TESTIMONY TEENAGE
PREGNANCY A case of bad parenting?
I
I am Crooxcine Cooper-Mayes, I am from the Island of Jamaica, the eastern parish of St. Thomas, where I was raised by my single-parent mom with 8 siblings including my twin sister. Growing up in rural Jamaica, fondly called ‘country’ by Jamaicans, wasn’t easy without the presence of a father figure in the house. My mother was the breadwinner, leaving early to come home late, taking whatever work available from bartending to hard labor in a factory, to provide for us. The opportunity arose and 4 of my siblings traveled overseas for work, which resulted in a more spacious living arrangement and less financial strain on my mother. We had cable TV back then this was a status symbol
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October - December 2021
and I was living my best life. Yet with all of this, there was still an aching void that nothing could fill. I questioned my mother but her angry expletive-filled reaction to my outspokenness did me more harm than good. This behavior compounded my notion that she preferred and loved my twin more than me, nothing I did was ever good enough. I longed for praise and recognition, I needed her attention. Rejected, I could either be found by myself or playing with my brother. The void grew deeper especially the feeling that she didn’t love me and my father didn’t want me. She wasn’t a Christian, but she had one rule that she lived by; church was mandatory for us. We would attend two different churches arriving for
