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Young Parenthood

Michael Dvorak, The Sun magazine, June 2015

Chezlani Casar
UH Mnoa, LIS 682
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Introduction
A common theme in young adult literature is that of teenage pregnancy. While early

young adult novels tended to portray pregnancy as a disaster that would surely derail the lives of

teenagers, in recent years the topic has been portrayed with much greater sensitivity to its

complex possibilities (Cart, 2016, chapter 12). Having a child at a young age does not, in and of

itself, necessarily lead a young person down a bad path in life. In fact, with the right social

support, the experience of growing up quickly in order to take care of that baby can, in fact, give

a young adult some much-needed motivation to get their life together.

This was portrayed powerfully through the character of Bobby in The First Part Last

(Johnson, 2003). Because of the strength of his determination to care for his daughter, Bobby

eventually made what was probably a great decision to move with her to the small town where

his older brother lived with his own children. Thanks to the social support of his father and

brother, by the end of the book Bobby was growing into a strong parent. Before having a child,

his main concerns were friends, partying, and graffiti; after, he was thinking seriously about what

to do with his own future.

While the novel Weetzie Bat (Block, 1989) also includes a teenage pregnancy, its

portrayal of the topic is much more fantastical, perhaps like the way a teenager might imagine

parenthood to be. The story is essentially a modern fairy tale, and hopefully teens as well as

adults would realize upon reading it that it is not meant to be realistic, especially since the story

includes a genie and magic wishes that come true. But it does address that fantasy dream that

some teens might harbor of a perfect though unconventional family where lots of love and help

to raise the baby will magically arise.

A third classic work, directly relevant to plantation town life on Hawaii Island, is

Saturday Night at the Phala Theatre (Yamanaka, 1993). While it does not directly address the

issue of teenage pregnancy, the frank yet nave experiences of sexuality chronicled in its poems
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make it clear to the reader what will inevitably follow for many of the characters. Indeed, it

seems likely that many of the characters themselves were products of very young uneducated

parents, who lacked either the social support or the motivation to propel themselves and their

children to a higher standard of living.

Being aware of the challenges of young parenthood is important not only for young adult

librarians, but for any librarians who interact regularly with patrons. While it may at first glance

appear to be largely an issue pertinent to the teen parents themselves, young parenthood actually

affects a much larger segment of the community: the new grandparents, great-grandparents,

siblings, cousins, and other relatives, all of whom might be called upon at some point to help

provide care for the baby, as well as the friends and classmates of the teen parents, their

employers and teachers, and of course, of paramount importance, the baby itself. According to a

report by U.H. Center on the Family (1998):

By far the greatest harm is experienced by the childrenYoung parents are often less

able to provide an environment for the early cognitive stimulation needed for

adequate brain development. Consequently, children born to teenage mothers tend to do

worse in schoolultimately less likely to complete high school. (Consequences of a teen

birth section, para. 4)

Thus, though at first it might seem to be primarily a young adult issue, the responsibility

will ultimately fall to childrens librarians to serve this population as they grow. Compounding

this is the fact that only two libraries on Hawaii Island currently have young adult services

librarians (Hilo and Kona); thus it is of even more importance that all librarians who deal with

the public be cognizant of the challenges and information needs of young parents and their

extended families.
According to U.H. Center on the Family (2015), 31 out of every 1,000 girls aged 15-19 in

Hawaii County became pregnant in 2013. Obviously this figure does not include birth statistics
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for young women in their very early 20s, which is also quite young to have a child. While it is

true that national statistics show a decline in teen birth rates (U.H. Center on the Family, 1998), it

is also still common to see very young women walking down the street pushing their babies in

strollers.

Community
Honokaa, a rural plantation town on the Hmkua Coast, had a population of 2,258 at

the 2010 census (CensusViewer.com, 2012). While there is a tendency to lump communities

together by either the East or West side of Hawaii Island, the north portion of the island is

geographically and culturally distinct from the more populous Hilo and Kona regions. North

Hawaii is characterized by its small rural towns, pastoral landscape, and the vestiges of sugar

plantation life. The demographics reflect this, with much of the Honokaa community descended

from the Filipino, Japanese, and Portuguese laborers that immigrated to work the sugar

plantations, as well as a sizeable proportion of Native Hawaiians and more recent Caucasian

transplants from North America.

While no longer the most populous town in North Hawaii, Honokaa has for the last

hundred years been an important commercial center for shopping, dining, and entertainment. The

town once boasted three movie theatres, and was the only place that sold alcohol for many miles

around (Historic Honokaa Town Project: 1940 to the Present section, para. 2). Likewise, in the

early plantation days it was the place where community resources were concentrated. Honokaa

High and Intermediate School was founded in 1889, and serves the surrounding communities

from Paauilo to Waimea, an area with a total population of 17, 179 (HHIS School Status and

