How to escape a culture of teen pregnancy in Arkansas

by Devynne Diaz

Jourdan Stoddard is 21 years old. Every day she’s up at 6 a.m. alongside her 2-year-old son Zane, who sleeps in a crib at the end of her bed. They share a bedroom in her father’s two-bedroom apartment.

“He’s my personal alarm clock,” Jourdan said.

Tuesday through Saturday, she works at The Children’s Orchard, a children’s clothing store in Little Rock, from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Before she drives 20 minutes to work, she has to get herself ready, get Zane ready, feed him and drop him off at day care.

Some days are easier than others, like on days when waking up with Zane is easy.

“He’s in a really good mood when he wakes up,” she said, smiling. “If he were to wake up in a really bad mood, it would ruin my whole day, but since he wakes up in a good mood, I’m like ‘Okay, I guess I’ll get out of my bed and pick you up.’”

After waking up, her routine begins with immediately changing his diaper and giving him a bath because he frequently pees through his diaper during the middle of the night.

“I have to wash his sheets every morning,” she said.

She puts his clothes on for the day and always puts his shoes on after dressing him because he will get fussy if they’re not on. Finally, she gets some time for herself after putting him on the couch, turning on his favorite show, Caillou and giving him a small Gatorade and a Nutter Butter, his favorite snack.

“This is really bad, but I give him a Nutter Butter every morning,” she laughed. “He’s going to be obese, but it’s fine. That’s the only thing he will eat, either that or a corn dog.”

She knows it’s not the healthiest or best breakfast option, but dealing with a terrible 2’s tantrum only makes rushing around in the morning a bigger hassle than it has to be. As a mother, she’s learned to pick her battles.

After she’s finished getting herself ready for work, Jourdan and Zane clean up the mess he inevitably makes in the living room after he gets off the couch and plays with his toys before they leave for the day.

Jourdan, who had Zane at 19, is one of the many teen mothers in Arkansas, which has the highest teen birth rate in America. Arkansas had the highest teen birth rate in 2014 and 2015, declining at a much slower pace than the rest of the country, according to The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy.

The teen birth rate in America has been decreasing since the 1950s when there were 96.3 births per 1,000 women ages 15 to 19 years old, according to data from the Pew Research Center. The Baby Boom era following the end of World War II left Americans ready to celebrate life and thrilled to have children.

America saw the most recent peak in teen birth rates in 2007. Following that year, experts have claimed that circumstances such as the troublesome economy, increased use of contraceptives, more effective methods of contraception, less sex and more education about preventing unplanned pregnancies are some of the reasons that the teen birth rate has dropped.

A Culture of Teen Moms

In 2015, the national teen birth rate for the U.S. was 22.3 births per 1,000 teen girls ages 15 to 19 years old, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But Arkansas’ teen birth rate in 2015 was 38 births per 1,000 teen girls ages 15 to 19 years old. Arkansas’ resistance to the strong decline of teen birth rates in the nation has persisted since 2015, and the state has the highest teen birth rate in the country.

The slow decline of teen births in Arkansas is not attributed to one specific reason, as the problem is too complex to point the finger at any one issue. Some reasons the Arkansas teen birth rate is the highest in the nation could be due to the state’s rural location, a cultural history of teen pregnancy being the norm, poverty and a lack of education, representatives from the Arkansas Department of Health and the Arkansas Department of Higher Education said.

“We are starting out really, really high, so we have a longer ways to go,” said Bradley Planey, the Family Health Branch Chief at the Arkansas Department of Health about the high teen birth rate. “We also have a culture, a history, where teen births are more common. Just statistics will tell you that the daughter of a teen mom is statistically more likely to be a teen mom herself.”

Daughters of teen parents are 22 percent more likely to end up having children at a young age, according to a 2008 study by the Schuyler Center for Analysis and Advocacy.

The historical acceptance of teen mothers as the norm in Arkansas communities and families slows down Arkansas’ progress when trying to lower the high teen birth rate, he said.

“You got that history slowing us down in terms of progress,” he added. “You not only have role models where the mother is a teen, but you also have a community, possibly, where that is a little more accepted than maybe some other geographic locations. If you’re in a family or community where teen mothers are kind of the norm, that’s what you see as normal growing up.”

