Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, December 19, 1993 TAG: 9312170106
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BETH MACY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
"But I have to help somebody else," says the 49-year-old Glisson, who is director of Christian education at Salem's First United Methodist Church. "I have to do something to help other parents struggling with how they feel about this and what their options are."
Glisson wasn't sure herself how she felt when she found out her 17-year-old daughter, Mary, was pregnant earlier this year. Glisson's husband, a General Electric technician, was "wound tighter than a clock, and he's normally very easy-going."
The couple was embarrassed and ashamed, hurt and confused. "We in no way uphold her for what she's done," Glisson says. "But on the other hand she is our daughter, and we're not throwing her out on the street. This is our grandchild."
Glisson decided to confront the problem head-on. She and her husband approached their church community and closest friends and said, "Mary's pregnant. We need your prayers."
"It was so uplifting, I could just feel the strength come into me," she says.
Glisson's granddaughter, Rachel, is 2 months old now. Her daughter, Mary, takes her to school at Roanoke's Maternal Infant and Education Center. And while Glisson admits she's often frazzled - she recently had a diabetes complication, possibly brought on by stress - she's trying to make the best of the situation by helping others.
Her support group meetings draw a handful of people in similar situations, from different backgrounds. Together they detail the joys and disappointments of unexpected grandparenthood. They talk about how addictive their grandchildren are, where their children conceived their grandchildren, the social stigma still surrounding teen pregnancy among the middle- and upper-class. They discuss legal and financial issues such as grandparents' rights and child-support enforcement.
Glisson's Virginia Heights home is cluttered with baby items, Christmas decorations, family pictures and worn-looking antiques. In her living room she rocks her granddaughter and talks about the dreams she once had for her daughter - graduation, college, marriage and family.
She doesn't think about the future anymore, she says. She just concentrates on keeping faith.
"You do what you feel is right for your child," she says. "Then you realize God didn't just give you a mind to make decisions. He gave her one, too."
Glisson was suspicious that her daughter had become sexually active, but Mary denied it - because she knew her mother was against premarital sex. Mary got pregnant between the hours of 3 and 5 p.m. - as most teens do - at her boyfriend's house, her mother says.
Glisson believes schools should consider adopting a year-round schedule to help parents monitor children while they work. She also believes Roanoke should expand its pregnant-teen school to better accommodate students with children.
"It's a Lake Wobegon thing," she says, referring to Garrison Keillor's slogan, "where all the women are strong, the men are good-looking and the children are above-average." The fact that the Roanoke school system located its pregnant-teen school on Grandin Road, away from a high school campus - without so much as a sign on the building - is an example of the community's denial of teen pregnancy.
"If we don't see it, it's not there," Glisson explains.
She believes churches and schools should do more to promote abstinence, such as starting support groups for virgins.
Teen pregnancy is not the kind of issue parents typically turn to their churches for support, Glisson adds. "However, it is the kind of thing they need to turn to their churches for, for the love and concern a church family can give them. Because regardless of the deed that was done, the most important thing is that this is a child, a baby for loving. And in that respect we have to be a compassionate community.
"That child had nothing to do with the circumstances of its birth. We have to take care of it once it gets here."
by CNB