Improvement Report, 2016, p. 3) Since the demise of sugar in Hawaii, many smaller

communities have lost their commercial centers entirely. Honokaa is one of the few towns that

has survived, partially due to the school complex, which is one of the largest employers in town.
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Approximately 2/3 of Honokaa High school students live 15 miles away in Waimea, which,

though today a larger community, does not have a public high school.
According to US News & World Report, Honokaa High and Intermediate School has a

total enrollment of 676 students in grades 7-12. The graduation rate is 84%, and 62% of students

qualify for the free or reduced lunch program (2016). Only 34% of Honokaa graduates enrolled

in college in the fall directly following their graduation (College and Career Readiness

Indicators, Class of 2015, p. 2) in contrast to the state-wide figure of 56%. Popular school

activities include sports teams, robotics, Future Farmers of America, and the Grammy-

recognized Honokaa High School Jazz Band. There are also several other private and charter

high schools on the island that draw commuter students from this region:

Hawaii Preparatory Academy (Waimea)

Parker School (Waimea)
Kamehameha School (Keaau)
Kanu o ka Aina New Century Public Charter School (Waimea)
Lauphoehoe Community Public Charter School (Lauphoehoe)

Area students can also attend Running Start early college courses at North Hawaii Education

and Research Center, a small branch of the University of Hawaii located in Honokaa.

As one might expect in such a small community, there are not many activities outside of

school that are tailored especially to teens. Probably the best example is the skate park which

opened a few years ago, finally providing a legal place to ride ones skateboard. The Honokaa

Peoples Theatre shows current films on a daily basis, which are usually the only evening

activities available in town. The other business that routinely operates at night is a sports

bar/restaurant. There is a local youth center, but it mainly functions as an after-school program

for elementary aged children. The teens who do participate act in junior caregiver roles, helping

to supervise and make snacks for the children, but only a handful of teens participate in this.
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Many area teens spend time surfing and hanging out at the beach in nearby Waipio Valley. Quite

a few also have part-time jobs, either at Honokaa stores, on farms, or assisting with nearby

tourism operations.
While perhaps not a choice of the majority of young people in North Hawaii, it is not

considered out of the ordinary to start having children at a young age (20 or under). Extended

families are usually enlisted to help care for the baby and support the parents. Familial support,

as much as anything, acts to continue normalizing this trend. Though it is wonderful to see

extended families pull together in this way, having a child at a young age commonly results in

the parents settling down young as well: going directly to work rather than college and losing the

opportunity to travel and see other parts of the world while they are young. Additionally, if the

young womans mother had a child while she was also young, it is considered even more normal

for the daughter to do the same. And once teens see their friends having babies, it becomes

possible to imagine it for themselves as well.

One Familys Story

There is a young woman in my town, Maria1. Her mother has six children, two each from

three different marriages, and she had her first before the age of 20. Maria is her third child. Her

older sister Patricia had a baby at 19. Maria, an extremely bright, mostly home-schooled child,

was working regularly on an organic farm from the age of 13. By the time she was 18, she was

the manager of the twice-weekly vegetable washing operation, as well as essentially the

merchandising manager of the busy farm. She was very motivated and hard-working. She

became pregnant at age 18. I attended her baby shower, and I remember well the ongoing

disbelief of her best friend, Tatiana, at the thought that someone her age was really going to be a

mother. The next year, Tatiana herself had a baby, and by the time Maria was 22, she had three

1 All names have been changed to protect privacy.

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children. Both of them have support from their extended families and friends, but they have

certainly given up their freedom at a young age. It seems unlikely that either of them will

manage to attend college or travel the world anytime soon. Now Marias younger sister is

pregnant as well; she is also 18.

This example illustrates how norms around young parenthood are reinforced over generations,

through families, and amongst peers. While it is not necessarily devastating for a young person to

become a parent at an early age, it certainly alters the course of ones life completely. Likewise,

what may seem unfathomable to a teen (having a baby) can easily become normalized, once

ones sister, cousin, or best friend does it without anything terrible happening to them.

Services to Young Parents

Most of the services on Hawaii Island explicitly for teens who are or might become

pregnant are clustered in Hilo, Kona, and Puna, all more populous areas than North Hawaii.

There is a medical center located in Honokaa, though since it is a very small town where

everyone knows each other, one might imagine teens feeling embarrassed to be seen going there

to obtain birth control. Services to new parents, though not necessarily teens, in the area include:

Women, Infants, and Children program (providing advice and supplemental nutrition)
Partners in Development Foundation, which offers the free traveling preschool Tutu &

Me (mainly geared toward grandparents who care for their grandchildren)

Tutus House, a community health resource center located in Waimea which offers a

variety of free classes and support groups (again, nothing expressly for teen parents in

particular)
Family Support Hawaii, which offers a range of services to support families, and has an

office in Waimea

So while there are indeed resources available, there are none specific to young parents that can

be accessed easily in North Hawaii.

