Let's put the teen moms aside for a second and focus on how fast their babies are growing up--Bentley and Sophia are already three years old! But while the girls can finally clock in more than two hours of sleep a night, toddlers pose new and different difficulties...
When their kids were infants, Farrah and Maci struggled to balance their social lives, school and parenting. But most of the time, they could strap the kids into a car seat or lay them underneath something shiny and they'd stay put for a while. Now, Bentley can (loudly) refuse to go somewhere and Sophia can run after the shiny object in the next room. Toddlers are more like miniature people and require just as much--if not more--attention than infants.
Graduating from diaper duty is a great accomplishment, but as illustrated by Farrah, potty-training is far from easy. While she wants to date and enjoy being in college, Farrah is stuck at home, teaching her daughter how to use the bathroom like a big girl. She spends more time running after a mischievous Sophia than planning her social life. That's not exactly the college experience she imagined.
And Maci is fighting her own battle with separation anxiety. Bentley has spent his entire life around adults, either with Maci and Kyle or Ryan and his family. It's time he made some friends and learned how to play with other kids, but it breaks Maci's heart to see him cry when she drops him off at pre-school.
The sacrifices young mothers make don't stop when they're no longer teens or when their children are no longer babies. Becoming a parent is at least an 18-year-long commitment, and the challenges don't end, they just evolve with each passing year.
--Written by Lauren Mann of The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy
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