November 11, 1998

Instead of picking out prom dresses, 17-year-old Brandi Franklin is picking out baby furniture.

The Waterford teen and her 18-year-old Riverbank boyfriend, Eddie Vieira, planned on spending this spring reveling in their status as seniors at Oakdale's East Stanislaus High School. But all that changed when Franklin learned she was pregnant and due to deliver a baby in early February of next year.

"We weren't trying to get pregnant," said Franklin. "but we weren't using birth control."

"My first thought was that I was happy," added Vieira. "But then it was like, dang, I got to tell my dad."

Telling their parents they're having a baby is a task hundreds of teens are faced with each year in Stanislaus County. Samantha Phillips-Bland, director of family planning for Stanislaus County Health Services Agency, said in 1995, the most recent year that statistics are available, 726 teen-age girls gave birth. Phillips-Bland said Oakdale is experiencing 29.8 teen births per 1,000 women, below the state average of 37.8. Riverbank, she added, far exceeds the state average at 49.4 teen births per 1,000 women.

Lost in the spreadsheet of statistics that track teen-age births is the human equation. An equation whose sum total is usually a lifetime of hardship and poverty.

"Eighty-four percent of the fathers born to teen girls live apart from their children," said Phillips-Bland. "And from a fiscal standpoint, three to seven billion dollars in federal and state dollars are spent annually for welfare, Medi-Cal and food stamps for California families that began with an unwed teen parent."

But Franklin and Vieira insist their baby's future will be different.

Vieira has temporarily dropped out of school to accept a full-time, $11.50 per hour job for Summit Warehouse in Tracy, a union job the couple feels can bring them financial security. Franklin is finishing her last year in school through independent studies and working part-time at McDonalds.

How far their combined wages will go, however is something these teens have yet to test. Vieira still lives with his father and stepmother and Franklin with her grandmother. They hope to find a place of their own this summer and marry at some point in the future.

Franklin said while most of their family and friends have rallied around them in support, she's grown weary of people who say they're doomed or that they'll end up relying on public assistance to get by.

"They need to shut up," she said. "Because they don't know what they're talking about. They don't know us, they don't know our situation, even if they did have a kid when they were our age, they don't know us. I think we're doing very good."

Vieira said he never thought once about leaving Franklin after learning she was pregnant, even though he was encouraged to do just that by some of his friends. He takes his new role as a provider very seriously and his pride for his new job is evident.

"You see this card," he said proudly of the Summit employee badge still hanging around his neck after a 10-hour shift. "this will open doors….As long as our financial needs are met, I think things will be good."

"He's a little excited about his new job," said Franklin. "It's all he can talk about."

Franklin though is slowly coming to terms with other equally important aspects of parenthood. She said as her pregnancy has progressed, the reality of the life-long commitment they are undertaking has started to set in.

"I'm getting scared now of the pain when it comes out and having a child for 18 years. It's forever," she said, looking down.

Asked what kind of parents she hopes she and Vieira will be, she doesn't hesitate in responding.

"The best parent just takes really good care of their child, listens, is there, spends a lot of time with them, helps them with their homework and gets them what they need," she said.

East Stanislaus High School Principal Joan Wanamaker said she considers Franklin and Vieira atypical of most of the teen parents she encounters on her campus.

"They have it a little more together then most of them do," she said at her desk with a wall of photographs of babies born to her students behind her. "But it's still going to be hard for them because they're so young."

Used by permission of The Oakdale Leader