Teen Pregnancy

Being a teenage parent changes a teenager’s life tremendously and permanently. Many girls who get pregnant, whether they choose to keep the child or not, give up their hopes of being happily and successfully married, of being able to attend a college full time with no children to worry about, and many girls never even finish off their senior year the way they wanted to. Teenage girls getting pregnant and having children is not a new issue, in fact it has been around for years. In fact, according to Teen Help, “teen pregnancy and birth rate was much higher prior to 1980 (and especially in the 1950s and 1960s.)” (Help, 2010) http://www.teenhelp.com/teen-pregnancy/teen-pregnancy-statistics.htmlThe difference between today and the 50’s and 60’s however is that back then the majority of teenage mothers were already married. Also most of the mothers were around 18 or 19, since it was normal to be married and settled down by that age.
Today many mothers are fifteen or sixteen years old. Some are even as
(Help, 2010)baby, therefore it's even harder for the mother. All of a sudden the girl is thrown into the world of responsibilities and duties, where the baby's needs come before her own. She is expected to balance her school or a job with the full time task of raising a baby. Her world is changed from her world of dates, parties, sleepovers and waiting for a Saturday so you can sleep late, to the world of doctor appointments, diapers, baby formulas, bills, and day care. Experts say that girls have babies from lack of self-esteem. "Too often, adolescent pregnancy is what happens to poor kids," says psychologist Judith
Musick. "It can be a symptom of having no better options." They need someone to love and someone to love them back. What's cuddlier and cuter than a baby is? A baby gives them something to look forward to and something that gives meaning to their life. Studies show that a lot of teenage mothers come from poverty and some of them don't know any better. There's definitely a lack of education but it doesn't have a direct relationship to race or ethnic background. A lot of teenage moms don't think that they have anything to lose by having a baby.
Communities and Governments have tried to help out teenage mothers but sometimes what they do just isn't enough. There is After-School Care for young adolescents and there are community learning centers. In 1984 about 8.7 million girls were living with a baby and without the father. Only 58% of those girls have been awarded child support. Of those who were supposed to get child support in 1983, only half received the amount due. Twenty-six percent received partial payment and 24% had gotten no payments at all.
Federal, state, and local funds must be provided for after school programs for young mothers. Legislative initiatives have to provide authorization to help communities start and operate a variety of programs that could be run by schools or churches or some kind of agencies.
Unmarried teenage moms, by contrast, are the hearts of underclass problem. Giving birth to children whom will never have a father and who sometimes spend a lifetime on welfare. There's a special program to help moms under 18 which provides a place to live, if the girl doesn't have any, like a church or a shelter. The girls are also provided with parental instructions, supervised childcare, and insist on finishing high school.
There's also allowance and training sessions. Some of the mothers are given federal financing and a mixture of public and private management.
Maybe, if the mothers would be given another chance, they would have taken a different path, and not have kids at such an early age. They have probably learned their lesson and suffered the consequences. First they'd finish their education, get a good job with a good salary, then get married, start a family and support it.
Approximately 60% of children born to teenagers who are not married, and the ones, who live and are not adopted, will receive welfare! "Teenage childbearing cost the nation $16.6 billion in the year of 1985, and 385,000 children who were the first born of teenagers in that year will receive $6 billion in the next 20 years," said a certain study. "The first baby born to a teenager will receive $15,620 in welfare payments and other government support by the time that child reaches 20."- Study released by the privately financed Center for Population Options. By the time these babies will reach
20, the Government will spend $6.04 billion to support them through Aid to
Families with Dependant Children, Medicaid, and food stamps. A third of the welfare total, $2.4 billion, could have been saved if those teenage mothers waited until they were 20 to have that baby. The U.S annually spends about
$21 billion providing health and social services to families begun by teenagers. There are some High Schools that learned a lot about this problem and have tried to help out their peers. For example, John Jay High School. They have a program for teenagers who have kids. The teen mothers are given the opportunity to finish their education while their babies are in the school's daycare center. Also at Spring Valley High, in Spring Valley, New York, a
Key club started a program to help out teenage moms, they have developed the
Cots for Tots program. Club members collect supplies that are often taken for granted. They go to local businesses and citizens and donate their own childhood toys to the disadvantaged infants. We forget that a lot of these teenage mothers have very bad living conditions. Cold, damp shanties - most of them empty, tattered, dirty mattresses that someone else threw away. No strollers, not enough clothes and blankets.
