Usually, role models are seen in class valedictorians and presidents of organizations throughout school. They’re known as the crème de la crème, and are the students who are expected to become leaders of not only the school, but the world. However some have been able to find a role model in 17-year-old Brittany Latimer, a pregnant senior at Southfield High School.
Pregnancy was the unlikley catalyst that sparked Latimer to get her act together in school and at home. Now that she’s studying for two, she says that she’s become more focused on school, and it shows through her improved grades. She says that she is also closer now to her mother, Stephanie, who has agreed to help her raise the child.
Her expected due date is Feb. 23, and she says that she plans to return to school as soon as possible after giving birth.
Doctors say a baby boy will soon be born to junior Brittany Latimer and senior Donnell Thomas, a former Southfield High student who now attends Consortium College Prepatory High School in Detroit.
“I was scared at first,” said Thomas, about learning that he would be a father. He said he worries about how he’ll care for his child financially but is also “excited” about his future son.
Mom-to-be says, “My pregnancy helped me focus on my grades, which are improving, and I’m trying to become an example for others” in her situation.
After buckling down and making school her top priority, everything changed—for the better, Latimer says. “It got me focused,” said Latimer. She says she realized that her actions now will affect not only her, but her child, as well.
Even though her family started off upset with the situation, they support her now, Latimer says. Her friends have remained true to her and their relationships. “I make sure to tell my friends ‘Don’t make the same mistakes I did!’ ”
She says she does not in any way recommend getting pregnant during high school, but now that she is expecting a child, she says she has to do her best in school, for both her sake and her child’s. She says her baby boy ended up being her silver lining, her reason to turn her life around at home, at school, and within herself.
Not everyone agrees with her decision to keep her baby and attend school during her pregnancy, Latimer says. But Latimer continues to go to class: “People are going to stare, regardless of whether you’re pregnant or not.” So she says that she takes the sneering and stares in stride, confident that she made the best decision for herself, by herself.
One decision she had help on, however, was her upcoming baby shower on Jan. 28, in Sutton Place apartments, that friends and family helped plan. “I just want to thank my family and my friends for supporting and believing in me.”
Her next goal is to take care of her child and keep it together at school. Her earlier ambition was to be a fashion model, but now her focus is getting a solid job to support her child, perhaps as a nurse.
Drama teacher Brenda Perryman says she has watched Latimer change from a girl to a young woman. “She managed to turn what most people would consider a negative situation around, her attitude completely changing for the better, and stay positive.”
Latimer’s god sister, junior Marchelle Miles, says she supports Latimer’s decision to keep her baby and ignore caustic comments about pregnant teens. “I would make the same decision if I was in that position. I admire that she’s not afraid to tell people she’s pregnant and that she’s keeping it.”