Teen-Age Mother Toughs It Out to Get a Diploma
Janey had a baby; it wasn’t any sin
They were set to marry on a summer day
Bobby got scared and he ran away . . .
--From “Spare Parts,” by Bruce Springsteen
Tara Nicholson strolls on campus at Santana High School, and immediately the difference is obvious.
She’s the one with the baby.
At 18, she doesn’t look a day older than most students. Cradled under her arm is not a textbook from Basic Algebra, but 15-month-old Ryan, munching Cheezits from a Baggie.
Tara is a statistic--one of thousands of young girls who fall into the cold category of teen pregnancy.
Still, Tara’s tale is more human than that, more graphic and poignant.
From Special Ed to Diploma
In four years, she has worked her way up from special education (to correct a reading disability) to a diploma, which she will receive later this month.
She got pregnant and had a boy--whom she breast-fed while a full-time student.
She got married and became legally separated a month later, while wondering whatever happened to Ryan’s father. Like Bobby in the song, he got scared and ran away, leaving behind only his name. Their divorce is pending, even though his half of the papers were never signed, because no one knows where he is.
Child support? Tara never got a dime. And now she lives alone in a one-bedroom apartment.
“Ryan gets the bedroom,” she said with a wan smile. “I get the couch.”
Her separation from her husband isn’t the only one Tara has had to endure. After the split, she lived with her mother; but, as the oldest of four children, she became, in her meek words, “a financial hardship.”
She and her mother are now on good terms, although the estrangement proved stressful. Tara calls it one more chapter in a book of pain.
“Pregnancy sophomore year, marriage junior year, divorce senior year. Sometimes I wonder . . . will it ever end?”
Because of her accomplishments-- courage in the face of embarrassment, fortitude in the face of failure--Tara was honored Thursday night by the Lake Murray Junior Woman’s Club.
As winner of the “On to the Future” award, her $100 prize goes toward enrollment at Grossmont College, where her major will be child development. She hopes to run a day-care center, such as the one at which she works.
Robin Sisson, a spokeswoman for the women’s club, said Tara was honored for being “an at-risk student who recognizes the importance of a high school diploma” and fought to get it in “the face of almost insurmountable odds.”
Joel Jette is a counselor at Santana High, an adviser and friend to Tara--and maybe her biggest fan. He says that, as teen problems go, pregnancy falls behind drugs and the threat of suicide as the most vexing. But it contributes as much as those, he said, to the number of high-school dropouts.
“I feel like reinforcing Tara, using her as a shining example,” Jette said, noting that her grades range between Bs and Cs.
“She’s not a kid anymore. She’s a young mother--a woman--with character and confidence. She’s someone we can all be proud of.”
Tara said motherhood actually had the curious effect of improving her study habits. It made her more disciplined. She rises at 5 a.m. every day and counts on being awakened at least twice a night by Ryan, who has battled chronic ear infections. Tara herself underwent major knee surgery after giving birth.
It’s been one thing after another after another.
As a result, “I got tough ,” she said with a sudden sternness. “I had to. I realized you can’t go anywhere without a high school diploma. I feel tough and very proud of myself. I’ve accomplished a lot.”
Tara misses the good times with friends, the nights out cruising, listening to music and talking. But many so-called friends disappeared in the face of her problems. Her advice to them would be the same as to all her age: Don’t have sex until you’re married.
“And I’m not even religious,” she said.
Her pregnancy was an accident, she said, adding: “I was on the pill. I just don’t know what happened.”
She doesn’t regret having the baby--”I love him dearly ,” she said--but warns her peers to be extra careful, especially in an age when the pressure to have sex before marriage “is unbelievable, simply unbelievable.”
“My life is harder than most anybody I know,” she said. “But hey, it’s just something I live with. I can’t do nothin’ to change it now, so why not make the best of it?”
