Someone Should Have Told Me to Hang Up the Phone
I think I’m getting old.
Now, I know age is just a number—and according to the doctor’s office assistant who complimented my “youthful glow,” I’m apparently winning that game—but still. Age sneaks up on you, not with gray hairs or back pain (okay, sometimes with back pain), but with moments. Moments like this one...
I’m sitting in a waiting room, minding my business, when I overhear a teenage girl chatting on the phone. Correction: announcing to the world that her boyfriend is currently on the toilet, doing some gastrointestinal heavy lifting. Classy.
I wasn’t even embarrassed for him. I was embarrassed for her. She was there with a friend, laughing, scrolling, existing in a cloud of youthful chaos. I leaned over, trying to be lighthearted, and asked her friend how old they were.
“Nineteen,” she said.
Nineteen. And the girl on the phone? She was talking to her boyfriend about her prenatal visit.
Their conversation turned into a mini argument right there in the waiting room. He didn’t seem thrilled about anything, especially not the baby shower coming up in a few weeks. She offered to drive several hours just to pick him up, to which he replied that this would interfere with his “job.” And by “job,” I mean… illegal extracurriculars. I’ll spare you the details, but let’s just say she had to remind him that no, she didn’t want substances in her car—again—because getting arrested once was apparently enough.
My eye-rolling reached DEFCON 1.
I don’t know if it was the mom in me, or the “been there, done that, got the baby tee” in me—but something snapped. I looked that girl dead in the eye and said, “Hang up. Hang. Up. The. Phone.”
It didn’t matter that I didn’t know her. It didn’t matter that it wasn’t technically my business. All I could think was: Someone should have told me to hang up.
I got called in for my appointment and didn’t see how it all played out. Maybe she listened, maybe she didn’t. But in that moment, I couldn’t stay quiet. Because I was that girl once. Nineteen, pregnant, in over my head. Running in circles with the wrong crowd. Trying to navigate adulthood with a baby on the way and a mind still halfway in high school.
Nobody told me to hang up the phone. Nobody pulled me aside and said, “Hey, that guy isn’t going to be there when it matters. You’re not in the right space to raise a baby with someone who’s already acting like a ghost.”
But who would have told me? Who even could have told me? It’s not like people were out here giving unsolicited wisdom bombs at random OB appointments.
And yet… maybe they should’ve been.
Now, here we are—an entire generation of young girls growing into young mothers. Many will end up doing it alone. Some of them have moms who are doing their best, but don't know the full story. Some of them are hiding things. Some are scared. And some, like me back then, don’t even realize they need saving from the path they’re on.
So here’s the question: Can we, as a society, butt in? Can we speak up, from one mom to another, and say “Hey, this road? It’s a dead end. Try turning here instead.”
Can we do it with love and without judgment? Can we throw out lifelines before the ship fully sinks?
I see so many single moms struggling, so many reaching out in Facebook groups, asking for advice, support, strength. What if we could get to them before that point? What if a little truth-telling in a waiting room was the start of something better?
Maybe we’re not just getting older. Maybe we’re becoming the voices we wish we had. The ones who say, “Hang up the phone, girl. There’s a better life waiting.”
