Gabriela Linares

Prof. Laura Stivers

Hon. Ethics: Moral Philosophy

This semester I have had the benefit of volunteering with the Young Moms of Marin
program, a non-profit that seeks to provide assistance and overall support to teen moms in the
Marin area. However, as the program has expanded and evolved, they also extend their services
to teens outside the Marin area and moms who were pregnant as teens but may be older with
their child now. After the founder, Teresa Ashby, came to my Honors Ethics class and explained
what sort of volunteers she was looking for and what the program offered I was eager to have my
service-learning placement with them.
Teresa explained that the program was evolving more within the last few months than it
had during the years she started the program. Originally, the girls a would meet at a nearby park
in downtown San Rafael for their meetings, the kids would play on the playground with various
volunteers while the girls had their meeting, presentations, etc. at the picnic tables. Now, after
making connections with the church, the group has a more stable meeting-place that allows them
to get together, despite the weather and therefore, broaden the types of activities they can
undertake. For instance, Teresa is on her of organizing more guest-presentations, there are more
opportunities for birthday parties and celebrations, and an increased chance in more members
attending meetings. Through this location, Teresa also has more stable volunteers as most of
them are members of the church group as well. The stability is most evident during Circle
Time where the moms and their kids join with the volunteers to sing nursery rhymes and classic
kids songs, to start off each gathering, something that wouldve been hard to do in unpredictable
weather and the lure of a playground. The girls and their children have a sense of stability, which
is extremely important for their sporadic lives.
It was important for me to volunteer with Young Moms of Marin (YMM) for a few
reasons. Class lessons reinforced my concept that volunteering is more than just helping people
who are less privileged than you or creating a us and them mentality were the us is helping
them because they need it. It is about seeing our similarities as well as our differences, and
capitalizing on those similarities to lessen the differences. Throughout high school I was
definitely exposed to the issue of teen pregnancy, even as some of my friends became pregnant,
but service-learning at YMM gave me a deeper insight to what these young women go through
on a daily basis and in sometimes more difficult situations than the girls I knew who became
pregnant back home. During a class exercise one day, we were asked if a stereotype we had was
confirmed by our time at our service-learning placement; I answered yes. I believe, and still
believe in the phrase: Babies should not be raising babies, I know and (from what I gather
from the moms themselves at YMM) that they have cut out of their childhood (or teen-hood)
certain experiences as they were skyrocketed into adulthood. Nevertheless, because they chose
to keep their children and become parents does not mean they should be penalized for taking on
such a huge responsibility. These young women are discriminated against and looked-down
upon every day as the adequate services they need, like childcare, education, etc., are denied to
them. Moreover, I see even less excuses for why the systems and infrastructures in place should
penalize the children at all. I see plenty of correlation between lessons in class and my service
placement, as we explored the ethical issues surrounding welfare programs.