"So we have to separate ourselves from our husband, from our from our children, from our friends. Like, we have to learn who our identity is to be really emotionally intelligent and strong humans in this world to rise and be impactful for our family."  -   Portia Franklin

Bienvenidos al podcast "El Poder del Cambio Mental", un programa para adolescentes y los adultos que trabajan con ellos, donde tenemos conversaciones sinceras y sinceras. Soy su anfitriona, Fátima Bey, la transformadora mental. Y bienvenidos. Hoy nos acompaña Portia Franklin. Es de San Diego, California, y también es presentadora de podcasts.

Su podcast se llama Sparkle with Portia Franklin, pero no estamos aquí para hablar de eso. Hablaremos un poco al final. En realidad, estamos aquí para hablar de parte de su vida. Se convirtió en madre en la adolescencia. Y sin más preámbulos, les dejo que empiecen de lleno.

Portia, go ahead and tell me your story. Fatima, thank you for having me. I am so honored and blessed to be here, to be able to share and excited to, see what God does through this. But, absolutely, the conversation is be being a teen mom. And I really do believe that's when I started to really live my life.

But I was born to a mama who was single, and I did not know my father. And that came with a lot of unknowns, uncertainties. And when I got older, I look back, and it arose a lot of questions in me. So we'll probably get into that. But, there was a lot of time that I was free, just doing my own thing growing up.

So because my mom had, like, three jobs, never there. I always said I was like a free range chicken just running around, you know, hanging out with potentially not the greatest people and found myself, dabbling in things that got me into the situation of, you know, also not knowing my father, looking for love in all the wrong places. So that was what led me to becoming a mom at the the ripe age of 14, I became pregnant. So, yeah. So a lot a lot in that beginning.

But to make a long story short, my mom was single, and I had a lot of free time. And she did her very best with what she knew. Yeah. Okay. Now when we had a conversation, off air, you told me that as a teen mom, you were in a particular program.

¿Podrías hablarnos de ese programa? Claro. Tenía 14 años, recién salida de la secundaria, estaba embarazada y ya iba a la preparatoria. Era estudiante de primer año, estaba embarazada. En San Diego, donde vivo, hay un programa en la preparatoria El Cajón, que se llama programa para adolescentes embarazadas.

Bueno, lo era en aquella época. No sé cómo se llama hoy. Pero ahí era donde las adolescentes embarazadas continuaban su educación, en un espacio seguro, por así decirlo. Así que, como madre adolescente, no quieres estar entre otros estudiantes, donde podrías exponerte al acoso o a todo tipo de cosas. Así que crearon esta clase donde solo estaban las adolescentes embarazadas.

So I was surrounded by teenage girls. Now they we weren't all in the same grade, but I was a freshman there. And I tell you what, this program was so beautiful, and I remember miss Bartel. Miss Bartel was my teacher there, and what a godsend. She she poured into me.

She supported me. Even, like, I couldn't get picked up one day, I remember, in this program, and she drove me to my mom's work at the mall because my mom was working and couldn't come get me, and I didn't have a car then. So, yeah, the program was amazing. It was actually the first time I got straight a's. Praise god.

Wow. So it sounds like that program was pretty important to you. Yeah. It did set a good foundation. Mhmm.

And what would you say okay. So you started off in ninth grade, and did you graduate high school? I graduated. Yeah. That was How was it?

That was when how was it? So high school and actually graduating while raising a child? It was it was a lot. So my greatest so if you think about, like, where your family there's patterns in families. And my mom and my sister, they both got their GEDs, and so that was kinda like a normal thing.

It was okay. But I understood that when I got into, like, when I got a few years older into, like, my junior year, almost my senior year, I understood that, wow. Like, I actually need to take this seriously because I could be the first one in my my family to actually get a diploma and walk with my class. And so the the journey there, though, was very tricky because I became a mom. I was now a sophomore.

I changed schools. The living situation was not the best because my mom did not have a space for us, and so that played a part. There was a lot of, like, abuse in the home where I was staying. And so there are so many factors that could have affected me to keep me bound up and staying in a GED course. However, my my choices that led me to graduating high school was I've I've just I just know it was, like, strength from the Lord and just a vision.

Así que, al tener esta visión, supe que la vida era más. Sabía que quería más. Pero para llegar allí, tenía que dar los pasos necesarios. Así que, entre querer ser adolescente, querer ser madre, querer ganar dinero y mantener a mi hija, y querer estar presente simplemente para estar en su presencia y ser una madre presente, me sentía en conflicto con todas esas cosas.

