Tracy Engelbrecht was only 15 years old when she became a mom. Thanks to the support of her family, she managed to finish school, study and become a career woman while raising her son, who is now 20 years old.
Ruda met up with this inspirational mother to hear her story and find out more about her book, The Girl Who Couldn’t Say No, as well as Young Mom Support, the social support group Tracy started to help pregnant and parenting teens navigate this huge change moment at such a young age. Watch the full video here.
Read the full transcript here:
Ruda: Our guest today is a very interesting person who had to overcome something that would have, could have floored her, and probably does floor many other people it happens to… Tracy Engelbrecht, so good to have you.
Tracy: Thanks for having me.
Ruda: You were 15 when you were pregnant. Talk about change! Tell me about that?
Tracy: Absolutely, absolutely. It was a couple of months before my 15th birthday when I fell pregnant. I was in grade 9. It was a huge shock, obviously, it was devastating to feel that I disappointed my family, and to worry about what’s going to happen next. But I realised it is not something you can go into denial about, it’s not something you can put off. You have to to take charge.
Ruda: But that couldn’t have happened in the first month?
Tracy: It did.
Ruda: Really?
Tracy: It did. The day that… obviously even before I was pregnant I suspected that I was. Before I knew, for sure. So as soon as I was able to go to the hospital for a test, I went… It was positive. I knew it would be.
Ruda: You went on your own?
Tracy: I went with two friends to the local government hospital where you just had to walk into the outpatients and eventually I was sitting there, after I had wee’d in the jar and the whole thing and sitting, waiting for the result, eventually I went and I said to the sister ‘sorry, excuse me, we came for a test’ and she shouts in the middle of the waiting room ‘oh yes you, you’re pregnant’. In my school uniform, everything. Standing there. She said ‘no, come back next week and we’ll do another test just in case it was false positive’. And I thought ‘there’s no point, but okay, I’ll do as I’m told. I’ll always do as I’m told so let me do what I’m told’ and I waited a week, went back, did the other test and positive, obviously. And then I went home and I told my parents that night.
Ruda: So you were not a girl who was used to playing on the wild side? If you say that you always did what you were told?
Tracy: Ja, no. I was a good girl. I was top of my class, I was never any trouble to anybody. I was a little mousy child that nobody would ever have expected anything of. But… you know… people of all kinds have sex. It’s a fact. And sometimes it happens like that. And it did and I realised I would have to just take charge of the situation. My parents, for obvious reasons, were very upset and devastated in the beginning. My mom, less. She kept it in more. She didn’t express herself because she was straight on to ‘we’ve got to sort this out’, ‘we’ve got to fix this’, ‘how are we going to deal with this’. My dad was much more expressive at the time and he actually didn’t talk to me for a couple of weeks, which was very difficult, but then once those couple of weeks were over, everything was back to normal with us. Whereas with my mom, our relationship took… until my son was actually born… it was a bit strained before it was back to normal and grew to be better than it was.
Ruda: How did you handle it practically? Did you stay at home?
Tracy: While I was pregnant, I was in grade 9… and this was in 1993, so it was a long time ago… you could still be expelled for being pregnant. So the whole thing was to keep it secret from the school. Eventually the school did find out and they allowed me to stay until the end of the year. This was in August. So they allowed me to stay and…
Ruda: And finish the year.
Tracy: And write exams, because if I hadn’t done so I would have left without a grade 9 and I would have been stuck. So that was fine. I passed my exams and did very well. And then I did grade 10 through correspondence at home. So for the first four months, the last four months of my pregnancy I was at home, studying in the morning, teaching myself maths and biology and all of that. And then he was born, and my mom would look after him in the morning while I would study for three to four hours, and then… you know… as if I was at school. It was the same amount of time. And then I would take over in the afternoon.
Ruda: How did it change you? Having a little baby who was your responsibility?
Tracy: It gave me purpose. It gave me a reason to get up in the morning, really. A reason to be the best that I could be. Which, before, I know many people of 14, 15 year old, they don’t have that yet. But I especially needed that, I needed to feel that I had something, and now I did. And I took to it very well, I think I adjusted very well…
Ruda: Why? Do you think you were just drifting along, before?
Tracy: Yes. I was. I was drifting along and I didn’t feel that I had… although I was unconscious of this… looking back now, I realise there was something that I needed, that I didn’t have, that I was waiting for. And there he was.
Ruda: And the father?
