A Class Where Teens Learn Mothering, and Are Mothered

12 May 2010

A teacher's aid at a day care center at a New York City high school in 2007

This is the VOA Special English Education Report.

Parents are a child's first teachers. But some parents never learned from good examples. In New York City, a nonprofit agency called Covenant House tries to help homeless young mothers become good parents.

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The twelve or so teenagers who live at the shelter attend parenting classes four days a week. The class is called Mommy and Me.

Teacher Delores Clemens is a mother of five and a grandmother. She teaches basic skills, like how to give a baby a bath and how to dress a baby depending on the season.

She remembers one student who learned from her mother not to pick up a crying baby. The mother said that would only make the child needy and overly demanding.

DELORES CLEMENS: "I said 'That's not true. You have to hold your baby! He is crying for a reason. If you never pick him up, he's going to keep crying. Pick your baby up. Cuddle your baby. Hug him! And she started to doing that. They just want a little cuddling and a little love. And it works! [Laughs]"

Delores Clemens says her students also learn how to be good mothers by letting themselves be mothered.

DELORES CLEMENS: "I'm doing something for them that never has been done for them before."