Poverty has been explained as a cause and a consequence of teen pregnancy, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Because these girls get pregnant when they are young, they often cannot afford to take care of themselves and their children. About two-thirds of young unmarried mothers are poor and around 25 percent receive welfare within three years of having their child. Another concern is that if teen mothers don’t have the ability to pursue a higher education degree, it can affect their career goals and finances as well, making it harder to provide for their children.

Arkansas is a rural state, so sex education is sometimes inadequate because school boards of each district can choose whether they want to have sexual health classes taught in schools. However, even if school boards decide to teach sex education, they are required by the state to emphasize abstinence-only methods in the curriculum.

Also, because these rural areas have a small population, there may not be many resources like health or family planning clinics where teens can get contraception. Between 1990 and 2010, the teen birth rate dropped 32 percent for teens in rural areas, while the teen birth rate dropped 49 percent for teens in major urban areas and 40 percent for teens in suburban areas, according to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy.

Another reason why the teen birth rate is so high in Arkansas might be how hard it is to impact 18- and 19-year-olds, who have the highest teen birth rate. In 2015, The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy reported that girls ages 18 to 19 made up 74 percent of the teen births in Arkansas.

Planey stressed that this group of teenagers are hardest to reach because many of them “may or may not be in school and a lot of them are considering the changes in life, going from being a student to being something else.”

In an effort to combat the high teen birth rate, especially among older teens, the Arkansas Department of Health partnered with the Arkansas Department of Education to create Act 943, which the state legislature passed in 2015.

Act 943 is geared toward older teens who are in college; it aims to educate students about unplanned pregnancies and how to prevent them from occurring. Many colleges incorporate the education plan into college orientations and require training courses for freshmen students, who are normally around 18 or 19 years old.

The act was developed by a group led by Angela Lasiter, a program specialist in the Government Relations and Student Success Division of the Arkansas Department of Higher Education.

“The schools know their students and know how best to reach them,” Lasiter said. “ADHE has provided the action plan to every public college and university in the state, and they are able to pick and choose from those resources what is most suitable for the individual campus – or they don’t have to use the provided resources at all as long as they come up with an action plan of their own.”

Consequences of Outdated Sex Education Programs

Before having Zane at 17, Jourdan had already dealt with a pregnancy at 15. She had an abortion because of a tumultuous relationship with her on-and-off-again boyfriend and because she was moving nine hours away from her friends and boyfriend to live with family in Louisiana.

“I selfishly made the decision to get an abortion because of the influence other people had on me,” she said. “Everyone I talked to about my options kept telling me to get an abortion, and it kind of put it in my head. Everyone kept telling me that I wasn’t going to be able to do it by myself, especially in the 10th grade at 15.”

She regrets the decision, but there’s nothing she can do about it now.

“If I could go back, I would change it,” she said. “But at the time everyone and myself thought that would be the best option.”

She ended up keeping Zane for multiple reasons. One of them was because she knew she couldn’t go through with an adoption, which she thought about doing when she found out she was pregnant but quickly ruled out.

“I didn’t see myself being able to carry something for nine months and being able to give it up,” she explained. “I just get attached. If I had to give it away, I would feel a void for the rest of my life.”

She said her relationship with Zane’s father, her on-again, off-again boyfriend of four years, was going well then, so she thought it would help their relationship grow in a better direction since they were working on things. She added that her faith was a major reason for keeping Zane as well.

“I feel like God wouldn’t give me anything I can’t really handle,” she said.

When Jourdan conceived Zane, getting pregnant for the second time, she was taking birth control pills. However, when she and her boyfriend had sex, they were both drunk and did not use a condom. It happened in the heat of the moment when they both saw each other at a party after a few months of being apart.

She knew at the time about proper and effective ways to prevent pregnancies – using condoms, birth control, day-after pills and, of course, abstinence. She was educated on the topic in high school and knew how to have safe sex.

“I think that I was in denial though,” Jourdan said. “I thought, ‘Wow, that wouldn’t happen to me because I’ve never done anything wrong. I’ve had a boyfriend of four years so that’s not going happen to me. It only happens to people who ho around.’ I was stupid.”

