A Worthwhile Sacrifice
On four hours sleep, Wallace frantically searches for her car keys, stumbles to her 16-year-old Volkswagen Jetta and revs out of a Beaverton, Oregon cul-de-sac for school. She swerves into a lot, checks her sandy blond bob in the mirror and peeks into the back seat.
“Ready to rock 'n' roll?” she says to her daughter, Dominique, as the 5-year-old scrambles over the seat for their morning cuddle.
As classes resume today at Portland State, Wallace begins her first school year as president with firsthand knowledge of the sacrifices made by students who juggle work, financial aid and family.
Although more than half of teen mothers ditch high school and one in 20 makes it to college, Wallace — who became pregnant at 13 &0151 graduated high school with a 3.86 grade point average and went on to represent the 22,000 students at Oregon's largest university.
As a seventh-grader, she alienated herself from family members who encouraged abortion or adoption. She left her friends for a school for teen moms. She gave up dating, glittering homecoming dresses and other typical teen pleasures for her little girl.
But as she attempts to teach her daughter, she also strives to educate herself — often stretching her own youthful patience and that of her young daughter.
The Research Queen
Many mornings turn into a harried race.
Wallace rushes Dominique into Portland's Chapman Elementary School. Together, they hang up the girl's Hello Kitty! windbreaker. Mother and daughter hug through Dominique's last-minute plea to skip kindergarten for a day with Mommy.
The bell rings. Wallace waves good-bye to the red-cheeked face until she's out the door.
Research queen Weaving through the busy halls of Smith Memorial Center, Wallace struggles to make Spanish class on time. She's barely 5-foot-4 with her nose buried in notes, yet friends spot her in the crowd and wave.
Confident and vivacious, Wallace is worlds away from the terrified girl who became a mother.
She was new at Beaverton's Conestoga Middle School, her third since her father's suicide three years before.
It was Wallace, then 10, who found her dad convulsing on the floor. He died 12 days later.
By seventh grade, Wallace thought she was OK, resilient — the strong one who kept the family together. It was she who reached out to another new student, a 14-year-old boy with family problems of his own. She laughs now at how invincible she had felt when he convinced her that her first time having sex would be safe.
Wallace was home alone when the doctor called to confirm her fears — the same afternoon her classmates romped at field day.
Embarrassed and afraid, Wallace researched her options. She spoke with doctors. She read books on pregnancy. One day, she and her mother, Laurel Wallace, visited an abortion facility.
“What will I feel? How long will it take?” Kristin asked. “May I see the fetus afterwards?”
Laurel Wallace remembers abortion counselors aghast at her daughter's detailed questions.
“They wanted to give just minimal facts,” Laurel says, “but that doesn't work with Kristin. She's the research queen.”
Laurel Wallace says she grew up too fast after leaving home at 15. Wanting more for her only daughter, she urged abortion. But she stood by her daughter's decision.
The rest of Wallace's family was split. Some pushed for abortion; others advised adoption. Wallace's stepfather moved out until after the baby was born.
“You hear all this talk about trailer trash, and about, 'What kind of man will want you now,' ” says Wallace, whose boyfriend disappeared after the pregnancy. “I felt like I needed to prove myself to the world.”
And she decided to do that with her baby in her arms.
At six months along — a rubber band securing her Calvin Klein jeans — Wallace transferred to an alternative high school with built-in day care. She rarely missed a day during a pregnancy that required three shots a day to stave off a clotting disorder.
Waving off painkillers at birth, Wallace delivered a 6-pound, 12-ounce baby and went to work.
She made baby food from scratch, knit clothes and sewed Dominique's Halloween costumes. When Dominique stomped on a classmate while playing out a cartoon scene, Wallace banned TV — even though it meant less quiet time for her.
“The First Daughter”
Luckier than many teen mothers, Wallace didn't need a job. She spent days with Dominique at libraries and museums. She pulled all-nighters, studying only after her daughter went to bed.
In the years since her daughter's birth, Wallace allowed herself one other boyfriend.
“As we grew up, it really concerned me when I saw a lot of the other moms… the decisions they made,” Wallace says. “Sometimes, they would forget what was important.”
When Wallace's schedule gets too hectic, Dominique gets crabby. So Wallace plans swim dates, park parties or escapes to the zoo. And each morning on the way to school, they sing.
It's cheesy, Wallace admits, but it's their song: “Que sera sera. Whatever will be, will be.”
A child's life Wallace walks with purpose through the university's gleaming, top-floor administrative offices.
She has been prepped for her lunch meeting by her spokesman, a 20-year-old classmate who runs her through talking points and reminds her what not to say.
But as she grips the doorknob of the president's conference room, Wallace shudders, “I'm nervous.”
Politics never interested Wallace until she heard the federal child-care grants paying for Dominique's on-campus day care were in jeopardy. As a freshman, she volunteered in the student government office, badgered classmates to register and vote and joined the board of her daughter's day care.
That spring, she was tapped for a trip to Washington, D.C., to talk up child-care grants and education policy with Rep. David Wu. Instead of disapproving looks from adults, the young mother found she earned their respect.
Encouraged, she considered running for president last winter as a sophomore — another milestone achieved earlier than most.
She first met with her parents, who agreed to help out when Wallace had evening meetings. Family once angered by Wallace's pregnancy melted at the sight of her tow-headed baby. They even watched Dominique during Wallace's 10-day graduation trip to Europe last year.
With their support, Wallace campaigned to fight tuition increases, to bring black and Latino studies majors to the school and to build a study area for students with children. She doubled the votes of her opponents and accepted the paid part-time job holding Dominique, dubbed by some “The First Daughter.”
Wallace is still learning. She reads books on management and negotiations. She gets starry-eyed around some local politicians and considers joining them some day. The English major wants to earn a master's degree and may decide to teach or be a midwife.
Still, she admits, she often slips back into childhood. She is drawn from her paper-covered desk to the kid-size table in her office. At meetings, she never misses the cookie plate, picking one for herself and wrapping another in a napkin for Dominique.
This day, she rushes to her car with a chocolate-chocolate chip slipped between textbooks and meeting agendas. She makes a practiced change into overalls in the back seat and picks up Dominique for a trip to the zoo.
Somewhere between tiger cages, elephant ears and pleas for a pink butterfly backpack, Wallace will work on their dinner plan.
“I just hope I'm teaching her that if there's an opportunity, you need to go for it,” Wallace says. “You can't time your life perfectly, you can't plan everything.”
(This article first appeared in the Portland Observer and is courtesy of Steven Ertelt and the Pro-Life Infonet email newsletter. For more information or to subscribe go to www.prolifeinfo.org or email infonet@prolifeinfo.org.)
