HAGERSTOWN – The nursery at the Family Center in Hagerstown looks like a typical day care center, scattered with baby monitors and rocking chairs, but the teenagers caring for the 18 or so infants are not part-time assistants or after-school volunteers.
They’re the parents. And this is not just day care, it’s their school.
Nineteen-year-old Nickie Billman, the proud mother of 19-month-old Julian, got her diploma through the High School Credit Program at the center last June and knows that she wants a career in child care.
She works as a child development aide at the center now, a chance for advancement she might not have without the program.
Capital News Service is identifying the young mother by her first name only to protect her privacy.
In Washington County, a rural area where teen pregnancy is high, Billman is something of an exception.
Challenged to coordinate child care, work and graduating high school before they can even drive or vote, a few have overcome these obstacles, but at such a young age many teen mothers aren’t quite sure where they’re headed beyond motherhood.
Billman may be quiet, but she’s determined, said the school program case manager, Shana Matthews.
“If you give her resources, she’s willing to use them,” Matthews said. “She had a way of just making it look easy.”
The way Billman interacts with and nurtures Julian also sets a good example for parenting skills, an asset for a child care worker that the center could help Billman build on, Matthews said.
“She is just awesome with Julian,” Matthews said.
Billman’s entire face brightens as she points to the pictures of her and her son around the nursery. They share blond hair and fair skin, but Julian’s eyes are even bigger than his mom’s.
Julian’s dad watches him twice a week, and she’s found child care for the other three days so she can work full-time and get closer to enrolling at Hagerstown Community College in January to become a certified child care worker.
Billman doesn’t want to wait too long to go to college because that might derail her long-term career plans.
When she waited to talk to her mom about sex, Julian came along.
During the month between telling her mom about her sexual activity and her appointment to get birth control, she got pregnant.
Many of the other students here were also reluctant to talk about sex with their parents until they had to break the news about their pregnancies, and some still are.
“Just because a teen parent has now had a child, that doesn’t mean open communication is there about sexual activity and birth control options,” Matthews said.
Keeping students engaged in the program seems to be the most effective method of preventing a second pregnancy, said Karen Christof, the center’s director.
Once the girls graduate or leave the program, Christof said, they can face the same problems with access to birth control and potentially unstable relationships.
But many of the girls emphasized that the sight of a crying baby is the best reminder they could have to take their daily birth control pill or replace their patch.
Every girl in the program has made a huge stride by taking advantage of the center’s resources and valuing their education enough to stay in school after having a child, Matthews said.
“They have a ton of potential,” Matthews said.
As for Billman, she wants a career and a bigger family – eventually.
Though it would be nice to have her children close in age, Billman has decided to wait. And with the Family Center’s help, she’s confident she can have both.
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