STRUGGLES AS A TEEN MOM

By Teresa Balmori Perez

It was late afternoon when my sister and I arrived at my cousin’s house. We entered her house, where she converted her bedroom into her own proper salon. This is where she operates her own business doing eyelash extensions. As she removed my sister’s old eyelash extensions, she told us about her big plans for her daughter’s quinceañera.

“Briana wants a red dress for her quinceañera,” my cousin said.

“When is the party?” I asked.

“It might be in May, next year, right around her birthday,” she said.

Lucia Gutierrez has been raising her daughter, Briana Balmori, since she was a teenager. She found out she was pregnant at the age of 15. During this time, she was expecting to have a quinceañera. However, due to her being pregnant, she was not able to have one.

According to Gutierrez, before she found out about her pregnancy, she was living with her boyfriend after moving out of her parents house.

“My step-dad was always against me like, he just always neglected me. He always just put [my halfsiblings] before me and it was sad,” Gutierrez said. “My mom would never have my back; she would always have his back. I felt like [moving in with my boyfriend] was my only way out from the home that my mom provided that didn’t even feel like a home.”

Soon after she moved in with her boyfriend, she discovered that she was pregnant. Gutierrez and her boyfriend were the same age. She told her boyfriend about her situation with her step-dad and he offered her to stay with his family.

“I was just scared. I felt like the whole world just collapsed,” Gutierrez said.

Gutierrez explained that she didn’t know what she was going to do. With only being 15 years old and not having her mom by her side, she didn’t know what to expect with having to raise a kid when she was just a kid herself.

According to Gutierrez, she was surprised by how well her family and boyfriend took the news. Gutierrez explained that one of her biggest support systems during her pregnancy was her mother. Her mom would take her to all her doctor’s appointments and would check up on her to see how she was doing. However, this bond didn’t last long because once Briana was born, they went back to having a difficult relationship.

Finally, in May 2008, her daughter Briana was born.

“I felt excited because, you know, she was there, and obviously I love her, but it’s just, it was just unreal…it just didn’t feel real to me,’’ Gutierrez said.

Two years after she had her daughter, she and her boyfriend got married at the age of 18. Their wedding was a small and simple party. They invited both of their families to the wedding. Gutierrez’s grandfather was the one who gave her away for her wedding.

Gutierrez explained while she was raising her daughter, she had to quit school during her junior year in order to work and provide for her. She worked at Walmart, while both of Briana’s grandmothers watched over her baby. That meant that she had to give up all her activities and social life. She described that time as feeling really lonely and vulnerable.

Her grandmother Maria Rosa Calderon would help Gutierrez by buying her diapers and milk for the baby, and by providing extra food for them.

According to Calderon, her husband didn’t have a job at the time because he refused to find a job, so she tried her best to provide for them.

Meanwhile, during this time, Gutierrez mentioned that her marriage wasn’t going well due to her husband physically abusing her.

“Once he put hands on me, that’s when I decided to just, you know, let him go. That wasn’t the first time he hit me though,” Gutierrez said.

Calderon mentioned that her granddaughter would keep her issues with her husband a secret from the family. Calderon was unaware that he would abuse her granddaughter. This made Calderon furious that she had to find out after their divorce.

Despite this, Gutierrez still tried to make her marriage work for the sake of their daughter. But she finally had enough and left him when their daughter was 5 years old.

Calderon explained that she was happy that she finally had the courage to leave him after years of being with him.

After she left her husband, she became a single mother. She and Briana then went to live with her aunt in Los Angeles for three months. After she left Los Angeles, she moved back with her ex-husband for six months, until Gutierrez had a fight with her ex, which made her move into her uncle’s house. Gutierrez and her daughter stayed there for a few months until one of Gutierrez ‘s friends offered to live with her.

It was in the afternoon, when I went to interview my second cousin Briana. She just got home from volleyball practice. She gave me a notebook and pen to get started on my interview. We both sat at the dinner table as she told me her feelings towards her parents. According to Briana, her parents’ divorce really affected her while growing up.

“It really affected me a lot, like, emotionally because when I was little, I was really attached to my biological dad. So, then, when [I stopped seeing him], it really changed me,” Briana said.

Briana mentioned that she was really depressed during that time and would refuse to leave her room or even eat properly. Her family had to sit next to her to make sure she would eat.

“I was lowkey sad because I would see all my friends with their dads and everything, and I’d be like, ‘Oh, why can’t I have that?’” Briana said.

Although her dad wasn’t around, she still had her mother by her side.

“She’s honestly my hero, and my biggest inspiration. I really love her a lot. She’s my strength,” Briana said.

Two years after Gutierrez divorced her ex-husband, she met her current husband. They met through a friend of Gutierrez. They were both in their early twenties.

According to Gutierrez, she thought that she was going to be a single mother forever because she thought no one would want to be with someone who already has a kid. Gutierrez mentioned that, after her husband met her daughter, he did everything he could to provide for them by giving Briana her own room and by taking responsibility as a father figure.

“He became like, you know, a father figure to Briana,” Gutierrez said.

“He made a huge impact. He really stepped in when my biological dad left me, and honestly, he’s played a good role at being a dad,” Briana said. “He did way more for me than my biological dad has ever done. He treats me like his own daughter.”

Gutierrez explained that her husband made her believe that there are always second chances in life. She has been happily married to her husband for almost a decade. She has three kids, a 9-year-old boy, a 5-yearold girl and her oldest Briana who is 14 years old. She was able to get her GED and earned her certificate in eyelash care.

As for the future, Gutierrez plans to give Briana a quinceañera on a ranch. She plans to invite her whole family from México. She feels grateful that she has the opportunity to give her daughter a quinceañera. Gutierrez hopes that her daughter will one day go to college and become a lawyer, something that Briana has always wanted.