I would cry when I was going to school every morning because I didn't wanna leave my baby. Mhmm. But I knew I needed to go to school, And I knew she was safe, and that was fine. But I didn't wanna leave her. So I I believe it was, like, at the end of my sophomore year, beginning of my junior year, I decided to take the homeschool, partial homeschool option that my school offered to be home with her and go get a part time job.

And with that decision, I I quickly found out that I could not do everything, and I fell far behind in in my classes and classes and in, like, my points or you know, every class has so many points, and you need these so many points to graduate, and I fell extremely behind. And so my senior year, I went into it. I went into my senior year with eight classes. And, you know, your senior year is supposed to be, like, popping. Like, you're supposed to be, like, driving to the beach at 12:00, leaving school with your girlfriends because it's your senior year.

Solo tenías unas pocas clases, ¿verdad? Y yo me despedía a la hora del almuerzo, como si vieran que todos se iban, y tuve que quedarme allí durante el último año. Y luego tenía clases después de la escuela, y luego tenía clase los sábados. Y así, literalmente, porque tomé esa decisión, ahora, entre todos los altibajos de la adolescencia, como querer salir de fiesta y estar con amigos y todo eso, realmente, me había esforzado durante el último año, y dije que no había manera.

Y mi escuela me dio la opción de salir. Me dijeron: "Está bien. Puedes simplemente ir con la gente de septiembre". No tienes que graduarte el mismo día que tu generación.

And I said, absolutely not. No. That's I'm not working this hard right now to graduate three months later after my class. I will graduate on time. So I I did everything that I I could to make sure that I appeased the academic system to get the points that I needed.

Y, de hecho, el día de mi graduación, estaba en mi clase de historia haciendo un examen, el último que necesitaba para completar mi grado. Y, para ser sincero, ni siquiera sé si lo aprobé. Mi profesor me miró cuando terminé el examen. Me dijo: «Sal de aquí. Gradúate».

Wow. So that's that story. Mhmm. Go ahead. Oh, no.

Así que esa fue mi experiencia en la preparatoria. Lo que escucho en esa historia, o lo que puedo extraer de ella, es que no te conformaste con: «Bueno, tengo la excusa de ser madre, así que ahora puedo hacer menos. Puedo esforzarme menos». En cambio, te dedicaste con ahínco gracias a tu determinación, y aun así lograste tus metas. Sí.

It was a lot harder because you were now a mother, but you were still able to accomplish because you made the decision. And I think that's the key word that you just said, decision. You know? You okay. You shouldn't have gotten pregnant, but you did.

¿Y qué? Es lo que es. ¿Y ahora qué haces? Mmm. ¿Sabes?

And and the fact that you took it and just said, you know what? I'm I'm graduating on time. I'm gonna be the first one to graduate high school on a in a normal time frame. I'm just doing this, and you made it. And I think that's that's beautiful.

Would you say that being a teen mom has affected your life? Oh, a %. Yes. Tell us what? And I would say it say I I would say it saved my life.

And I tell my daughter this every chance I get. I was on a road of destruction. I was I was in you know, when you have a hardworking mom that is just doing her best to, you know, give you a roof over your head, which, you know, it's you have so much freedom. And then, also, when you're not taught certain things of morality of, you know, certain ways to live life and what you do and don't do. And and, you know, if your parents don't know that, they don't know to teach it, and they do their best with what they got.

And so I was handed a deck of cards that that served me a a lot of adversity. I saw things that I probably shouldn't have saw, and I did things that I definitely shouldn't have done. And so becoming a mom stopped me dead in my tracks. Just, like, stopped me. And and I I do believe it was a gift, and my mom was really supportive when we found out.

And so that was another blessing that that, like, there was no other option but to have this baby, and we were excited. The circumstance was not ideal. The relationship was not ideal, but it doesn't matter. Like, there was just no other option, and it it stopped me in my tracks. It saved my life.

So, yeah, it completely changed and, the trajectory of where I was I was headed for sure. Okay. I I hear that. Sounds like you would have ended up a lot worse if you didn't have something to kinda smack you inside the head, basically. I don't even want I don't even wanna know where I would be if I didn't have that baby, to be honest.

No. I wanna I wanna kinda sidebar a little bit, and talk to a particular portion of the audience. Yeah. Right now, it's a reality that there are teenage girls out there who think that getting pregnant is cute and trendy and something they wanna do with their friends. And I wish I could say that that's just an idea.

