“EVERYTHING’S going to be O.K., mamita,” my mother said, before walking into her bedroom and crying her eyes out.

I was 15, and I was pregnant.

Today I have a 6-year-old daughter, and I’m not a teenager anymore. But I can’t help but be affected by New York City’s controversial new anti-teenage pregnancy campaign. The posters, which appear on subways, walls and buses, feature toddlers in states of despair or discontent because they were born to teenage mothers. One ad shows a crying child with the text “I’m twice as likely not to graduate high school because you had me as a teen.” Many posters ask: “Think being a teen parent won’t cost you?”

Some people argue that these ads are a fresh approach to dealing with the problem of teenage pregnancy. But I can tell you that there’s nothing innovative about them. All they do is take the insults and stereotypes directed at teenage parents every day, and post them up around the city.

At 15, I was a good student and determined to apply to college. But after I had my daughter, my high school guidance counselor refused to see me and help me with my applications. She never expected me to graduate. Most people, even within my family, assumed I wouldn’t amount to anything and would be dependent on government assistance for the rest of my life.