<p>“A high school student is fighting back after her senior photo was pulled from the school yearbook. The photo shows North Carolina senior Caitlin Tiller holding her now one-year old son. The school asked students to have their picture taken with something that best represents them or an achievement.” …</p>
<p>I can’t proclaim to know how it feels to either be a pregnant teen or be the parent of a pregnant teen, but I don’t side with the school at all on this issue. This is a young women who was faced with what most people would see as a very difficult decision and she chose to birth and raise her son with a focus on love and education. If she considers him her greatest accomplishment, then I think that says a tremendous about about this young women and the school’s refusal to support her commitment to her education when faced with this hurdle is really dumbfounding to me.</p>
<p>I think this is a difficult one. If the school allowed a teen with a parent, grandparent or the like, they can’t really exclude the pic of the girl and her child. Further, the school should have anticipated that a teen mom who managed to graduate might recognize the influence her child had on her success.<br>
My vote would be to leave the picture in and have a blanket prohibition going forward that the portrait can only include one person.</p>
<p>Would it be better if her child DIDN’T “represent” her? Or represented a failure? It’s not the CHILD’S fault! So, let’s pretend the child is a BAD thing or even doesn’t exist? SMH.</p>
<p>That the girl is graduating at all, and on time, is an achievement. Most teen moms do not do either. That it was her child’s birth that gave her a reason to focus and do so is reason enough for me to think the photo belongs there right up with the trophies and ribbons and certificates that some of the other kids will have-more so than some, I’ll wager.</p>
<p>I agree with WordWorld, the school is mostly to blame for the predicament by the wording they chose. My bet is they will change the wording quickly. On the other hand if they allow pics of kids with their parents or other humans they cannot exclude this young woman.</p>
<p>On a gut level I don’t think high schools should “promote” positive outcomes of teenage pregnancy by showing happy pics of moms and babies and we have no idea what kind of support systems were in place for this young woman that enabled her to achieve this. The achievement can stand on it’s own because it is her achievement with or without the baby in the picture.</p>
<p>It depends on what the policy is about other people appearing in the picture if the student felt they were very influential. Would it be OK for a grandmother who dramatically changed a student’s broken life to be in it, a minister, a teacher or a BF/GF who straightened the student’s life? </p>
<p>As to students having kids, clearly it’s not the kid’s fault, but I don’t see the child actually getting punished by not being in the yearbook. Anyway I’d rather have a school district where a student like her is the only one in this situation than one where a third of the graduating class have kids.</p>
<p>From MSN - “District officials say the senior portraits shouldn’t show “an extension of [the] family,” although shots of students with their pets were accepted.”</p>
<p>“Let’s not kid ourselves, a teen mother and child is not a positive thing either. It is what it is.”</p>
<p>No, but GRADUATING and ON TIME most certainly IS a positive thing, because it is not common among teen moms. I don’t understand why a school would want to pretend that the child isn’t the reason behind this girl’s graduation. Why on earth is ok to have a photo with Fido? </p>
<p>We’re kind of past the Scarlet Letter, aren’t we?</p>
<p>^ I agree that graduating on time for a teen mom is an accomplishment. I just think the school was not prepared for this interpretation of the picture instructions.</p>
<p>I don’t think they were as specific about the “extension of the family” in their wording as they needed to be. They used the word “props”. IMHO, a prop is an inanimate object, and not a child, but this student interpreted the concept. I wouldn’t call a pet a prop. I suspect the school assumed students would pose with a musical intrument, sports item, work of art, or favorite book to portray an achievement</p>
<p>Regardless of who is right or wrong, I bet that this high school will go back to the policy of traditional senior portraits to avoid any misinterpretation again.</p>
<p>I want to side with the teen mom but the school board says that family members can’t be in the picture. However, she should have been told that her son couldn’t be in the picture before now. It seems like the rule was unclear. I understand them not wanting it to seem like being a teenage mother is all giggles and smiles. However, a lot of people commenting on the story are pretty harsh. This girl obviously did something irresponsible like EVERY teenager but she’s actually taking responsibility and not acting like a victim. She graduated early so she could start community college and have a good future for her and her son. She works now to help support her son and so does the child’s father. I think this girl does deserve to be celebrated (maybe not in her high school yearbook though) because what she’s doing is SO hard and her determination is admirable. A lot of teen moms don’t grow up when their child is born and still try to act like the people their age with no responsibilities.</p>
<p>"They’ve probably got a picture of the teen dad in the yearbook. Wonder what his plans are, and wonder what HIS achievement was. "</p>
<p>Right, because usually it’s only the MOM’S who get the shaming. I’ve never read a story about a teen DAD being denied graduation, or having to go to an alternative school, or drop out of the honor society. It’s just the moms. Always the moms. The irony is that the same people who want these girls shamed would also oppose abortion, which, if a teen HAD one, they’d likely never know about. But if you HAVE the baby and take care of it, you get shamed.</p>
<p>Would taking the picture with a bottle, diaper, crib or stroller be more acceptable. The same message would still come across and the graduate is old enough to choose to be most proud of whatever she feels is her greatest accomplishment.
It certainly takes up more time than most ECs.</p>
<p>sseamom, no one is “shaming” the mom. There are simply choices in life and people take them. Life does not need and is most cases does not accommodate every single choice. Clearly somewhere down the line she and most likely her family made a decision. I don’t need to pass judgement on the young lady pro or con to appreciate why it might not be the right message to include family members in high school yearbook graduation portraits for any individual…in the senior daze pictures perhaps, but not the portraits. I’m not sure why you interpret this as “shaming.”</p>
<p>i think the whole idea of “something” important or representational is just stupid and asking for trouble</p>
<p>what about a book like mein kompf, or a gun, or a skateboard, or lamp, or scale, or snake?
car? swimsuit? video game?<br>
quotes are bad enough, holding something is just silly</p>
<p>It’s shaming only because school authorities took it out, publicly, after the fact. I doubt having such a picture would have any impact on high school kids, when they look back on their class pictures 30 years from now. But school authorities went out of their way to shame here.</p>
<p>Had they not wanted kids in the pictures, they could have said so in advance.</p>