Nobody's really thinking that, but I talk to teenagers all the time. They talk to me, and that's a real thing. What would you say, to the girls who are in that mindset right now? Yeah. I would I would just grab her face.

I would I would just wanna grab her face and let her know it is not trendy. Like, baby girl, it's not trendy. And let's let's talk about why you think it's cute or why you think you need to have a baby. Is there a value missing? Is there a worthiness missing?

Do you not know how beautiful and amazing you are that you don't need a baby to make you something? You already are enough right now. You you the attention doesn't need to be in that way. Like, we don't need to get attention that way. We need you to arise and shine for where you are, who you are now, and and think about how can I do this the right way?

Incluso si quieres tener un bebé, es un deseo natural, y querer ser madre es un regalo, una bendición. Pero debemos mantenernos en contexto. Debemos mantener el orden. Si nos desalineamos y no sabemos cómo manejar ese peso cuando llega, puede haber una gran destrucción. Así que le diría ahora mismo que eres suficiente y que eres digna.

You don't need to have a baby to be enough to show up today. Yes. Yes. Yes. Because I brought that up because I know it's a real issue, and I'm glad that you spoke directly to the the portion of that audience that I was thinking about, which is a lot there are girls out there.

No siempre lo dirán en voz alta, pero sí. Quieren tener un bebé porque necesitan a alguien que las ame incondicionalmente, porque nunca lo han experimentado y creen que un bebé les dará ese amor. Y hay algunas chicas que piensan eso, y estoy de acuerdo con Portia. Por favor, no lo hagan, porque lo están complicando. Están complicando una vida difícil al hacerlo por eso.

Yeah. You know, if you if if you have sex and you get pregnant and you it is hey. Stuff happens. But don't go out there and intentionally do it and make your life harder. You know?

You know, Portia has a great story where she's had the victory over it, but she was also but she also had support. She was also determined. She didn't just lie down and take it. I mean, those are key elements in the success of her story. And I'm saying that in particular to you girls that are listening right now, that are of that mindset.

No corras a cambiar el resto de tu vida solo porque ahora es bonito. ¿Sabes? Porque crees que lo quieres ahora mismo. Es algo muy malo, y también puedes afectar la vida del niño que estás criando. Un %.

Sí. Quería preguntarte, Portia. ¿Ser madre adolescente y lo que ha significado para ti tiene algo que ver con lo que haces ahora? ¿Ha tenido algún efecto en eso? Me encanta esta pregunta, y, por supuesto, sí.

Claro, era imposible. ¿Sabes? Y creo que lo mejor que ha afectado mi vida hoy en día ser madre adolescente es que, al ponerme en una situación, seamos realistas, tomé una decisión y me puse en una situación. Me puse en una situación con una persona que era quien era e hizo lo que hizo, tuve que superar muchas cosas. Así que, hablando en serio, soy abusadora, mental, física, narcisista.

O sea, tuve que lidiar con este bolso, ¿sabes? ¿Qué estaba pasando? Tuve que lidiar con eso de una quinceañera. Y aun así, no conocía a mi padre. Así que, de nuevo, buscaba el amor.

I wanted to be loved, and I I I trusted this person that now I'm having a baby with to love me, and he didn't He didn't do that. And he abused me. He cheated me. And we actually weren't even together when I was pregnant. We broke up, like, just a a month or two after I got pregnant.

So, I was completely alone. Right? And so that's another reason why you don't wanna just go get pregnant because these boys are not ready for this. Like, they're not. And but all of that that I went through and what I've gone through, like, even today, I'm 37 years old.

I am learning things today that I should have learned when I was 16. Mhmm. I'm learning things today that I should have learned when I was 13. Like, there's things that I'm learning today because I had to focus my attention on her and surviving and protecting her and doing my very best to, like, just shield her from whatever, that I I lost out on a lot of personal development that I am now making up. You know what I'm saying?

So Oh, yeah. So, man, did it change my life. And so my greatest mission today is this conversation. My greatest mission is to empower that woman to show up powerfully in sparkle, to overcome if she is overcoming, but, also, let me tell you what not to do. Like so I just No.

For me. Yeah. Yeah. So that is my greatest mission, and that's what it's changed. That's what it like, my life today, that's how it affected me.

And now I get to raise daughters. And, you know, to be honest with the situation with my first daughter, she saved my life. I love her to the moon and back. But guess what? She made some choices because of the cards that she was dealt, and we actually don't have a solid relationship today.

