Lynsie Kimple is 18, a high school senior, and gets straight A's. She works several part time jobs, cleaning houses and waiting tables at a large chain restaurant. She is also the parent of one-year-old Quyntin. “[It’s like] all stages of your life being thrown together at once,” Kimple says about being a young parent. Kimple had her baby in December 2020, during the pandemic. Before that, she says her high school gave her the option of finishing a semester’s worth of work early, which she did. But around two weeks after she gave birth, classes started up again and she was fielding emails from her school asking her to log on to virtual class — both to mark attendance, and because Kimple says she hadn’t been given the option to work ahead on second-semester lessons. When she got the emails, she was surprised — she hadn’t known until then that, technically, her school only allowed up to two weeks off for a “medical excuse,” including giving birth. Teachers at her school who give birth get 12 weeks of leave. “I just started logging in when I was up in the middle of the night with my baby and doing a couple assignments a night,” she tells Teen Vogue. “I was still getting behind because I wasn't doing enough.”

Not doing enough. She’s tasked with completing her class assignments, doing homework, working a full eight hours a day (if not more), and caring for her son. Aside from a child care program that allows her to swap points that she earns by getting good grades and attendance at school for diapers and other baby supplies, Kimple has found little structural support available in her community. As a teen parent, “I have more things I have to try to fit in one day to make sure my baby and I thrive,” Kimple says. She wishes people would take that into account and provide support, not judgment, when they find out she’s a teen mom.

Beyond being a parent, Kimple is a young woman learning who she is in the world. Postpartum depression made discovering her interests tough, and prohibitive childcare costs have made it even tougher. While many people Kimple’s age determine who they are in college, she says she couldn’t find a full-time school that would allow her to live off campus with her son, and provide the flexibility she needs as a parent. Plus, the debt is too much to handle right now. She hopes to attend college once she's more sure of what she'd like to study.

“It can get really hard sometimes,” Kimple says. “But I really do feel as though every hard time is completely worth it for the good times with my son.”