When I was sixteen I got involved with a man from our town and ended up with a baby girl. In those days you never called your child's father a baby daddy, you called him the father of your child which made you the mother of his child. Your child would have a mother and a father, you married the father.

So I married the father, and he married the mother even if she was a ninth grader. I stayed with my parents until I finished high school, only then did I go and live with my husband and start college. At nineteen we had another child and another before I finished my Education degree.

I taught junior high for 39 years before I retired to look after my husband and help with my grandkids. My life has been blessed, my husband stood up when it was his duty to do so. I stood and took him for my husband. Mistakes happen, but if you accept responsibility for yourself you will do fine. My kids, and my grandkids get tired of me pushing them, never quit, every day is yours, use it. My mistake scared me to the bone, but all the crying wasn't going to raise my child. That was up to her father and me, and we did our job. Whether we were ready or not, we were parents and we did what was expected of us.