Tracy: We stayed together for a couple of months while I was pregnant, then we broke up. He came to visit once or twice during the pregnancy and again once or twice after my son was born, and then not really since… so… My son is now 20 years old, so… it is his responsibility now. That is his to deal with. How he wants to handle it is up to him, it always has been and I’ve never tried to persuade him or…
Ruda: You mean your son?
Tracy: Ja, I’ve never tried to affect the way he feels about it. It’s always had to be his decision and he is happy with the way things are, so…
Ruda: How long did you live at home, then?
Tracy: Forever [laughs]. No, we adjusted. We still live together. We were talking about it at the other day… what would be the point of us seperating now? We have a group, a family group, a circle of people that work together really well. It has been good for my parents to have small children around, it has been good for my children to have extra people around. It’s been good for me. It’s been good for everyone. So… and now that my parents are getting older, there is no point to change what’s not broken.
Ruda: How does your son feel about having such a young mother?
Tracy: I actually asked him this question in preperation for this yesterday, and he looked at me like I was mad.
Ruda: [laughs]
Tracy: He said what do you mean? You’re just my mother. What do you want me to say? And I think that says it all. You’re just a mother. You do all the mother stuff, so it doesn’t really matter. Are you doing the job? Yes or no?
Ruda: What made you decide to start your blog? What do you call your blog? Young Mom Support.
Tracy: Okay. Well… in 2010… I had been thinking about this for a long time. I had written a book in 2007… autobiography about the story of my life. And over the years I have had many people contacting me, saying ‘I was a teenage mom and I didn’t have support’. That sort of thing. With teenage pregnancy being so often in the news here in South Africa it’s a big topic and everybody has an opinion. And I remembered when that was me and there was nobody out there offering the kind of support I would have wanted myself. And I looked and I looked and I looked around for support groups for teenage moms, or pregnancy councelling centres, and there was nobody doing it the way I thought it should be done. So eventually I thought I can’t wait any longer for somebody to tell me this is the way it must me done, I’m just gonna start. So we made some posters and we put them up in the local hospital and advertised a little bit, and said ‘teenage moms in our area – come this Saturday morning for some cookies and bring your babies’. And we had three moms at first, at that first meeting and we’ve since grown to have two groups in two different areas. One in Masiphumelele and one in Driftsands as well as contact with thousands of teenage moms and girls who suspect they are pregnant, from all over the country.
Ruda: And what is it that they need?
Tracy: They need to be treated like human beings. That is it.
Ruda: Why? What is the reality at the moment?
Tracy: They’re not treated like human beings. If you get my mother to have this conversation, she rants and raves because she says there is not a single person on this planet who hasn’t done something wrong. All of the people with the big mouths and big opinions about teenage girls being irresponsible and immoral and I’ve been calles some terrible things myself… The same, generally older, middle aged white men, who get into their car on a Friday night after having drunk, and drive their car and maybe they will crash into someone. Maybe they won’t, but that’s accepted as normal and fine, and that’s just what’s done. And yet a girl who happens to fall pregnant after having sex… she hasn’t hurt anyone. She hasn’t done anything to harm anybody. And yet she’s judged.
Ruda: Teenage pregnancy is seen as a problem. The whole thing of children having children, it is always said with such a… I mean, I’m having to recalibrate my own views as you talk. It’s always seen as a social problem, but this is a different view?
Tracy: It is a different view. You can’t seperate it from the South African reality of poverty. You can’t – it’s connected. But it also is seperate. The girl who fall pregnant today in the township, she was probably poor already. Her prospects as they were before she had that baby were not great anyway. And so when she has that child, it’s not actually materially going to have made that much of a difference. Except now, possibly, she has a purpose. Possibly she has a reason now… I’m not saying that every girl must go out and get pregnant, that’s not the answer. The answer is when it does happen, number 1, to her to take charge. Do what you have to do and ask for help. To be able to have help is your right. It’s your right to have anybody to ask for help. But when you’re a parent, it’s also your responsibility to help. Nobody manages by themselves. There’s not a single person who got where they are today by themselves. No-one does. So, it doesn’t have to be the end of the world. Whatever the decision you decide to take, it’s got to be your decision and has to be the right one that is right for you. But if you do fall pregnant, there are things, there are decisions and actions you can take so that your life doesn’t have to be over. And once you do have that child, you need to know that it’s your responsibility to do it right. So, you know, either before you fall pregnant or while you are pregnant and still able to have some leeway to make a choice about what to do, you’ve got to say this is what it’s going to take to do this properly.
Ruda: Many people will say ‘are you ready to be a mother?’. Do you think that is the right question?
