CDS fellow's project depicts teenage mothers, children

"All of my friends have children but two," says Jennifer Gonzales, 16 years old and eight months pregnant,

Gonzales's interview with photographer Amanda van Scoyoc is one facet of the documentary work presented in van Scoyoc's exhibition, Raising Them Right, now on display in Rubenstein Hall.

The show focuses on experiences of young mothers in the low-income community of Chelsea, Mass. The photographs are the visual result of the year van Scoyoc spent in Chelsea, capturing the lives of teen moms as a Lewis Hine Documentary Fellow. Sponsored by the Center for Documentary Studies, the fellowship focuses on alleviating problems faced by women and children in poor, underrepresented areas-making van Scoyoc's work with women in this high-risk community particularly apt.

"In Chelsea, it's almost more the norm to have a kid before you're 18," she said. "I was completely fascinated with the questions of 'Why this culture... and what does it really mean?'"

Van Scoyoc's interest in portraying the mothers' daily realities is evident in her photographs, which are primarily intimate domestic scenes of mothers with their children.

The works are all accompanied by quotations taken from more extensive interviews, creating a unique understanding of each woman's motherhood experience.

For example, the work "Christina, 20, with her boyfriend and her son Isaih" shows a toddler running gleefully to his father, his mother sitting listlessly in the background. Complementing the image is Christina's statement: "Before I had him, I didn't want to hold him immediately after he was born, because I thought he would be so nasty and disgusting. But when he came out, I wanted to hold him. I cried."

Other portraits poignantly capture maternal hopes for their children. The title of the show comes from 20-year-old Melissa's words: "I'm going to raise her right, I don't want her to turn out like me. I want her to be a better person."