Pero tengo una hija de 16 años y puedo enseñarle lo que no pude enseñarle a mi hija mayor por todo lo que tuvo que afrontar. Decidió irse a vivir con su padre. Y así, he superado tantas cosas, pero obviamente no podría hacerlo sola. Por la gracia de Dios, tengo una paz que sobrepasa el entendimiento, que me sostiene y me enseña, y ahora puedo transmitirles sabiduría sobre toda esa indignidad e inseguridad con las que lidié. Puedo compartir eso con mis hijos.

So now I have three more kids that I'm teaching. So, yeah, it changed my life significantly, and it it it actually helped me become a stronger human. Mentally, physically, and emotionally, I'm stronger today, from from everything, from becoming that mama at 14 to now being a, you know, four times mama at 37, still learning, still growing, still overcoming. Right. But it's been a it's been a hard, beautiful journey, if I could put it in just a couple words.

Yes. I I totally get it. In this case, we're talking about being a teen mom, but what you just said could apply to about a hundred other things in life I could think about right now. Mhmm. I can even apply everything you just said to parts of my life.

¿Sabes? Yo también he pasado por mucho. Y, poco a poco, iré informando al público sobre algunas cosas relevantes. Pero me encanta que hayas transformado tus dificultades, tu tragedia, como quieras llamarla, yo diría dificultades, en triunfo, usándolas como motivación para ayudar a otras mujeres. Sí.

Sabes, eso es lo que oigo cuando dices que lo que has vivido ahora te impulsa a ayudar a otras mujeres. Al igual que lo que yo he vivido con mi autoestima, me impulsa a hacer este podcast y a muchas otras cosas que hago, aunque ni siquiera las transmito, como ayudar a mujeres jóvenes en particular. Y creo que es fundamental apoyar a otras mujeres y jóvenes, y asegurarnos de que sepan que realmente valen la pena. Y no solo porque alguien lo diga porque suene bien, sino para que realmente lo crean por sí mismas. ¿Sabes?

And I love that you're doing that for women right now. So I I still see it as the teenage girl in you is still there. And Oh, yeah. She is she is moving to help the other teenage girls who are grown adults now Yeah. In their bodies.

Yeah. But still teenage girls. Hell, yeah. Because we don't always grow up like we should. You know?

Y tu historia es la de mucha gente. No se trata solo de Portia. ¿Sabes? Hay mucha gente con historias similares, donde no crecimos en áreas que deberíamos haber crecido. Sé que, por experiencia propia, pasé por algunas cosas difíciles el año pasado y tuve que reconocer que debía haber aprendido en la adolescencia.

Y no lo hice. ¿Sabes? Y yo no, de verdad, no se me ocurrió hasta que me dieron un golpe en la cabeza. ¿Qué es? Así que, venga.

I I think it's applicable to so many parts of life and not just with teenage girls. But if you're listening right now, I really want you to hear Portia's story and hear yourself and her story. If you are pregnant or maybe you're thinking about getting pregnant because you think it's the answer to to your problems, please consider. But if it does happen, there is hope as long as you have the elements that you've heard Portia have. Because there's plenty of stories out there with people who didn't have support, didn't have a good program like she was in, which was another form of support.

Tuvo apoyo en casa y en la escuela. Sé que no todas ustedes tienen eso, y eso lo hace mucho más difícil. Pero, por favor, reconsidere si es una de esas mujeres y si está embarazada y se siente desesperanzada, hay esperanza para usted. Hay personas que sí se preocupan. Hay programas que probablemente desconozca, que existen en todo el país.

You know, just just know that there's hope. Now for Portia, I always have to do my little preaching at the end. I'm very passionate about, you know, helping young women especially. So you have there is one stethoscope okay. Go ahead.

There is one thing that as you were talking, I I heard, because having a having a child at whatever age, it doesn't matter what age, like but there's something important that you need to know that even even right now, I have somebody in my life that's going through it currently, and I've been through it. So even though we have children and if we have the children out of the wrong motive and say say it was like you said, Fatima, I won't have child to feel that unconditional love. Let me tell you that it's not promised. Unconditional love from another person is never promised because they have decisions and they have free will no matter what. And so at an early age, I had to learn very quickly.

I was I was, yeah, I was pregnant with my last baby. I had just had a baby. And my daughter we were going through some custody stuff, and my daughter made a decision. And at that moment, I was left. I was I was left to either fall to fall to the ground and pity myself and fall into unworthiness, self loathing, and all the things.

I'm not good enough. Why? Or I could fall into what god said. Hey. You either gonna do that or you're gonna fall into the identity that I gave you.

