Women recount struggles as teen mothers
Women recount difficulties to finish high school, work to pay bills and spend time with kids
Sabrina Varela wanted to drop out of Pecos High School when she was 15 and pregnant. Instead, she took three months off before returning to class. But some of those same doubts resurfaced when she had her second child while attending Santa Fe Community College. Still, she stuck it out and earned a degree.
“In high school, [I] would go to school, and after school, I would go work as a waitress until 8 p.m.,” Varela said. “I think the hardest part would be missing out on friends and trying to balance being a young mom. But I wanted to be better for my kids, and I wanted to give them a good life and make sure I can provide for them and be an example.”
In New Mexico, teen pregnancy rates have been dropping for decades.
Through a high school class, the state has helped teen parents, but not every school offers the program.
Outside of school, New Mexico moms who had their first child as teenagers say low wages and a lack of access to child care are barriers to spending as much time with their kids as they would like.
“The constant financial stress on top of having to work to support them and find child care and then go to school so that you can get a better job is so hard, especially on single mothers,” said Varela, now 28. “I’ve always needed to rely on my family and friends as well. I could never do it alone. It’s too expensive.”
Teen pregnancy in New Mexico has dropped from 12.5 percent in 1988 to just over 4 percent in 2017, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization dedicated to reproductive health.
In 36 of the state’s roughly 260 public high schools, teen parents can enroll in the Graduation Reality and Dual-role Skills class.
The program is offered in Santa Fe but not in San Miguel County, where Varela grew up, nor in Rio Arriba or Los Alamos counties.
“I had a lot of help from teachers and my superintendent encouraged me not to drop out, but there was no official program,” Varela said.
According to the state Public Education Department, 417 parents were enrolled in the GRADS program last school year, and 88 percent of those students graduated compared to 53 percent nationwide.
Around 50 to 60 students each year are enrolled in the GRADs program or individual case management at Santa Fe and Capital high schools, and last year everyone grad
“I’ve always needed to rely on my family and friends as well. I could never do it alone. It’s too expensive.” Sabrina Varela, who had first child at age 15
uated, Teen Parent Program Director Christina Esquibel said.
The curriculum for the GRADs class, which can be taken as an elective each year of high school, ranges from early childhood literacy development to budgeting for food, she said.
“We have two goals for every student in our program — a healthy baby and to graduate from high school,” Esquibel said. “When the baby comes, diapers need to be purchased, and homework is not getting done as things get in the way. That’s when we see a trend of absences and a risk of dropping out, so we step in and help them problem solve so they can eventually do that on their own.”
As a freshman at Santa Fe High, Thelma Perez, 23, said she took two weeks off when her son, Abner, now 7, was born.
After school, she said she worked at fast-food restaurants until midnight. She found a good day care for him until he was 3, but then her mom quit her job to raise him because babysitters were too expensive.
“I would speak with Christina [the Teen Parent Program director] almost every day, begging her to let me drop out. It was so stressful. It was such a struggle,” said Perez, who graduated from the district’s online-centric Engage Santa Fe program.
“I’ve been through thick and thin with him. He’s the little person who never leaves my side. I have friends and boyfriends who come and leave, but we’re always together, and wow, we’ve made it through a lot.”
Thanks to her high school diploma, Perez left minimum wage work for office jobs at a bank and now Presbyterian Medical Services.
On Sunday, she’ll have her mom, sister and extended family over for carne asada.
“I don’t remember my first Mother’s Day really. I had him in February and then it was just May,” Perez said. “I just remember being scared.”
While waiting tables, working in retail and raising her two kids, Varela took eight years to graduate from community college.
And now she works in the Santa Fe emergency communications center, taking 911 calls and dispatching the city and county police and fire departments as an emergency communications team leader. She spends every Mother’s Day at her grandfather Fred Herrera’s house, near Macho Canyon outside Pecos.
“We’re having a little cookout for the moms,” Herrera said Saturday. He was marinating sirloin steaks in red wine to serve with potatoes, beans and green chile.
It’s hard to believe, but Orlando, Varela’s oldest, is 12, and Orliandra is 8 and apparently has something big planned for the holiday.
“Yesterday, my daughter kept saying how she was so excited to give me a Mother’s Day present,” Varela said.
“I don’t really remember my first Mother’s Day. I was so young. When the kids get a little [older] and start recognizing the day themselves, I think that’s when it gets really special.”