I've been meaning to comment on the movie Juno since it came out what, over a year ago now? Today is the day so here it is.
I got pregnant at 17, had my son at 18 (on my 18th birthday to be exact) and gave him up for adoption. I was really lucky because my rockin' OB/GYN recommended an adoption agency that allowed a controlled amount of contact between the birth mom and the adoptive family. I met weekly with a case worker who helped me go through the process of picking out a family to whom I would hand over my first born. Throughout the years following, the adoptive parents and I swapped letters and pictures so we were able to keep tabs on every one's progress. It was cool. And weird. And cool. My son and I met a few years ago and I'm loving the relationship that he and I are building.
Since Juno has come out, this story seems to enter conversation more easily. Juno made it a little easier for people to hear it. I never really had a problem talking openly about being a pregnant teen or how weird it was to have 23 people in the waiting room when he was born or swapping letters with the adoptive family, but sometimes people had a hard time hearing it. Juno made it a little easier because it was considered a "light" movie about a serious matter.
In one of the conversations about the movie, the woman I was talking to had a clear distaste of the film. She thought it was too light and glossed over the seriousness of teen pregnancy. She thought it would encourage kids to have sex because the movie just wasn't telling the whole horror story of the terrible awfulness of teen pregnancy. To her it was a light, fluffy movie that was light and fluffy about the wrong subject. She didn't like how the character of Juno was so casual, even jokey about the whole thing. Treating it as if it wasn't that big of a deal. The movie didn't make that part up, being pregnant at 17 wasn't a big deal to me either. It was pretty serious but it wasn't a big deal.
This is the thing that people don't understand. Being 17 and pregnant, isn't that big of a deal when you are actually 17 and pregnant. The mind of a teenager cannot even begin to wrap around the whole enchilada of the reality of child bearing. There is a lack of maturity and worldliness that no matter who you are at 17, comes with the limitations of being 17.
I completely freaked out when my doctor told me I was pregnant. All I could think about was my life being over. I had no idea what I was going to do or how I was going to tell my mother. Which I didn't, by the way, I made the doctor tell her. But after I found out and told the people I was most afraid to tell, I started to calm down and I realized that everything was going to be fine. I knew that I was going to give my baby up for adoption, that it would be hard and weird but not impossible and certainly not the end of my life. I was smart enough to know that I couldn't handle raising a kid. Not because my 17 year old brain could grasp the hugeness of parenthood, mostly because I had things I wanted to do and I knew raising a child would keep me from doing them. My brain just kind of stayed in this happy-go-lucky place and I had a great time being pregnant, hanging out with my friends and being the center of attention.
It's only as I've gotten older and have both a relationship with my son and a large stash of photos and letters documenting his aging process that I start to get my head around what I actually did. I remember adults telling me, while I was pregnant and in the few years following, how incredibly brave they thought I was. How selfless and strong I was to have gone through both a pregnancy and giving a child up for adoption as such a young age. At the time I heard these comments, I shrugged them off. I didn't think it was that big of a deal, because at the time it wasn't. The older I get, however, the bigger of a deal it seems. "Wow!" I think to myself now, "I really did that?!?" and I get all impressed with how smart I was when I was 17. Then, I actually remember being 17 and it wasn't about being smart and selfless, it was about being 17.
I see pregnant teens here and there, mostly on Maury Povich and the like. I hear about the girls at Gloucester High and I wonder where those people are who poo poo movies like Juno for making teenage pregnancy look easy and fun. Are they out there trying to tell these girls that children don't unconditionally love you because you gave birth to them? Are they trying to get some reasonable sex education or contraception in the high schools? Are they working to stop vilifying abortion? I sure as hell hope so. We need less kids trying to raise babies with such a limited experience of the world. Teaching them differently would be the mature, adult thing to do.
