I’ll never forget that woman in the airport telling the 21-year-old pregnant me that the best thing to do would be to put my baby up for adoption. She was a stranger, and in her opinion I was too young to take care of a child. She took one look at me and assumed she knew what was best. Thankfully I didn’t listen to her.
Blanca Goetz is a mother of two who lives with her family in Rhode Island. She is a faculty assistant for the Virtual Resource Center, a joint effort between the Center for the Study of Social Policy and the Annie E Casey Foundation’s Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative. The Center works to support jurisdictions on authentically partnering with expectant and parenting youth in co-designing policies, programs and informing practice. Photo: Josephine Sittenfeld.