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A Balancing Act: Gloria Feldt

Samantha: What area of parenting do you feel suffers the most when you are a teen mother?

Gloria: The lack of emotional maturity is the biggest deficit a too-young mother has. It is not that hard to learn how to feed, bathe, and burp, but it is very difficult to provide mature emotional support to a developing child when you are still a child yourself. My children are great adults now in spite of my shortcomings, but I know I would have been a better mother if I had been older when they were born.

Samantha: How did being a teen mother impact your career?

Gloria: In the rural west Texas of the 1950's, women didn't have a career trajectory. My then-husband found a job in a petrochemical plant but we lived paycheck to paycheck. When I was 20 and my third child was born, a light bulb popped on in my head. I thought, "If I ever have to support these children, I would have no way-I have no employable skills. Who would hire me?" The main thing that affected my career trajectory was the birth control pill, which hit the market about then. It allowed me to think about my future and my choices in life in a way that had never before been possible for women.

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