Keeping a Dream Alive : Teen-Age Mother Sacrifices in Hopes of Reaching College--and a Career

First she was asked to leave her magnet high school courses.

Next she noticed old friends stopped calling or inviting her to parties. Then came the gossip, which gnawed at the former honors student, leading her to withdraw even further from her seemingly carefree peers.

No one could have convinced Lydia Nolasco at age 15 that keeping her baby was only the first in a series of choices with long-reverberating results. But as her body swelled with life, so did her realization that little in her teen-age world would remain the same.

Today, at 17, Lydia has made countless sacrifices that are usually required of a more mature women. She recently skipped her senior prom to save money. She and her boyfriend, David Lopez, a fellow student, made that decision willingly, driven as always by what is best for their child, who was born in June, 1993.

“I just want to keep going until I am finished with college and amable to find a good job,” she said, sitting on the double bed she shares with her son in her mother’s Pacoima home. “It is worth it if I can do that.”

On June 20, Lydia will attain one of her many goals when she receives her diploma with the rest of her class at San Fernando High School and finalizes plans to attend Los Angeles Valley College in Van Nuys. One of about 5,000 teen-age mothers in the Los Angeles Unified School District, she returned to school three months after giving birth, has maintained passing if not stellar grades and never collected welfare.

Like most teen-age parents, Lydia’s immediate reaction to parenthood was that it would be an exciting, even fun, experience.

“I was happy when I found out I was pregnant” after a clandestine visit to the high school health clinic, she said. “I was excited to have my own little baby.”

When she broke the news to David at morning recess that same day, they literally jumped with joy. All afternoon, they talked and dreamed about the baby they had created together.

She waited until her second trimester, when the tightness of her clothes could no longer conceal her pregnancy, to tell her parents. While she was sure of their unconditional love and support, she knew the news would break their hearts.

As the youngest of five children and the only daughter in a working-class family, Lydia had been a protected and cherished child steeped in her parents’ Mexican heritage and Baptist beliefs. Her father and mother--a machinist and flea market merchant--had hoped life would offer her more opportunities, especially since she enjoyed school and received good grades.

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Now all that was in jeopardy.

But after the initial anger and obligatory lectures, Lydia’s parents assured her that she and her newborn baby would be accepted into the fold of the tightknit family and be allowed to live at home while she went to school. Although her parents are divorced, she is close to both, and both offered financial and emotional backing.

“I don’t know where I would be or what I would be doing if they hadn’t helped me,” she said.

The support did not come without some emotional toll.

Late one night during her sixth month she woke up and heard voices in the living room. “When I peeked out the [bedroom] door, I saw my mom telling my oldest brother, Jose, about the baby and he was crying, really crying.”

Lydia returned to school in the beginning of her junior year and soon discovered that continuing her education would be harder than she thought.

As a magnet student during her sophomore year at San Fernando, Lydia had been enrolled in classes with tougher academic standards, attentive teachers and better books and lab equipment.

When she began to be noticeably absent because of prenatal appointments and morning sickness, she was called into the school counselors’ office to explain.

“The counselor asked me if it was a medical problem and I said, ‘Yes . . . I’m pregnant,’ ” Lydia said. “Then she said that I shouldn’t have enrolled in the class if I knew I was pregnant and that I should leave the program.”

School officials say they never forced Lydia out of magnet courses. But because of her absences and an anticipated maternity leave, they recommended that she enter a high school for pregnant students.

Lydia was angry but never considered quitting school. “My parents always said education comes first because they never had a chance to finish.”

Unsure of her rights and feeling helpless, Lydia followed her counselor’s advice and enrolled in McAlister High School, a continuation school for pregnant teen-agers a block from San Fernando High.

The less-demanding assignments were not handed out by instructors but instead made available to students in workbooks, which they could complete on their own time. Lydia felt she had little encouragement to perform.

“All I did was sit around, eat and talk to the other pregnant girls,” she said.

She had lost all contact with her old high school friends--including her best friend since junior high--since she had become round and less mobile and was no longer around at lunch and after school to socialize.

“They said I was so stupid to have a child,” Lydia said.