Eres Portia Franklin. Eres... tu sello no es, ya sabes, su madre. No eres solo una madre. Sí, eres madre, pero eres mujer. Eres Portia.

So are you going to fall to that identity, or are you gonna arise to the identity that I actually given you? So at that moment, I had to learn to detach and go, you know what? Okay. I'm not falling. I refuse.

Okay. Because that's just a fighter in me. But I said, you know what? I'm going to dig into this. I'm gonna learn who I am and my identity as Portia Franklin, as, not only a mom, but a woman, a a mighty woman.

Right? So I had to detach because I had to understand people will make decisions and people will always let us down if we allow them to. But I can't I can't control her decision to to do whatever she wants to do even if it hurts. So there is at the end of the day, I wanna speak to what we are talking about. There is no promise of of unconditional love from our children.

So, yeah. So just with that, we love our children. We let them make their decisions and let them know, like, hey. It's the open door is here, but we do set boundaries and you're welcome to come back when you're ready. But your decision has put us in jeopardy.

Así que, bueno, tengo que tomar la decisión de amarte desde aquí. ¿Cierto? Incluso con otras personas, en cualquier relación, en realidad. Tenemos que separarnos de nuestro esposo, de nuestros hijos, de nuestros amigos. Tenemos que aprender nuestra identidad para ser personas emocionalmente inteligentes y fuertes en este mundo, para crecer y tener un impacto en nuestra familia.

Excellent. Excellent. Excellent point. Thank you for bringing that up. Yeah.

Mhmm. There's no guarantee that when we have our child for unconditional love and there's adults listening out there who right now probably have a tear in their eye because they know we're talking about them too. When you have a child with the intention of receiving unconditional love, doesn't mean that you're gonna receive it. And then when you don't, it actually hurts worse than it did in the first place. Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah. Something to think about. Yeah. Excellent point. Thank you.

And so, can you very briefly tell us, very briefly tell us about your podcast and how people can find you? Absolutely. So my podcast is Sparkle with Portia Franklin, where we are disrupting toxic patterns, and we are going in and shifting the line mindsets to the truth and empowering you to show up and sparkle. And I am on Instagram, at Portia dot Franklin, and that's where you can find me. And I wanna add, I absolutely love Portia, and I'm giving all of my audience the assignment to, to, listen to her podcast, to, you know, subscribe to her podcast.

She has a lot of good things to say. I I know for a fact that her podcast hasn't even covered, a small portion of what she's got to say. So, I you know, please listen to her. She's, you know, she's she's coming from the heart, and she's very genuine like me. So I I appreciate that, I appreciate that about you, Portia.

And I hope that your podcast does what it set out to do and help the women that you intend to help. Well, thank you, Portia, for for coming on today. I really appreciate you being a guest on the show today, and my hopes are that this message is penetrating some hearts and minds. I'm so honored. I thank you so much, Fatima.

Bless you, and I'm so excited. And now for a mind shifting moment. Life will bring you challenges, whether we bring them on ourselves or they're tossed at us. Regardless of how they came about, what you do with that challenge is completely up to you. Portia could have just wallowed in self pity in her situation, but she didn't.

Estaba decidida a triunfar sin importar lo que pasara. Y quiero que extraigas eso de su historia porque, independientemente de lo que estés pasando ahora mismo, tú también puedes triunfar. Tu éxito puede ser diferente al mío. Puede ser diferente al de ella, y eso está bien. Pero puedes estar decidido a tener el mayor éxito posible en tu situación y a aprovecharla al máximo.

La otra parte clave de su historia es el apoyo. Es fundamental que recibas el apoyo que necesitas. Y si aún no lo tienes, búscalo. Sal a buscarlo. No te caerá del cielo, pero te aseguro que hay quienes lo hacen.

Hay quienes nos preocupamos y estamos totalmente dispuestos a ayudarte de una forma u otra. Nos importas y queremos ayudarte, pero necesitamos saber que nos necesitas primero y que estás dispuesto a permitirnos estar ahí. Busca la ayuda que necesitas. Consigue el apoyo que necesitas porque no me importa quién seas, necesitas apoyo. Y para quienes me escuchan, sea lo que sea que estén pasando ahora mismo, solo quiero darte un fuerte abrazo y decirte que hay alguien aquí que de verdad se preocupa.

Thank you for listening to Mindshift Power Podcast. Please like and subscribe to my YouTube channel at the mind shifter. If you have any comments, topic suggestions, or would like to be a guest on the show, please visit fatimabay.com/podcast. Remember, there's power in shifting your thinking. Tune in for next week.