Kennedy Whitlock got pregnant when she was 17 years old. She’s now 21 years old and works full time as a hairdresser in Little Rock and lives in a two-bedroom apartment with her daughter, Hensley, who just turned 3 in June.

When she conceived Hensley, she and her boyfriend were not consistently practicing safe sex. Kennedy had gotten her intrauterine device removed because of some complications with her health. An intrauterine device, or IUD, is a long-lasting, reversible form of contraception that has gained popularity among doctors because it is one of the best forms of contraception – they are said to be 99 percent effective, with less than 1 pregnancy per 100 women in a year, according to the CDC.

On top of not being on birth control at the time, Kennedy and her boyfriend did not frequently use condoms and used the “pull-out” method instead. Even then, it was only sometimes when her boyfriend would opt to actually pull out.

When she discovered she was pregnant, she said she was in shock.

“I was kind of excited, but then whenever I told my kid’s dad, he flipped out. And it made me really scared,” Kennedy said.

She said she handed him a pregnancy test she had taken, which she thought was negative. But when he read the pregnancy test, he saw two lines in the little window on the stick, which meant she was pregnant.

“He handed it back to me, and I was like ‘Oh my God!’” she said. “He was like ‘What the fuck are we going to do? We can’t have a baby.’”

She said that scared her, but she never thought abortion or adoption were real options for her.

“It didn’t even cross my mind to get an abortion or give it up for adoption,” Kennedy said. “I wanted to have a baby. I wanted to have a family, and I wanted to raise her. I wanted to have a relationship with her father, too.”

She got married to the father of her child soon after having Hensley, but it didn’t last. Kennedy filed for divorce and now she considers herself a single parent.

“We’re not living together,” she said. “We used to be together, so we would do everything together like a family. We did everything together because we were both there.”

Since separating, they don’t speak much unless it’s about Hensley. He pays child support, and he and his family watch Hensley sometimes.

“It’s really not much of a relationship,” Kennedy said.

Like Jourdan, Kennedy’s life revolves around her child. She wakes up around 7 a.m. every day, gets herself ready for work, wakes up Hensley, gets her ready for day care and gets her something to eat for breakfast.

“We usually rush out the door,” she said. “I fight her on what she’s going to wear to day care for like 20 minutes every day. That’s another thing you have to plan for – your kid is going to make you late because they’re very opinionated.”

Then she works all day at the hair salon, gets off work and picks up her daughter from wherever she may be – her grandpa’s house, her grandma’s house, day care, her dad’s house – and has to make her something to eat and give her a bath if she hasn’t eaten or bathed yet.

“Brush her teeth, read her a story, get her in bed,” Kennedy said of the routine.

Despite being a single mother, having the support of her family has made it easier. Her parents weren’t happy to hear that their 17-year-old daughter was pregnant fresh out of high school, but they supported her after realizing that keeping her child was what she wanted.

“Both of them have been really good grandparents to her since she was born,” she said.

She, like Jourdan, had plans to go to college. Instead, both girls ended up going to hair school at Paul Mitchell and received their licenses as professional hair stylists.

Today, Kennedy makes around $2,500 a month and pays for a multitude of expenses. Rent for her apartment is $800, the electric bill is around $120, the water bill is $30 and her cable, internet and phone bill is a combined total of $120. Her car payment is $400, her car insurance is $200, which is usually paid every six months and day care for Hensley is $400. Groceries can cost up to $200 per month. This leaves her with very little in spare cash.

Jourdan makes a little less, but used to save money by living with her father in his apartment. Recently, she moved to Conway and into a two-bedroom apartment that allows her to have more privacy in her own room while Zane grows up and has his own space to sleep and play with his toys. She makes around $1,600 a month and pays for day care that is $500, car insurance that is $150 and her phone bill that is $130. She also budgets for gas, groceries and other expenses.

Both women see it as relatively impossible to fulfill their original plans of college because they are mostly focused on taking care of their children for the time being. It’s hard for them to put aside time to complete a degree and pay for college tuition and fees on top of being mothers.

