From "Why me?" to maturity

LA Times:

Brynn Cameron was 19 and unmarried when she found out she was pregnant, and she reacted in the way so many uncertain and confused young women react.

"I thought, 'Why me?' " Cameron said. "I thought, 'You've just ruined your life.' "

Cameron is talking on a warm, sunny afternoon as Cole Cameron Leinart, her 13-month-old son, kept busy by throwing cheese crackers and a Nerf football on the steps of USC's Heritage Hall.

If Cameron was a scared, unmarried mother-to-be 22 months ago, she was also blessed with advantages she now treasures. She's attending USC on a full scholarship, now six games into her junior season after redshirting last year. Her family -- mother Cathy, father Stan, older sister Emily and younger brothers Jordan and Colby -- has offered a support system of love and baby-sitting that many unwed mothers never receive.

And the father of her sturdy, active, towheaded son is Matt Leinart, the Heisman Trophy-winning former USC quarterback who is recovering from a broken collarbone that prematurely ended his second season with the NFL's Arizona Cardinals.

There is no hiding from the fact that Cameron and Leinart had a testy child-support payment issue last summer that publicly erupted after Leinart appeared at the ESPY Awards in Los Angeles and talked about changing his son's diapers.

Cameron responded in a story in the Ventura County Star, saying: "It's kind of hard for me as the mom -- I'm with Cole probably 99.9% of the time -- to open a magazine or read a newspaper article with Matt saying, 'Oh, I love being a dad. I love changing diapers. I love doing this.' I'm like, 'Wait, what?' I'm doing all the work, but he gets all the credit for it."

In the same story, Cameron referred to gossip magazines' routinely showing Leinart at bars and parties, saying, "I don't want to sit here and bad-mouth his lifestyle, but it is hard because we are different people. He likes that Hollywood stuff, and I don't like that."

The issue was finally settled, and there is a truce between Cameron and Leinart. Neither says much about what happened last summer.

"I wish it hadn't happened," Cameron said. "Some things got blown out of proportion."

Said Leinart: "There is no point in talking about something like that. It's in the past."

Cameron and Leinart say they communicate amicably about Cole, and now about sports.

After Leinart's season-ending injury last month, Cameron left him a voice message. "It was sweet," Leinart said. "And understanding."

Leinart has encouraged Cameron, who is a 5-foot-10 guard and career 52.9% three-point shooter, to resume a basketball career she thought was over on the day she learned she was pregnant.

"Oh my gosh," she said, "I thought my life was over, school was over, basketball was over. I just thought I was done."

Said Leinart: "That she put her career on hold, that was tough. But I told her that when you're healthy enough to go back and do something you love, you should do it. She's a super-competitive person. So I just told her, 'You're there, in school, on a full ride, so enjoy your last couple of years. Who knows what happens after college?' "

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In answer to the question Why Me? its simple. She had unprotected sex and pregnancy should not be an unexpected result of that. It is how babies are made. It is hard to call this baby a love child, since there seems little of that in the relationship between the mom and dad. The child comes from a good athletic gene poll and is fortunate that his dad is rich enough to pay child support. He is also fortunate that the moms family is supportive. Fortunately the mom has grown up too. I suspect she is beyond "Why me?" now. For the child's sake, I hope so. There is also reason to be glad she made the choice for life. She is a single parent with advantages most do not have.