The Sophian

Issue date: 3/12/09 Section: Features

One of Charlie Rose's photos in her Facebook album, "Pro Girl Mom."

Several years ago, advertising behemoth Ogilvy & Mather launched an edgy campaign in conjunction with the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy. Youth magazines like Teen People and CosmoGirl volunteered to include the ads in their issues for free, deeming the strategy as effective at getting through to teens. The series of six photo ads aimed to confront, in bold terms, the so-called realities of young pregnancy.

In one ad, a young Latina girl dons a revealing belly shirt, her heavily made-up eyes glaring moodily at the camera. Bold, capitalized letters, spelling out "CHEAP," are superimposed across the girl's purportedly pregnant torso. In tiny lettering that runs down the length of the page, an explanation: "Condoms are CHEAP. If we'd used one, I wouldn't have to tell my parents I'm pregnant."

Charlie Rose 'AC has chosen another set of labels for her choices. In a Facebook album entitled "Pro Girl Mom," 20-year-old Rose superimposes bold text across photos of herself and her four-year-old son, Cae. "The way I parent makes me a great ROLE MODEL," is splayed across a black-and-white image of the Rose family, Cae wrapped snugly around his mother. Another photo says, "My son and I make a BEAUTIFUL family," and another: "Breastfeeding through high school made me feel STRONG."

When she decided to have a child at 15 years old, Rose says that her biggest obstacle was not the physical pregnancy itself, which she describes as "easy," "wonderful" and "delightful," nor was it the financial burden - all of Cae's clothes and cloth diapers were handed down, and Rose made her own baby food. Instead, the hardships came from the labels and stigma attached to her decision.

"For some reason," she says, "people have very visceral responses to teen pregnancy. It's sort of the unifying issue, because everyone thinks that teen moms are awful. It challenges the idea of adulthood that we've established, the idea that teenagers are always irresponsible… From a patriarchal state, teen mothers are threatening because women are supposed to belong to their fathers until they belong to their husbands."

Unable to identify with this construct surrounding adolescence, and sensing an innate maternal instinct, Rose made the conscious decision to conceive when she was 15 years old. "Humans are pretty hard-wired to want to continue the species and procreate," Rose says, recalling her strong maternal urges and desires to become a parent. "Biologically, the best time to have a child is during the late teens... I knew it would work out."

Continued...

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