License to Parent

Working in the field that I work in, I have a lot of experience with parents. I mean why wouldn't I, I take care of kids, and consequently with kids comes parents....well in most cases. In my years working in the hospital I have come in contact with tons of parents. Young parents, old parents, good parents and some really really terrible parents.
Older parents, when it comes to being a parent for the first time, can be very bad in and of himself. They are clueless, they freak about EVERYTHING! We had a first time mom who had to be in her mid thirties and she brought her 3 day old baby in because she was lethargic. She said all she did was slept. I tried to explain to her that newborns do sleep all the time. That they probably sleep upwards of 21 hours a day. But she claimed that the first two days of her life, in the hospital she was awake a lot more, but now all she did was sleep. She also thought her baby was having seizures because her baby would sometimes shudder when she was sleeping. I tried to explain to her that it was a normal to do while sleeping. But sadly when you go into an ER claiming your newborn is lethargic and having seizures, they have to run test after test and put the baby on antibiotics for at least 48 hours to make sure the baby hadn't become septic somehow.
And then we have the extremely young parents. Children having children. Right now we have a 4 1/2 month old who's mom is 15 and the dad is 13! Mind you, in case you hadn't already done the math, subtract the 9 months of pregnancy and the baby age, that makes the dad at the most 12 years old when the baby was conceived. The baby has been in the hospital for over 3 weeks and since he was on a ventilator he has developed a difficult time eating. At this point he is almost ready to go home, all we have to do is get him to eat 3oz every 3 hours. Seems fairly easy, but its not. The child has developed an aversion to food and when the mom is only 15, she is not too willing to work with the kid. Especially when the feedings interfere with her sleep. My opinion, not that it matters, is you have no place becoming a mom when you are still wearing Hannah Montana shirts.
I have learned a lot from my job and my interactions with those around me. I have learned a lot of dos and don'ts in my job. Its amazing the things I see while I work. Lots of sad stories and situations. The hard part is that they don't require a license to become a parent. And when poor parents have kids its the kids who suffer. Its hard stuff to see.