Learning to be a mom takes time

When 15-year-old Margarita arrived at Heery Center in Albany with daughters Alexandra, 18 months, and Elizabeth, 8 months, she had no idea what a hectic schedule she was in for: "5:30, get up...get dressed, get the kids dressed...7:30, leave. In school 'til 2:50 or 3:00... come home, play with the kids, give them a bath...go to group, tutoring...bed at 11:00."

Such is a typical day for a resident of Heery Center, where adolescent mothers and their children get a chance to finish school, learn how to be parents, and develop a future for themselves and their babies.

Margarita found Heery through a caseworker from Community Maternity Services (CMS), the Catholic Charities agency that runs the Heery Program. After hearing about the center, she told The Evangelist, "I volunteered to come here."

At home, she admits, "I wasn't going to school; I wasn't doing nothin' with my life. My mother never pushed me. She was hardly ever around me -- she'd be late coming home. I've got to have somebody to be with me."

Parenting skills

At Heery, she said, she has learned to go to the staff when she feels frustrated with her children. If she needs to finish her homework, a staff member can watch her children for a few minutes.

Instead of placing her daughters in day care at her school, she can move closer to the environment of a real daycare center by leaving them at Heery, where volunteers watch the children during the day.

As she told her story, toddler Alexandra explored the room, getting into trouble. When Margarita disciplined her daughter, another young mother supported her, encouraging her not to laugh at her daughter's antics "or she'll keep doing it."

When she completes the Heery program, Margarita hopes to work with computers as a precursor to getting into the field of law. "I'm doing well in school," she boasted, "and they teach you how to live on your own."

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