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Library Services
As mentioned earlier, there are no young adult services librarians in the public libraries in

North Hawaii. Honokaa and Lauphoehoe libraries are solo librarian branches, while Thelma

Parker (Waimea) and North Kohala libraries each have a youth services librarian in addition to

the branch manager. This means that, while all the libraries have young adult sections, there is no

librarian who is dedicated to curating that space, outreaching to teens, or creating programming

that appeals to them specifically. Thus, it is the responsibility of all librarians in the region to stay

mindful of this segment of our patron population, and endeavor to provide services accordingly.
A classic offering of public libraries is childrens story-time. One would hope that this

would be well attended by young parents as well as more mature ones; however, for whatever

reason, childrens story-time in Honokaa has been so poorly attended of late that it is in danger

of being discontinued. It seems possible that one reason for this is a failure of marketing; since

younger parents presumably have different media behaviors, they may never have read the

librarys column in the Hmkua Times which advertises childrens story-time. It is also

plausible, since teens are not known to use the public library in large numbers in Honokaa, that

when they become young parents they are still not very likely to visit the library. It might take

some intensive library outreach to the high school, along with new marketing tactics, to start

convincing teens to visit the library in larger numbers.

Also important is the idea of combating the overwhelming impression that libraries are

just about books. More programming involving teens would help to change that. It generally

happens that the only time teens visit Honokaa library in large numbers (outside of occasional

class visits) is when small ensembles from the Honokaa Jazz Band play concerts in the library,

and lots of teens will come to watch and support their friends. The last time that happened, many

teen attendees also took home seed packets from the new Seed Share Station, which hopefully
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will turn into a reason for them to stop by again soon. Showing that public libraries are not only

about books but are dynamic spaces where people are doing interesting things is important for

attracting teen attention.

Conclusion
In order to effectively serve young parents, North Hawaii libraries need to work harder

to get more engaged with the teen community as a whole. The Honokaa library has virtually no

relationship with Honokaa High & Intermediate School, even though they are across the street

from one another (and the school has no library of its own). It is partially a challenge of

resources, as a solo librarian has a lot to manage without trying to get into the high school for

booktalks or attempting to create a teen advisory board. Yet these steps would be very beneficial

if they could be taken. One possibility is that of forging relationships with individual teachers or

club leaders, and perhaps offering mobile displays of books on different topics that would be of

interest to students (such as pregnancy).

Another opportunity might be to get greater input from the few teenagers who already

volunteer at the library. They could be the beginnings of a teen advisory board, or they could

brainstorm ways to form clubs that might bring more teens into the library. These ideas also face

a challenge of space, since the library has no meeting room and the teen space is at one end of

the open main room.

As for young parents, Tutu & Me Traveling Preschool has begun recently including the

library in its regular field trip schedule. This is a good opportunity to introduce children to the

library at a young age, as well for their parents or caregivers (who attend with them) to learn that

the library is a fun space to visit frequently in a town with limited options. If children grow up

enjoying the library, they will eventually grow into teens who still have good feelings about

visiting it, whether or not they are avid readers.

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In conclusion, services to young parents are services to the entire community. Young

parents in North Hawaii are typically surrounded by their extended families, and many relatives

may care for the child at some point during its early years. Thus, to effectively offer service to

young parents and their children, we must be aware of their existence, offer exciting and fun

programs for children and teens alike, and make sure the whole community knows about these.

We also must strive to reach out to grandparents and other relatives as often as possible, as they

are likely to be the ones who end up introducing baby to the library. Viewing young parents in

the full context of family, school, and community is the most effective way to reach them where

they are.
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References

Block, Francesca Lia. (1989). Weetzie Bat. NY: Harper Collins.

Cart, Michael. (2016). Young adult literature: From romance to realism. Chicago: Neal-
Schuman.

Dvorak, Michael (photographer). (June 2015). Cover, The Sun, 474.

Hawaii State Department of Education and University of Hawaii. (2016). College and career
readiness indicators: Class of 2015. Honolulu, HI: Hawaii P-20 Partnerships for
Education.
http://www.p20hawaii.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Honokaa15.pdf

Hawaii State Department of Education, Accountability Section. (2016). Honokaa High and
Intermediate School Status and Improvement Report. Honolulu, HI.
http://arch.k12.hi.us/PDFs/ssir/2015/Hawaii/360SSIR-5.pdf

Historic Honokaa Town Project. (2016). 1940 to the present: A world war, Camp Tarawa, and
the end of sugar.
http://www.historichonokaaproject.com/history_part_6.html

Johnson, Angela. (2003). The first part last. NY: Simon & Schuster.

United States Census. (2012). 2010 Census population of Honokaa, HI. Retrieved from
http://censusviewer.com/city/HI/Honokaa/2010
US News & World Report High School Rankings. (2017). Honokaa High and Intermediate
School. Retrieved from
http://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/hawaii/districts/hawaii-department-
of-education/honokaa-high-and-intermediate-school-6136

University of Hawaii Center on the Family. (1998). Teen birth rates falling still bring heavy
costs. Honolulu, HI.
http://uhfamily.hawaii.edu/publications/papers/teen_birth_rates_falling.htm

University of Hawaii Center on the Family. (2015). Snapshots of Hawaiis teens: Hawaii
County, year 2013. Honolulu, HI.
http://uhfamily.hawaii.edu/publications/brochures/1b887_COF_Snapshots-
HawaiiCounty_2013Data_v01.pdf

Yamanaka, Lois-Ann. (1993). Saturday night at the Phala theatre. Honolulu, HI: Bamboo
Ridge Press.