Story Photos
 Photo by Roger Werth Bonnie Granchie, a 16-year-old Kelso High School junior, hugs her 2-year-old daughter, Patience, earlier this week. Having a child at age 13, Bonnie says, has made it more difficult for her to succeed at school. |
A mom too young
Friday, December 9, 2005 7:22 AM PST
By Hope Anderson
Printable version
E-mail this articleWhen Bonnie Granchie was 12 years old, she thought she was in love.
By the time she turned 13, she had a daughter.
Caring for her younger brother and sister made Bonnie think she was prepared for a newborn. But now two years later, Bonnie says she knows all too well the trials of raising a child -- while still growing up herself.
"It was a big shock, you know?" said Bonnie, 16, a Kelso High School junior. "I'm not ready for it. But what do you say? I have to do it."
Hers is a common tale of teen parents, many of whom struggle to make it to class, find time to do their homework and even stay in school.
"It's so different than a normal teenage life -- go to school, go play, come home and do homework and go to bed," Bonnie said. "I'm a 24-hour mom. ... I have to share my bed, and share my baths, and when I get older, I'll have to share my clothes."
This fall, the Kelso School District surveyed teen mothers at the high school to better understand their needs. The results have spurred Kelso educators to offer more help, including an effort to start a day-care center at the high school.
"It's hard to get my baby to day care and get to school on time," said Samantha Sheridan, a 15-year-old Kelso sophomore who has a 3-month-old son. "You only get so many absences."
Although the dropout rate for Kelso teen parents was unavailable, Kelso educators said four or five teen mothers -- of 18 girls who completed the survey earlier this fall -- already have left school this year.
School officials say an on-site day-care facility may have kept them in school.
"It just breaks my heart," said Marsha Strader, the Kelso High intervention specialist. "And I know if (the day care) had been there, some of these girls would still be here or would have graduated."
'I was so young'
Bonnie started dating her first serious boyfriend when she was in eighth grade at Coweeman Middle School. He was 17; she was 12.
"I felt a lot older, but I wasn't really," Bonnie said. "Looking back, I was so young. How could I have even been thinking about that? I guess I thought I was in love or something like that."
They dated nearly a year and then broke up. He was on and off a drug high and in and out of jail, Bonnie said.
Seven weeks after they split, she couldn't stray far from the bathroom in the mornings.
"I started puking in the morning," Bonnie said, "and my mom said, 'you're pregnant.' "
Bonnie thought she had been careful by taking birth control -- but "I wasn't taking it as frequently as I should."
Bonnie attended school for her full term and gave birth to her daughter, Patience, the August before ninth grade. She missed the first two weeks of class.
She was forced to use a car in the parking lot to breastfeed her infant daughter, Bonnie said. But she stayed caught up with her classes that year, with her mother taking care of Patience.
Her sophomore year, though, was a different story.
Bonnie failed the entire spring semester, she said. Her mother, who had been clean for 20 months from methamphetamine use, fell back into old habits that spring.
And Bonnie was suspended from school for more than two weeks. She declined to give the reason for her suspension.
"School went down hill when I relapsed," said Bonnie's mother, Kellie Clark. "(Bonnie's) working hard to recover from that. She worked really hard through a lot of obstacles."
Bonnie now lives with her mother and five other people in a two-bedroom apartment in North Kelso. Her mother is unemployed and stays home to care for Patience, who has soft blonde curls, a quick smile and a ready pout. Bonnie's father hasn't been in her life since she was 2 years old.
This spring, Clark, 38, is going to prison for identity theft, said she. Bonnie said she hopes to stay with her grandmother when her mother is gone. Patience's father was in her life for a while, Bonnie said, but he's back into drugs.
If Bonnie completes all her credits this year and her senior year, she still will be three credits shy of graduating, she said. But she hesitates to stay after school and make up classes online with the school's Nova Net computer program.
"It's hard for me to stay after. I want to go home to Patience," she said. But at home, Patience wants to play or color on Bonnie's classwork, she said.
Bonnie is looking for a job to help support her daughter. But without work experience, a flexible schedule and a car, the outlook isn't bright.
