy doesn’t guarantee a lasting relationship now does it guarantee
someone will love you. Teenage mothers
face situations like this because of their mindset being that a baby would make
things better, or having the mindset that you’ll be one happy family. Most teenage parents don’t stay together, I
can use mine as a prime example. My
mother thought my father would be as equally involved as she. She thought they would be together forever,
but now, I can’t imagine that at all.
Just because you both share the job of being a parent, doesn’t mean that
you’ll automatically have a great relationship.
