The Reality of Falling in Love

The kids I work with are just like other kids I’ve worked with. They drive me crazy and at the same time, they warm my heart with one hug. They exhaust me, but somehow when I go home, I miss being climbed on. They need diaper changes CONSTANTLY and just like all kids, they throw temper tantrums and call me names like fea (ugly) and caca (poop) and sometimes things so much worse. They are truly like every other kid.

But then again, they are not. They are children of adolescent mothers. Today, I had lunch with a 15 year old who is the mother of two beautiful little boys.  Fifteen and having given birth twice! Can you imagine? I look around the cafeteria during lunch and it seems like a bunch of high school girls playing house … but they are not playing. This is their reality. Do you remember being fifteen? I do. I know that I was nowhere near selfless enough to be a mother. Science tells us that our brains are not fully developed until we are 25, and as a 23 year old who constantly makes ridiculous decisions, I stand as living proof that this is true. These women aren’t living together because they feel that community is a beautiful thing, but because they need this program to give them a chance with their children. My culture shock of the day was that these girls need this program, not only to flourish, but to simply keep their children in some cases.

Today, I saw a young woman – a 15 year old – lose the one place that she and her daughter might have had a chance. When we walked to the cafeteria and saw all the girls crying, of our friends told us that a girl had been having some trouble and was being sent home. My first thought was how are she and her daughter going to make it without the support and education they receive at Posada. It wasn’t until a little later that I found out her daughter, one of my “favorite” little girls with the big smile and cuddly personality, would not be going home with her mother but was being taken by social services. The decision this teenager made did not just have consequences, but it meant that her child was taken from her.

I know I’m pretty much reiterating the point over and over, but I just can’t seem to wrap my head around the weight that these girls have to bear. Now, I’m not taking the responsibility off her shoulders entirely, because she clearly made enough trouble that she was asked to leave. But honestly, who didn’t repeatedly make stupid decisions when they were a teenager. My heart goes out to these women in such a huge way. I cannot imagine holding the weight of someone else life on decisions I make. I hope and pray that someday I can be as courageous as them. I hope and pray that one day, if I’m called to be a mother, I look into the eyes of my child and all else falls away. I hope and pray that, just like I would do for these kids, I fall so far in love that nothing else in my life is the same.