"I want to get a job, but it's hard because I don't want to be away from (Patience)," Bonnie said. "I love her so much; it's awesome to know that someone loves you and always will love you."
School's efforts
In an effort to keep girls like Bonnie from dropping out, Kelso offers a Parent Scholar class that teaches about infant care, healthy relationships, parenting skills, communication and nutrition.
They also enlist the help of local community members, such as attorneys who give guest lectures on child support and custody.
"The better we take care of them and teach them how to be parents ... the better off our community will be," Cindy Wardlow, the vocational coordinator at Kelso High, told the Kelso School Board last month.
Last year, the high school enlisted Strader, on-site intervention specialist, to keep track of teen parents and connect them to resources at school and in the community.
Strader gives girls encouragement when they've had rough day. She meets with the families of teen parents to give support at home. And she helps girls connect to social services and health care.
Kelso educators are applying for a grant for a day-care facility, which Strader calls "vital" to keeping girls in school.
"They have so many hurdles to go through," Strader said.
Troubles at school
Teen parents say they're faced with a slew of problems: transportation, troubled home lives and rejection by their peers.
Kelso teen parents can't bring their children on the school bus, and sometimes they struggle to get to class on time.
Home life is often strained with substance abuse issues and lack of support, educators said. Many of the girls, like Bonnie, are raising their children without the father.
"It's tough being a single parent, but imagine being a single teenage parent," said Strader, the Kelso intervention specialist. "You know that there are reasons beyond their control that they're not here, and it's heartbreaking when they slip through the cracks."
Teen parents say they often are rejected by their classmates.
"It sucks a lot when people look at you differently," Bonnie said. "Going to dances, or having a date or having a boyfriend, it's so hard. They're like, 'Oh you have a kid.' "
Charlott Malone, an 18-year-old Kelso senior, said other students' disdain is what "drives me crazy."
"You have a big ol' belly and they look at you in disgust," said Charlott, who has a 2-month-old daughter. "And I was like, 'It's a baby, not an alien.' "
Some teen parents, though, say their experience isn't as hard as others'.
For Kelso senior Whitney Grasser, 17, her boyfriend has stuck by her side, and her family has blanketed her with support.
She always wanted to be a young mom, Whitney said.
"I wasn't disappointed; I was just sad that it was now rather than later on," said Whitney, who has a 3-month-old daughter.
'Good life for my daughter'
If Bonnie could, she would do things differently, she said.
"Stay abstinent, that's what I would suggest," she said. "If I could have another choice, I probably wouldn't have had her. I don't like to say that, but I wouldn't recommend it until you were older, until you have an apartment or a car or a job."
Bonnie and the other teen parents at Kelso High are planning this year to visit classes at the middle schools to share their stories and struggles.
"If I could talk to people, go to Coweeman and Huntington (middle schools), I bet it would prevent a lot of them," she said.
It bothers her, she said, when people assume she's promiscuous or "one of those girls."
"I just want everybody out there to know, it could happen to them, too," she said.
Bonnie, who someday wants to become a detective, said she will work hard to finish school.
"I want to graduate and walk because I want to set an example for my daughter that her mother graduated," Bonnie said. "I want to have a good life for my daughter."
Kelso's teen mothers
This fall Kelso High School conducted an anonymous survey of 18 teen mothers at the school. Here are some of the results:
• Eleven ( 61 percent) said they are or have been homeless.
• Eleven have been abused by their partners.
• The father still is involved with the baby in 11 cases, and in half the cases the father still has a relationship with the mother.
• Only four of the mothers (22 percent) said they have reliable transportation, and only seven (39 percent) said they have reliable day-care.
• Fifteen of the mothers (83 percent) said drugs or alcohol have been a problem with someone at home.
• Eight of the moms said that life at home is too disorderly to do well in school.
• Eleven said there are times where there's not enough food at home.
-- Source: Kelso School District
What Longview offers
Thanks to a federal grant, the Longview School District offers a program, called Even Start, for teen parents from both R.A. Long and Mark Morris high schools.
The program includes a day-care facility at R.A. Long and transportation to school and appointments.
Twenty-two students are in the program this year, said Sharon Erdman, Even
Start's coordinator.
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