Young Mother -

"There is a difference between encouraging a teenager to wait to have kids and treating a teenager who already has a kid like a leper," says Jasmine. "My son is not a mistake. He is a person. And I am his mother. I might be young, but I am still his mother."

And perhaps most of all, they need us to stop telling their stories as warnings. young mother

Leah did keep her son. She finishes high school remotely while working 25 hours a week at a grocery store. Her mother watches the baby during shifts—a fragile safety net that could break if her mother gets sick. This is the tightrope of the young mother: one sprained ankle, one broken car, one late rent payment away from disaster. To focus solely on the struggle is to miss the muscle being built. "There is a difference between encouraging a teenager