When she learned she was pregnant, Constanza Silva had so many questions that she looked for the answers where boys her age tend to look: in videos posted on the Internet. What she wanted to know was how other teenage mothers lived their lives. Although she only found stories in English, Constanza skimmed through these videos while Neil Armstrong walked on the moon: knowing that she didn’t belong there, that the internal gravity was different, but at the same time amazed by the place and that things happened like this. . Now, with their three-year-old son, they describe their own life on TikTok, where they have already won an audience that follows them in every video.
In the era of instantaneity, where the TikTok algorithm favors that almost all videos be short and agile to attract the attention of the Internet user, Constance Silva (18 years old) creates discs of more than three minutes to show her own life: that of a young mother and a university student at the same time.
On the other side of the screen, a dedicated community follows the daily stories of the student and her three-year-old son, Erkan. What many are curious about is that Constanza was a mother in her early teenage years, but in her tiktoks, the influencer assures that viewers put aside the prejudices surrounding her motherhood.
mother at 14
In 2019, after passing several tests and having a lot of nervousness, Constanza had the definitive certainty that she was pregnant. It was no less difficult news to face: he was barely 14 and starting high school at school.
He didn’t know how to tell his family, not especially his mother. One of his fears was how she would react, so he didn’t want this moment to come and tried to avoid her until he couldn’t take it anymore.
In the end, things turned out contrary to what Constanza expected. As soon as her mother found out, she hugged her, supported her, and told her that everything would be fine. This meeting allowed her to realize even more that her pregnancy was something concrete.
To feel supported, like other young people born and raised in the heyday of the Internet, she wanted to seek understanding and refuge in cyberspace. When she entered YouTube, she entered terms such as “teen mom” and “young mom” into the search engine, but no results matched. Or at least not in their language.
When he put the same terms in English on the video platform, he discovered a world he never imagined. The list was endless: there were millions and millions of videos on stories of being a mother at a young age, always in Anglo-Saxon language. Watching this content, she felt something change inside her.
—It helped me a lot to see them and I felt super accompanied, I said to myself “I’m not alone” —Said Constanza Silva to The third —. I wanted to have an idea of how my life was going to be, I also believe that it is very important not to feel alone in such a process.
The intimate life of a teenage mother
Erkan was the name chosen for her baby, born in February 2020. A few months passed and the then teenager decided to embark on a mission to create her own vlogs on Youtube about her experience as a teenage mother .
Not to promote it, but so that other women who were going through the same situation felt supported, just as she was looking for at the beginning.
This period coincided with the installation of the harshest period of the pandemic in Chile, when health restrictions were strict throughout the country and classrooms were closed to all.
Like all students, Constanza had to cope with online classes, except she was learning how to raise a baby.
“It benefited me a lot, but the truth is that at the time I didn’t see it that way,” he recalls. Now I look back and say “how lucky I was that he was born at that time” because thanks to that I was able to continue studying at home, taking care of my son and not to be different.
In a little over two years, he has uploaded more than 80 videos on YouTube where he talks about his daily life, answers questions or shows the highlights of Erkan’s life: a trip to the beach, his first Halloween or his birthday.
Since then, the young woman has more than 400,000 subscribers on the video platform.
The jump to Tik Tok
Since Constanza entered university in March this year to study environmental design, that meant putting her Youtube content more or less on hiatus, mainly due to the long time she had to devote to editing. .
it was like that migrated to TikTok , the favorite of new generations. One would think that the change was difficult for him due to the speed demanded by the social network, but that has not happened: in just over a month he has almost 500,000 followers and 6 million of “likes” to his list.
Perhaps because of the closeness emitted by his figure and that of Erkan, who is now three years old, many new Internet users who did not know his story today do not miss any update on the life of the young lady. Although they don’t spot them early on, they say it’s like they’ve known them their whole lives.
Every time she uploads a new Get Ready with Erkan or A day being a mom and student on TikTok, her comments section fills up within minutes. Many point to how charismatic and smiling Erkan is on camera, though Constanza stresses that the key is to maintain respect if he doesn’t want to be portrayed in a video.
—He has a lot of personality, if for example I record a video in the kitchen, he appears and doesn’t want to appear, he just leaves —says the tiktoker—. In dance videos or Dress with Us, Erkan appears more because it’s a game, he has a good time filming with me and we laugh.
Another phenomenon that is repeated in her daily videos is that most people constantly point out that she is a very good mother, despite her young age.
—Reading comments from people who tell me “you’re fine” fills my heart. Sometimes, we are very critical of her motherhood and we say to ourselves “I could do better” or “I haven’t done enough”. The community supports me a lot on a daily basis, in the end it is part of my life,” he explains.
Sometimes, when the exhausting day at kindergarten and college ends and Erkan goes to bed, Constanza tells him messages from people who praise his way of being or send him greetings:
— He’s very happy, he’s dying of laughing at the nice things people say to him.
The costs of an influencer
When asked if she considers herself an influencer, she admits that she does, because her videos on the Chinese social network have sparked heated debates around childhood and motherhood.
At the same time, Constanza warns that if she publicly talks about her experience as a teenage mother, it is not synonymous with encouraging others at this age to follow this path.
“Everything in its own time, but due to many factors, things have happened in my life”, he says in one of his videos .
Although she has a massive support network, prejudice and hatred are hot spots that pop up on her account from time to time. During the first days of his move to TikTok, it affected him emotionally and he had to seek psychological help.
After talking in therapy about this “B-side” of social networks, she now knows how to manage it better and is aware that very negative comments are not under her control.
I know I’m doing the best I can. Hate isn’t pretty, but I don’t take it personally, it’s just words and in the end you choose to load that word with an emotion. Or not.
Source: Latercera
I am David Jack and I have been working in the news industry for over 10 years. As an experienced journalist, I specialize in covering sports news with a focus on golf. My articles have been published by some of the most respected publications in the world including The New York Times and Sports Illustrated.
