Thank You Thursday: Teen Mom Counters Cliches with Badassery

Check out this amazing profile of 20-year-old Charlie Rose, a teen mom and Smith student who is doing amazing work countering old, tired stereotypes about teen moms. An excerpt:

When she decided to have a child at 15 years old, Rose says that her biggest obstacle was not the physical pregnancy itself, which she describes as “easy,” “wonderful” and “delightful,” nor was it the financial burden – all of Cae’s clothes and cloth diapers were handed down, and Rose made her own baby food. Instead, the hardships came from the labels and stigma attached to her decision.
“For some reason,” she says, “people have very visceral responses to teen pregnancy. It’s sort of the unifying issue, because everyone thinks that teen moms are awful. It challenges the idea of adulthood that we’ve established, the idea that teenagers are always irresponsible… From a patriarchal state, teen mothers are threatening because women are supposed to belong to their fathers until they belong to their husbands.”

Thanks to J. Courtney Sullivan for the heads up.

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