"WE had talks about everything in school," says Lynn Drinkwater. "Everything except what it's like to have child. Nobody ever came in to talk about what being a mother at our age means - trying to manage with no money, watching your friends go out while you're stuck in the house, having no freedom and so much hard work. Why don't schools ever arrange talks from mothers like us about what it's really like?"
"Mothers like us" are girls who become pregnant in their teens, a group which is causing growing concern among social commentators. "Gymslip mums", as the tabloids might call them, are perceived as yet another sign of a permissive society gone to the bad. Much of the focus has centred on a perceived upsurge in schoolgirl pregnancies, a "trend" for which there is little evidence.
Young women and girls have always become pregnant but, until recently, we were excellent at pretending that they didn't. According to Dermot Stokes, co ordinator of Youthreach, the national programme for unqualified, early school-leavers, "the figures clearly demonstrate that there is no teenage birth crisis. It is just that the issue is so much more visible now."
More visible because, instead of giving their babies up for adoption, most young, single mothers now raise their children themselves. But apart from paying them an (inadequate) allowance, educational, employment and social structures have done little to accommodate what's been a massive change in how society orders itself.
One of the most pressing concerns, and arguably one of the easiest to tackle, is the area of education. Girls who become pregnant while still at school usually - unless they have a very supportive family find themselves unable to continue with their education. Without qualifications they can not find work, certainly not work that commands the sort of wages needed to pay for childcare in Ireland. They are thus condemned by their motherhood to many years on welfare allowance, a situation which benefits neither them and their children nor society.
BUT while many wring their hands about this situation, few are willing to do anything about it. When Nick Killian, spokesman for the National Parents Council (Post Primary) recently called for creches in schools, so that young mothers could continue their education, the response was overwhelmingly negative. The Secondary School Principals' Association said there was no demand for such a service. The Department of Education agreed.
Nick Killian says a lot of the response was couched in moral terms. "One of the most depressing aspects of the response was the implication that my suggestion would encourage promiscuity," says Killian. "I see this as very much a middle class, we don't want to know response. Those working in the area, dealing with young women who become pregnant, did not consider it an off the wall suggestion at all. Girls from the age of 13 upwards can and do get pregnant; that is the reality. Without childcare, it is almost impossible for them to get back to their education."
It was seeing the facilities which are available in Denmark which motivated Killian's call for creches in schools and he cites the situation in other countries, including the UK, where such schemes work well.
Apart from the benefit to the young women, there's the impact on their children, the next generation. All the research shows a significant link between children's performance at school and the regard which their parents have for education. "A girl who has been through the system herself and had a positive experience is likely to raise a child that does well at school,"says Nick Killian.
It's difficult to quantify just how many schoolgirl pregnancies there are each year. The age of the mother is registered at birth but whether or not she is still at school is not known. What is clear is that the phenomenon crosses class barriers and the urban/rural divide.
Dan Condren of Youthreach in Templemore, Co Tipperary, saw a handful of schoolgirl pregnancies during his time as a vocational school principal. He says that young girls getting pregnant and keeping their babies is "a growing trend" in Templemore as elsewhere. "Our school policy," he continues, "was always to encourage the young mothers to return to their studies after the birth. Not all schools adopt this policy, though."
This is another reason why the issue is so difficult to quantify. The research for this article turned up many girls who were quietly asked to leave school, once their pregnancies became known. One girl was asked to leave even though she had miscarried - the principal told her that her conduct reflected badly on the school.
Lynn Drinkwater, too, had a negative experience. After her Junior Cert, she left school and became pregnant. Two years later, the girls who had stayed on for the Leaving Cert invited her back to the school for their farewell, but it didn't work out; wanting to bring her baby along seemed to be a problem.
DERMOT Stokes believes disapproval lies at the heart of many educators' unwillingness to provide support for schoolgirl mothers. "We still have the attitude that if we support young women in this situation, we are encouraging the behaviour. One of the sanctions our society invokes is that if you get pregnant, life is going to be difficult for you."
Nick Killian agrees and finds such an attitude frustrating. "We cry tears over Goldenbridge and other stories from the past but, as far as I'm concerned, our reaction to these girls is a continuation of that. As a society we don't open our hearts. We don't want to look at the reality of the situation. We find it easier to say: `They should have had more sense'; `We can't afford it' or `We mustn't be seen to condone this'."
It was after a visit from EU vocational training institutions that Youth reach set up pilot programmes with creche facilities. "They said to us: `Your programme is excellent but where is your creche?'," says Dermot Stokes, adding that such facilities are standard in other European countries "and need to become standard here. "If we're trying to be inclusive in our education and training policies," he says, "then we have to recognise that some of our client group are mothers or even fathers, responsible for children." About one young woman in six who joins a Youthreach programme is a mother.
The Youthreach centre in Bray, Co Wicklow, runs a creche to enable young mothers to take part in their programme. Lynn Drinkwater is one of the participants on the course. Lynn left school at 15, bored and uninterested, but now hopes to complete the Youthreach programme and carry on to do her Leaving Cert.
This experience is quite typical, says Nick Killian. "Having a baby makes girls grow up fast and they see a need for education. They know they are going to have to support their child and they quickly come to realise how difficult that is on a welfare allowance."
Amanda Kelly, another participant on the course agrees. "I left school because I just didn't like it. I wasn't interested in what they were trying to teach me but now I want to get somewhere in life. Now that I have my little girl, I value education more but it's much harder for me to get it."
Life is not easy for mothers their age, Amanda and Lynn say, and the rest of their group agree. Along with the practical difficulties is the feeling that they are not valued the way other mothers are".
The most pressing practical problem faced by schoolgirl mothers is shared by all mothers who want or need to work outside the home, and can be summed up in one word - childcare. If creches in schools are not the answer and few Irish schools have enough student mothers to warrant a creche - other ways of supporting girls to help them stay on at school could easily be found. Dan Condren suggests payments from the health boards as currently operated for some VTOS courses.
What is most needed is a willingness to face the reality of the situation. Which comes back to Lynn Drinkwater's question about why schools don't encourage mothers like her to talk about the realities of young motherhood in the classroom.
"Pregnant schoolgirls are isolated in are not up front about it."
We don't say to them: now that you are a mother, you are no longer entitled to a full education. We don't say: we are writing you off now - you and your child. But, as things stand, that is exactly what seems to be happening in many cases.