Mother Friend Mentors support teen moms during pregnancy and beyond

Each year, Caring Network, a program of Catholic Charities Diocese of Kalamazoo (CCDOK), provides services for more than 350 pregnant and parenting women and families with needs ranging from parenting classes to clothing, diapers and baby equipment.
 
One of those services is the volunteer Mother Friend Mentor program, which pairs expectant mothers with seasoned mothers to form a relationship and offer one-on-one personalized support. The two women meet, talk about life, pregnancy and motherhood and begin to prepare to welcome a new baby into the world.
 
For Bailey Sutkowi, becoming a Mom Mentor was a call to “walk the walk” when it came to her pro-life views. For Colleen Dawson, volunteering was a chance to help teen moms in positions much like she experienced decades earlier. Bailey recalls her first mentor-mentee pairing. “[In the beginning,] I thought I was going to be able to bring her [the expectant mother] to the Lord and have these deep amazing conversations with her, but I realized my call was to serve her needs, not my idea of her needs. And sometimes that was as simple as making sure she’d eaten and giving her a quiet place to nap.”
 
Colleen, whose own son was four months old at her high school graduation, felt a pull to help young moms who were in an even tougher position than she had been. Even though she felt the stigma of being a mom before she had graduated from high school, she had a support system of friends and family, was able to earn her high school diploma and even attended college. Many teen moms, she says, don’t think they have options.
 
Her first mentor-mentee pairing was six years ago. Similar to her own experience, Colleen’s mentee was driven to get her high school diploma, spending time every week after school earning the extra credits she needed to graduate while Colleen helped arrange rides and child care.
 
“Mentorship really is about friendship,” says Colleen, a parishioner at St. Joseph Parish, Kalamazoo. “It challenges you to put aside your own idea of what a teen mother is and focus on building a relationship with this young woman who is dealing with a lot of challenges.
A lot of times it isn’t about anything more than being there to listen.
 
“I’ve been there,” adds Colleen. “I can still remember— 40 years later — some of the things people said to me. You just need someone with no motive other than to support and care for you.”
 
Bailey, a parishioner at St. Ann Parish in Augusta, found the strength and commitment of her mentee inspiring.
 
“Once her baby boy was born, she just flourished,” she recalls. “She took this situation that was not ideal and just completely owned it. She had lots of questions but her focus was on him.”
 
Being pregnant at the same time as her mentee was another stark reminder for Bailey of their differing circumstances.
 
“It really brought home the worries she was enduring that I didn’t have. I had a spouse and a stable home and family support. I wasn’t worried about where diapers or clothes or food was going to come from. And to see her enduring all that and taking it in stride, making such mature choices and never complaining about it, was such a huge witness.”
 
After both her mentee’s baby and Bailey’s second child were born, the two were visiting a mall together and stopped to feed their babies. Bailey couldn’t help but notice the way passersby looked at them.
 
“She’s so strong to still be able to not let other people’s judgments bother her,” says Bailey.
 
One gift of the program is the impact it has on more than just the mentor and mentee and the relationships fostered last long after the baby has been born.
 
“Our whole family is involved,” says Colleen. “One of my granddaughters still talks about the time we took a trip to see the giant waves in South Haven in the early spring a few years ago. My mentee had never really left the Kalamazoo area, hadn’t ever been to the lake. Experiencing those waves through her was an experience we will all remember and such a powerful lesson in gratitude.”
 
For both Colleen and Bailey, the mission of Mother Friend Mentors defines what it means to be pro-life.
 
“I believe being pro-life means we have to take care of these moms who do choose to continue their pregnancies,” says Bailey. “These girls get so much pressure to end their pregnancies. It should not be ‘great, thanks for choosing to have your baby. See you later.’ That was a huge reason I felt like this program is so important and I needed to get involved.”
 
“It’s easy to be there for material items but to actually put in the time to be there for them when the baby arrives takes a lot of effort,” admits Colleen. “But that’s so important because many babies and new moms are in unstable and stressful situations. When we focus only on keeping a pregnancy, we’re stopping at the wrong point. We have to keep going and care for them through their pregnancy and postpartum and motherhood.
 
“Being pro-life never stops caring. They don’t need lectures or sympathy, they just need somebody to walk with them and listen.”