Kennedy Whitlock gets her daughter, Hensley, ready in the bathroom, putting a pink bow in her hair as the final touch. Photo by Devynne Diaz

Sitting together on their living-room couch, Jourdan Stoddard kisses her son, Zane, after singing “I Love You” from “Barney & Friends.” Photo by Devynne Diaz

Hensley Whitlock puts on her pink sandals before going to lunch with her mom. Photo by Devynne Diaz

Community Resources

There are some resources for teen moms who are planning to go to college or are in need of money for their children.

The Single Parent Scholarship Fund in Arkansas helps single moms and dads who have at least one child under the age of 18 and who are pursuing classes or courses in career-oriented, post-secondary studies. Executive Director Ruthanne Hill said these students will receive help as long as they are pursuing some job-focused professional degree or certificate, such as technical work. They must also live within certain poverty guidelines and have their high school or GED diploma to receive help.

Something unique about this scholarship is that it does not go directly to the school for funding, but instead helps the parents.

“Our scholarships are money in the hands of that parent,” Hill said. “So if you were one of our scholarship recipients, instead of spending this on tuition or books or lab fees, you could pay rent. You could fix your car. You could buy new tires. You could buy a laptop. You could buy groceries, school supplies for your kids.”

She said their philosophy is that “there are a whole lot of reasons to drop out of school after the university’s already been paid.”

“We want to fill that gap and help the household,” Hill said. “We want to help put enough money into the household so that the parent isn’t tempted to quit school and go get a dead-end job, an hourly wage at a minimum-wage job somewhere.”

The Single Parent Scholarship Fund will help the parents out with money, moral support and workshops as long as the parents are doing their best with academics so that they are making a family-supporting wage after finishing their studies, she said. Their scholarship can be used in addition to other federal aid and scholarships as well.

“Going to college alone can be hard,” Hill said. “Now do it while working full time or working three part-time jobs with two kids and going to school full time. Now that’s some determination.”

Looking Forward

Although the teen birth rate in Arkansas is the highest in the nation, educational outreach and community awareness are two areas that state agencies are hoping to see improvements in to lessen the teen birth rate down the line.

“We have made good progress,” Planey said. “We’ve seen our teen birth rate drop from year to year, sometimes as much as 10 percent.”

Planey emphasized that this progress is due to teens being more savvy and gives them credit for the declining rate. He said the Arkansas Department of Health works with partners and other states to bring in initiatives like Act 943 to bring awareness about preventing unplanned teen pregnancy.

The Arkansas Department of Health also provides family planning clinics throughout the state. It partners with Medicaid to help them provide tools for healthcare providers to educate teens about sexual health and pregnancy. The department also encourages the use of long-term, reversible contraception options. The Department of Health also brings in national speakers from the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy so that employees learn more about the issue as well.

It will take a while to see statistically significant changes in the teen birth rate, but he hopes that the 18-to-19-year-old age range will drop more dramatically than in recent years, Planey said.

He also stressed that while “most people can agree that unintended teen births are something we’d like to avoid,” not all situations for families of teen moms are bad.

“People need to understand that there’s some really great family situations where there is a teen mom,” he said. “Teen moms can be the best, but the odds are just a little more stacked against them.”

Overall, Planey said there is no single solution to the issue, but that there needs to be more people working toward the goal within the community.

“It can’t be just a top-down type of thing,” he said. “It has to be a bottom-up type of thing. There has to be more people in the local community that are willing to take on the problem. There has to be people who are willing to be good role models to younger kids so that they can see that there are things in life worth pursuing that may be worth deferring sexual activity at this time in order to get something accomplished…”

In their new two-bedroom apartment, Jourdan and Zane finally have their own place to call home. Zane has his own room with his own big-boy bed, closet and space for all the toys he used to throw around his grandfather’s apartment. Jourdan has her own room that allows her to have some sense of privacy, even though Zane likes to sleep in her bed some nights.

But moving out into her own apartment put a dent in her monthly expenses, with rent costing $605, and it created more stress, Jourdan said. She worries about money and paying bills more often now since moving out and being more independent.

However, these drawbacks are part of the give and take of being a single mother. Her relationship with her son is stronger since moving out on their own.

“Our alone time at the apartment is nice because we have quality time,” she said. During their time together, Zane enjoys singing “I Love You” from the popular kids show “Barney & Friends.” They sing the lyrics together, and at the end of the song, Zane climbs into Jourdan’s lap and gives her a big hug and kiss.