Eight and her baby

Eight was too young was all I could think.

She told me she was pregnant and my first thought was that I wanted to shake her and shout ‘no!’ I wanted to go back in time and talk to her before that day, months earlier, that set her life on a new path. I also wanted to find the boy involved and throttle him.

But my second thought was that it wasn’t my choice to make back then any more then it was my right to tell her what to do now that she was expecting.

She proudly showed me the little bump that made it impossible to button her pants anymore. I saw the pride and awe on her face and a little bit of fear in her eyes as well. Or maybe I was imagining it. Maybe I was afraid so that’s what I saw reflected in her eyes. Either way the pride and awe were real.

I wanted, to be honest I still want, to have the power to give someone a chance to reconsider getting pregnant in middle school. I want my kids to have the choice to be young and free for longer than 13 or 14 years. The hardest lesson to learn as a teacher, probably as an adult in general, is one I learned from Eight…that you can’t make someone live their life the way you think they should.

Then I realized that’s a hard lesson to learn at any age and my hard lesson was probably a lot harder for the kids learning the lesson like they’re an adult. Yet another lesson Eight taught me.

Thank you Eight.