Tracy: No. Absolutely not. It’s the wrong question. The right question is ‘are you willing to be a mother’. If you’re ready, you’ve ticked your little boxes off. ‘I’ve got my education, I’ve got my husband, I’ve got my job, I’ve travelled, I’ve done everything. Now I’m 37 and a half and I have my house and now I’m ready. Tick.’ It doesn’t mean you’re going to wake up tomorrow being a great parent. It doesn’t. It means… being willing means having decided no matter what situation I’m currently in, I’ve decided to say ‘right, this is what I have to do, this is what I want to do, and I’m going to do it to the very best of my ability, whatever it takes’.
Ruda: And this will be my priority.
Tracy: And this will be my number 1 priority. Because that is just what children ask of us. To be our number 1 priority.
Ruda: Tell me about writing your book. How did that start? Why? What was the process?
Tracy: I had actually written the first section prologue of my book when I was about 17. And I kept it for years and years and years. I have always loved writing and wanted to write. Eventually my mom said to me ‘just send your stuff away to a publisher – just do it!’ and I’m like ‘okay, I’ll do it’ and they came back to me eventually and they said ‘yes, please, we want to hear the rest of this story’. So it was published and it was very exciting. It was a lot of hard work to do. And it was my story. It wasn’t difficult to write.
Ruda: Was it good for you to write it?
Tracy: I think it was. Nowadays, sometimes I think I should never have done it…
Ruda: Why?
Tracy: You know, people around the world and… they suddenly feel like they know you. The thing about writing a book is you forget people actually read it.
Ruda: You think you’re writing your diary. Just for yourself.
Tracy: Yes, you forget that actually somebody now has read all your thoughts and has that information about you.
Ruda: And what does that mean in your life?
Tracy: I’m a very private person. I’m a very shy person. So I’m always a bit taken aback when someone starts talking to me about ‘and then this happened and this happened and how did you feel about this’… so ja… It was a bit out of character for me to write a book about myself. It has been good for me, it’s opened up things and it gave me the confidence to start Young Mom Support.
Ruda: And do you think it also means something for all the other girls out there?
Tracy: Yes, that’s what I’ve been told over and over again. The only time you see a story about teenage pregnancy it’s either some ridiculous MTV program which has got no basis in reality, whatsoever. Or it’s some sad tragic tale with… a black and white photo with a Teddy bear on the front cover. And this wasn’t that. This was just a plain old story, my story, simple and real and people responded to it. They needed to hear it, I think. Not what they’re always told is how the story goes. It was different.
Ruda: And how would you summarise the difference? You have said somewhere it’s not the story of a good girl gone wrong?
Tracy: It’s just my story. I was 100% honest. I was 100% clear. There isn’t some very stylised theme and you know that sort of thing. It was just ‘this is what happened, this is how I felt, this is how we dealt with things, this is… not dramatic’. There might be dramatic things, but life isn’t always drama.
Ruda: And the underlying message is actually that one can live with this. It can be a wonderful addition to your life. You are not ruined.
Tracy: [agrees] No, I didn’t… you know… I wasn’t paralyzed… I didn’t kill someone. It really is not such a big deal. It’s as much of a big deal as you make it. And you’ve got to do whatever is right for you. I was lucky that I had parents who accepted that I would be the one to make the decision. And the girls that I speak to today very very often… they are not that lucky. And their parents will make the decision for them, whichever direction… whatever it is. Their parents want them to do a specific thing and they are pressured to do it that way. It is very, very difficult to live with. It’s a huge decision and if it isn’t your decision, the concequences of that decision are much harder to live with. No matter what you end up choosing. If you choose something and someone bullied you into it it’s never going to work for you.
Ruda: So what are you saying to parents of girls who fall pregnant?
Tracy: If I could get them in a room, I would say to them ‘this is your daughter that you loved five minutes ago – you loved her five minutes ago, didn’t you? Now is the time you actually have to ask yourself that. Then you’ve got to love her now. And you’ve got to trust her to make the right decision…
Ruda: And support her…
Tracy: And know that… she’s got to know that you are there, no matter what. That’s our job as parents. That your child will always know no matter what, you will be there.
Ruda: My husband says our child always knows that he has his back.
Tracy: Exactly, that’s… if you want to break it down into the smallest little thing of what a successful parent is, that is it. It doesn’t mean that you have to agree with everything they do, it doesn’t mean you have to give them free reign to do absolutely anything, but they have to know that no matter what, if they do whatever, they can come to you. And too many children do not have that.
Ruda: Your second child was born when you were in your 20s? How was it – was it similar, how was it different?
