Gifts and Hope for Teenage Parents

There were badly needed presents of pajamas, shoes and playsuits for the babies.

And a desperately needed gift of hope for the young parents.

That’s the reason no one went away empty-handed Tuesday as a Watts group offered a hand to teenage parents who are struggling to stay in school while they raise infants and toddlers.

Gaily wrapped boxes and bags filled with clothing were distributed to 120 babies brought to an auditorium off 103rd Street. School supplies and words of encouragement were offered to the 112 teenage parents who were there with them.

“I need all the help I can get,” said 17-year-old Larhonda Lynch, a Jordan High School senior who is also the mother of 22-month-old LaRon and his month-old brother, Darrell. “I know I need an education, not only for myself but for my kids.”

But juggling homework and homemaking is tough. The temptation to lighten the load by dropping out of school can be great for a parent who is young enough to be considered a child.

For 10 years the Watts-based group Community Concern has tried to help both of the age groups.

“You see these young parents struggle with so much against them,” said Ella Andrews, the group’s director and organizer of Tuesday’s luncheon and gift delivery. “You see them pushing their strollers as they walk to school every day. You see how hard it is for them.”

Organizing the yearly luncheons isn’t all that easy, either.

Andrews uses rosters of teenage parents provided by local campuses to compile her gift lists. Then she hunts for volunteers from the Watts area and elsewhere to shop for each baby, buying specific sizes of shoes and clothing. Cash for school supplies for the babies’ parents is also sought.

This year, a group of phone company veterans called the Pacific Bell Pioneers bought gifts for 32 of the babies. Some individual supporters believe so strongly in what Andrews is doing that they scrimped to donate to the baby luncheon.

“Several people have put things on layaway so they could afford to buy them,” she said out of earshot of the teenagers and their children. “We’d planned to give every baby a blanket this year but we didn’t get them in time. We’re still trying.”

Andrews was decidedly more upbeat when she welcomed the noisy, squirming children and their weary-eyed parents. A few teenage fathers were scattered around the room.

“A lot of people have shopped until they dropped for you!” she exclaimed. “We love you!”

Seventeen-year-old Gladys Rodriguez--whose playful son Miguel, 2, was tugging at her leg--was glad to hear that.

“It’s hard. He wears me out sometimes,” said Rodriguez, a senior at Jordan High School. “It’s good to have support. It makes me feel good to look around here and see that others are making it too. I keep my spirits up. But a lot of [young] mothers don’t.”

Locke High School senior Noemi Paredes, 18, agreed that school and motherhood is a grind.

“But I want to finish high school so I’ll get paid more when I go to work,” Paredes said as her 2-year-old son, Reggie, squirmed in her lap. “I want to become a nurse.”

Misty Luna, 17, who is studying for her high school equivalency degree at the Maxine Waters Employment Preparation Center, said she is determined to get an education because of her 5-month-old daughter, Melissa.

“I want to be a good role model for her,” Luna said. “Her father is not in the picture. It’s important for her to know she can do it on her own, too. This will show that as long as you try, you can make something of yourself.”

Others in the crowd acknowledged that many look down on teenage parents.

“People will tell me that I’m just a baby myself,” said 10th-grader Sonya Robinson, 17. “Everywhere I go I get a lot of that.”

But 8-month-old Davon is the baby. And Robinson said she intends to stick it out in school for his sake. “I don’t want to be making minimum wage all my life,” she said.

Elvonzo Cromwell, the 19-year-old father of 22-month-old Elvonzo Jr., said he is finishing high school while simultaneously starting classes at El Camino College.

“It’s all going to pay off for him,” said Cromwell, giving his boy a hug.