Life Cycle Stages

Life cycle stages, or t he continuous series of changes that human beings undergo as type of metamorphosis all lead to the building of an individual – wether good or bad. In my personal experice, there have been a number of life cycle stages/events that have contributed to the formation of my thinking and feeling, and therefore have influenced how I navigate through life.

Of all the stages, the one which influenced me the most was my experience with teenage pregnancy. I became a mother at the early age of fourteen, and the impact of the experience still looms close; to this day.

At that point in my life, I was a product of divorce; my parents migrated to the United States from the Republic of Panama in the early seventies. My two younger siblings and I followed in 1979, when to our surprise, we weren't coming to the U.S. to be received by the mom and dad we fantasized about when we watched the black and white movies on the only English channel in our country. Instead, at nine, eight and six years old, we were dealing with the culture shock, and moving from a tropical climate to a place where snow was everywhere - we also had to deal with not having the home we dreamed of.

Being raised in a single-parent home wasn't ideal, but my mother did the best that she could to try to make up for lost time. Unfortunately, her idea of doing that was to provide us with presents, clothing and as many things as the money from her two jobs would provide. She never led on that our military father was negligent in providing support to his three children. She was determined not to appear dependent on him. This led to her working morning and night shifts to fill the void.

Naturally, when there is only one parent in the household who happens to work both day and night, there is going to be lack of supervision; if any at all. Her absence and lack of vigilance, in my opinion, caused me to feel unfettered and in need of attention. Enter boys: I began to develop into a womanly body at eleven and a half, and looked older for my age. Boys were noticing me (for all the wrong reasons), and I welcomed the unfiltered attention.

Soon, just smiling and flirting wasn't enough for me to retain this much needed attention that I craved for, and began to submit to the required action: sex. I became sexually active and had no guidance, other than that of the other participants, who of course didn't have my best interested at heart.

My mom discovered I was pregnant only because an aunt told her that I was physically ill, and was displaying sypmptoms. My mother was mortified and scheduled an abortion when I was ten weeks along in my pregnancy. I was escorted not to an abortion clinic, but to LaGuardia hospital where after squirming and protesting to the procedure, the doctors refused to give me an abortion based on my uncooperativeness.

Needless to say, this enfuriated my mom, and she threatened that