Teenage motherhood (2)
By Jacqui Iwu (jackie@sunnewsonline.com)
Saturday November 17, 2007

Like I said in part one of this piece many parents these days have failed in their responsibilities of child-upbringing – you see secondary school girls exhibiting all sorts of sex appeal. Someone will say-e-em, most of them live in boarding schools so the school should be held responsible.
Fine, I agree that the school has a role to play too but if a girl is well brought up at home by her parents, school authority or not, she knows where she is going. The family is the foundation of discipline and morals before any other sector – be it religion, school or peer group.

The bad story is when a girl becomes a mother in her teenage life, automatically she stops her education. Majority of them are not so lucky to continue their education after child birth. A lot of them in the village will abandon the child in the village and run to the cities to work as house maids, roadside telephone operators etc. I once had a friend who had a house maid sent to her from a village in the Eastern part of the country, who already has a child. When my friend told me about this I never believed her till her eldest sister who brought her confirmed it. Looking at the girl or would I say woman then, I could never, never believe she knows anything about sex not to talk of giving birth to a living child.

Now as for those of them with the VVF ailment what happens to their husbands at home while the girls are at the hospital pinning away with uncontrolled regular urine leakage and so on? Won’t they re-marry? Of course most of them do! The girl child should try and get proper education because if you are educated, you would be knowledgeable enough to know when to start your motherhood for your own good health and long life.

The Government should also sanction parents who forced their girl child to marry in the early teenage stage of life without proper education. For women organization in the Northern part of Nigeria where we have serious cases of VVF, concentrate more on how to stop teenage marriage because medical treatment or no treatment, those girls lives affected by the sickness can never be the same after – for those who survive it!

FITNESS WATCH: Tired of those cold-sugar-loaded snacks served in-flight? Wrap your own sandwich and some apples before you board.

BEAUTY SPLASH: If you have scanty hair, stop covering it but feed it well. Avoid braiding, invest in nourishing genuine hair products especially relaxer, shampoo and conditioner. Visit the salon with your own products because salon products won’t do much. Eat healthy too.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Motherhood should be a joy and pride and not a shame and pain