Tracy: I think the second child is always easier. You let go of a bit of the paranoia of the first time and you’re a bit more relaxed…
Ruda: You know that the baby will probably live… Whatever you do… [laughs]
Tracy: Yes [laughs] She was a very easy-going baby, whereas my son was very alert and refused to sleep for about seven years. She was a much more relaxed, much calmer, very content… it was fun. It was good. And she had a big brother and we were a little family, it was wonderful. It’s less to do with my age than the fact that she was number two.
Ruda: And her father?
Tracy: They have a very good relationship. We also broke up at some point, I don’t remember quite when we did, but they have a great relationship and she’s got a very good relationship with him and his girlfriend and they’re very close, and things are good for them and I’m really happy for her. And I’m really proud of him – of the dad – he’s turned out to be.
Ruda: Tracy, but what I hear you’re saying is face the facts. The facts are what they are. You can’t change them, you can’t… and if you fight against them you will just bloody your own fists. Deal with it…
Tracy: Exactly. I have spoken to too many young girls on the verge of suicide, on the verge… they contact me directly and say ‘how do you cause a miscarriage because my… I can’t afford an abortion, I can’t go anywhere. I’m 7 months pregnant and if my father or mother finds out I’m pregnant, they will kill me.’ Parents have refused to teach them about sex, refused to teach about birth control…
Ruda: But you’re so young yourself, still? To play mother to girls in that situation…
Tracy: Somebody has to. They’re not getting what they need from their own parents. And if our communities and own families were doing their job, Young Mom Support wouldn’t need to exist. We’re not specialised, fancy councellors with degrees and what have you. All we are is someone to listen and someone to say ‘give me your hand. It’s okay… I’ll give you the information that you need. I’ll sit here with you and I’ll listen to you while you make your decision and point you in the right direction. And you are not a terrible person. Now, off you go’. That’s it. That’s what moms and dads should be doing, and they’re not.
Ruda: Who are involved in Young Moms Support? You and your parents?
Tracy: Me and my mom, and my dad does general odd jobs… my mom does a lot of the admin and that sort of thing and my sister has been involved, my children are involved… it’s a family thing and it’s very close to our hearts. And we’re trying to find… because I still work full time… I have a day job, also, so… I’m not able to be there as much as I’m needed. So we’re trying to find ways of changing the group a little bit and giving it back in the hands of the actual moms themselves, so we’ve been speaking to moms all around the country. We are thinking of letting them start little groups of their own, just the teen moms in their class, in their street… Helping them and guiding them through the process.
Ruda: Or someone like you who has actually been through the process and then can set up her own little support group.
Tracy: I have realised that it’s a fact that the communities that I’ve worked in have been mostly coloured and black… white girls do not join groups like this… White people do not “join” things, okay. No. We don’t do it. It’s very bad. Even though they need it, they won’t join. Black girls love to join stuff… [laughs]
Ruda: [laughs]
Tracy: They love to join stuff, so, but the fact is, one on one, talking to a young black girl… is absolutely fine. In a group situation I’m just too white. That is it. I have to face the fact. I need to hand it over to someone who they can really relate to and feel comfortable with in a group situation.
Ruda: And possibly, literally speak the language?
Tracy: That’s it. I’m trying to speak Xhosa, but I’m very bad at it. But ja. We want to make it grow, we want to make the girls feel like they own this and this is theirs and I’ve been asking them on our Facebook group ‘why do you want to be involved’, ‘because I’ve done it and I’ve been through it and I want to tell other girls that they can too’ and they have this need to do it and I want to be able to give that back to them and say ‘you go out and share this information, it’s something good for you, as well, as well as for them’.
Ruda: And you have managed to get an education, to hold down a job, it has not ruined your life.
Tracy: It hasn’t. And the reality is I was always going to be okay, because I had a good family, I was never in danger of starving, I was never in danger of being homeless, and I had a family who wouldn’t ever kick me out. I knew for a fact that that wouldn’t happen. The reality for many other girls is that homelessness and starvation and hunger and not being able to go back to school is a problem, it is a reality. So I was lucky. I was luckier than most and I have to accept that just because I did it, doesn’t mean it will be 100% easy for someone else, because I had a support network and I had a headstart that other people do not have. But if we can give them first of all that belief in themselves that actually it is okay, that they are okay and practical information about where to go to get what they need to move forward, that is going to go some way to making a difference.
Ruda: Good luck! May it grow and grow because there are so many girls who need it.
Tracy: Yes.
Ruda: And parents who need the support and the advice.
Tracy: Exactly, there are so many and we’ll be there for them. Thank you.
Ruda: Thank you. Go well.
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