Her mother, a few aunts and cousins quietly celebrated at an intimate baby shower.

Danny was born at Holy Cross Hospital in Mission Hills after 15 hours of painful labor, with David coaching at Lydia’s side. The two had attended weeks of Lamaze classes together at Holy Cross.

When the doctor asked David to cut the umbilical cord, he backed away with his hands up until a nurse convinced him to make the traditional cut.

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Lydia returned to San Fernando High School when Danny turned three months old. She started in regular courses while her mother, who had also been a teen-age mother, baby-sat. But soon her absences piled up when the baby got sick or she didn’t get enough sleep, and her mother’s need to earn a living made full-time baby-sitting impossible.

Lydia was reluctant to depend too heavily on her family for baby-sitting because she believed that Danny was her primary responsibility--especially when he was sick and wanted his mother more than anyone else. “It was my fault that I got pregnant and I would have to take care of him,” she said. As soon as a slot opened at the high school’s child-care center, she enrolled Danny.

Most days start at 6 a.m. for Lydia. She washes herself and her son, and they dress in clothes that she has laid out the night before. She runs a comb through Danny’s hair, then they rush out the door together with some bread or fruit for breakfast--eaten on the two-mile walk to school.

“Most of the times I walk out of here with my hair unbrushed, or I’ll forget the diapers or extra clothes,” she admits. “But we get to school on time.”

Every lunch period, Lydia can be found at the center with Danny, greeting him with hugs and kisses before settling down to feed him or grab something to eat herself. David, 19, shows up to round out their family gatherings.

After classes let out at 3 p.m. for Lydia, she swings by the center to pick up Danny before the long walk home. She will play with Danny or watch television with him before she helps her mother prepare dinner for the family. If she has a lot of homework, David will come over and play with Danny while she studies in her room. David gives him his bath and puts him to bed.

“If David has more homework, we will just switch and I will give the bath,” Lydia said.

Danny is usually fast asleep by 8 p.m., and if she has completed her homework, Lydia will begin the cycle again, laying out clothes for the next day, before she goes to bed at 10 p.m.

Although his grades are not as good as Lydia’s, David also hopes to graduate this year from San Fernando High. While most of his free time is spent working part-time with his father at an auto body repair shop, he spends as much time as he can with Lydia and Danny at her mother’s house.

“I always want to stay in Danny’s life, and I want Lydia to have a career,” David said. “I hope we get married one day when we are done with school.”

Returning to her old campus required more than catching up with lessons. Old friends didn’t know how to treat her. There was a distance now; new alliances between friends had been made and she was not part of them. There were whispers that she heard as she walked down the halls.

“They would say, ‘She won’t amount to anything’ or ‘She’ll just be a housewife,’ ” Lydia said. “But I know that isn’t true.”

As prom time approached this spring, Lydia looked forward to going with David and feeling like a teen-ager again.

But when her mother and father looked over their finances and found less than was needed for her prom ticket, a dress and her expenses for college next fall, Lydia offered to forgo the once-in-a-lifetime dance. She decided it was better to save for a used car so she wouldn’t have to depend on a bus to get her and Danny to school.

“My mom said, ‘Are you sure you won’t regret this?’ and I said ‘No, I don’t need to go,’ ” Lydia said. “But it was so hard at school. Everybody was talking about what they were going to wear and who they were going with. I just tried to ignore it. I know I will have to give up things for Danny. Every mother has to do that.”

She is determined to avoid the fate of many young, unmarried mothers “who think they can’t do anything about their lives.

“They just accept that they have to depend on other people or stay on welfare,” she says. “They give up on their dreams and if they graduate, they just want a job, not a career.”

Her parents will pitch in for her college tuition, and Lydia hopes that the grants she has applied for will cover the price of books and lab fees. She plans to divide her days next fall between a part-time teacher’s aide job at an elementary school, her own education and raising Danny. The college’s child-care center will offer her day-care at a discounted rate. David plans to take auto mechanic classes at a nearby occupational center.

“I have the attitude that I can, I will, I am going to succeed,” she says. “Hopefully.”