{"id":3909,"date":"2016-09-08T00:01:32","date_gmt":"2016-09-08T06:01:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.mops.org\/?p=3909"},"modified":"2016-09-08T00:01:32","modified_gmt":"2016-09-08T06:01:32","slug":"a-place-to-call-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/a-place-to-call-home\/","title":{"rendered":"A Place To Call Home"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When you are in high school you feel invincible. Unshakable. I was 16 when I found out that I was pregnant. My world felt like it was crumbling around me. Unimaginable judgment made me feel like my child was unwanted, a mistake, a burden. But my heart said otherwise.<\/p>\n<p>While my friends continued with school and sports and made plans for college, I was home changing diapers and making bottles. I felt an emptiness rush over me like a giant wave and was lost in the silence. I had no mom friends my age, no one to give me advice. I felt the glares of people judging me when I went out into public. I felt tossed aside, as a mother and as a woman.<\/p>\n<p>Four months after my daughter was born, I found out about a Teen MOPS group nearby. I talked myself out of going more times than I could count, but one night I found the courage to go. When I walked in the doors, I was greeted with open arms and overwhelmed with hugs, joy, excitement and love. There was no judgment, no questions, no glares, only love.<\/p>\n<p>Over the next few years, Teen MOPS helped me learn what it looks like to be a young mother. I felt at ease, safe and comfortable. My group Leaders quickly became my closest friends and mentors and I made mom friends who I still have close relationships with today. Because of the support of this group, I have developed into a confident woman and even stronger mom.<\/p>\n<p>Walking through the doors of my first meeting I was scared, I felt shame and I didn\u2019t expect to come out a different person. But I did. Now as a Leader, I look at the girls I serve and I see myself from years ago. MOPS is a real, relatable and raw place. Although my journey has been a long and messy one, I\u2019ve met women through MOPS who have made it possible. I found the confidence to dream again, to be myself.<\/p>\n<p>There is a saying: \u201cIt takes a village to raise a child.\u201d I\u2019d love to rewrite that to say, \u201cIt takes a MOPS group to raise a child.\u201d At no other point in life have I felt as vulnerable and alone than in my years of being a mother, but through MOPS I gained an entirely new outlook on life. It\u2019s a place to grow, to learn and to come just as you are. It\u2019s a place to call your home.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><em>Veronica is a born and raised Wisconsinite. She enjoys spending time with her family, reading and photography. She likes to look for the beauty in small places and create adventure wherever she goes.<\/em><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-3322 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.mops.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/HD_Cover_Summer_2016_small.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"194\" height=\"250\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>This article originally appeared in the Summer 2016 issue of\u00a0<em>Hello, Dearest<\/em>. If you didn\u2019t get a copy and would like your own, you can\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.mops.org\/membership\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">subscribe<\/a>\u00a0to get\u00a0<em>Hello, Dearest<\/em>\u00a0in your mailbox every season. If you subscribe, forward your receipt to\u00a0<a href=\"mailto:magazines@mops.org\">magazines@mops.org<\/a>\u00a0and we\u2019ll shoot a copy of the current issue in the mail to you for free \u2026 just because we like you.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When you are in high school you feel invincible. Unshakable. I was 16 when I found out that I was pregnant. My world felt like it was crumbling around me. Unimaginable judgment made me feel like my child was unwanted, a mistake, a burden. But my heart said otherwise. While my friends continued with school [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":197,"featured_media":3910,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_seopress_news_disabled":"","_seopress_video_disabled":"","_seopress_video":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas_manual":[],"_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable_all":"","_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas":[],"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[102],"tags":[529,530,531,61,532,87,44,123,84,464],"class_list":["post-3909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-relationships","tag-emptiness","tag-glares","tag-hugs","tag-joy","tag-judgement","tag-love","tag-mops","tag-pregnancy","tag-teen","tag-vulnerable"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/197"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3909"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3909\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}