Though teen-age parenthood is a global problem, it occurs much more frequently in the United States than in other industrialized nations. Per capita, the US teen birthrate is about twice that of Great Britain, Canada, and France. Three times that of Sweden, and six times that of Netherlands.
Another important issue of this topic is Family values. Some families help the young mothers, they support them financially and emotionally. It is not uncommon in some families to have kids at an early age depending on their culture. Others my not be that understanding about a situation like that.
They might even kick the girl out of the house. I know that, for a fact, in my family it would be a disgrace to have a child before I'm married and especially when I'm young. I don't even want to think of what my parents would do. Although my older cousin had a baby and she's not married. She lives in a house with her parents and her boyfriend. But, she's 25 years old. Everyone adores the baby and she's a lot more fortunate than some other infants. Everyone buys her things and she's very much loved. It greatly depends on the situation and the family's culture and background, how they will react to a situation like this.
A lot of the girls who get pregnant, also get that way not just because of guys their own age but older men, or even if they get raped. On the other hand, if an older man impregnates a young girl, it is more likely that he will actually take care of the child. Based on 1993 California figures, the
American Journal of Public Health found that adults fathered two-thirds of infants born to unwed teens. Adult men sired 77% of California births to girls aged 16 to 28 and 51% of those to girls under 15 in 1990. The result of this is that the number of births to teenagers still remains high.
Here are a few things that any community could do to help out:
- Provide prenatal and postnatal care for the teen and her baby, it can cost as little as $600 for the entire pregnancy.
- Encourage girls to make use of the medical facilities.
- Educate teen parents about the complex role of parenthood.
- Teach them about nutrition, child development, health care, discipline, and related topics.
- Encourage young girls to stay in school and develop job skills.
- Provide high-quality day care that will help the child's development, while allowing the girl to stay in school and/or work.
- Sponsor pregnancy prevention programs that will keep teen mothers from having more babies before they are ready.
It is estimated right now that 40% of girls who are 14 and younger will get pregnant; 20% of those 14 and younger will give birth, and 16% will have abortions. And furthermore, up to 70% of teenage mothers become pregnant again within two years. It is surprising that in the end, the kids who receive help now, will most likely be the ones who escape the cycle of children having children. In my opinion, the next generation will be kids whose parents are still kids. The parents will not be that much older than their kids and maybe there wont be such a gap between those generations.
Kids won't have a hard time understanding their parents and the other way around. But if you u look at it from another angle, what can inexperienced teenage girls offer their children? They can't teach their babies right from wrong. They probably would like to, but they can't because a lot of them don't know it themselves.
This has been an issue of wrong and right for a long time, ideas of how to work through it are there, but something has to strongly enforce those ideas.
What is being done, I guess, is not enough to work it out, if this is still such a major issue and it concerns a lot of us. I don't know if in the future something will give, but for now, there are a lot of teens with a big and serious task and there is definitely no need for those teens to have that task. MOTHERS

Becoming a parent permanently and profoundly alters a teenager's life.
Most of the girls forget about their dreams of happy marriage, college is almost always out of the question, graduating High School becomes a goal most teenage moms don't achieve. Young girls having babies isn't new, as a matter of fact, teenage parenthood was higher in the 1950 then it is today, but things were different. Most of the girls were eighteen or nineteen and many of them already married. Only a few of single mothers actually kept their babies. Today many mothers are fifteen or sixteen years old. Some are even as young as twelve. Fathers contribute little or nothing to the care of the baby, therefore it's even harder for the mother. All of a sudden the girl is thrown into the world of responsibilities and duties, where the baby's needs come before her own. She is expected to balance her school or a job with the full time task of raising a baby. Her world is changed from her world of dates, parties, sleepovers and waiting for a Saturday so you can sleep late, to the world of doctor appointments, diapers, baby formulas, bills, and day care. Experts say that girls have babies from lack of self-esteem. "Too often, adolescent pregnancy is what happens to poor kids," says psychologist Judith
Musick. "It can be a symptom of having no better options." They need someone to love and someone to love them back. What's cuddlier and cuter than a baby is? A baby gives them something to look forward to and something that gives meaning to their life. Studies show that a lot of teenage mothers come from poverty and some of them don't know any better. There's definitely a lack of education but it doesn't have a direct relationship to race or ethnic background. A lot of teenage moms don't think that they have anything to lose by having a baby.
Communities and Governments have tried to help out teenage mothers but sometimes what they do just isn't enough. There is After-School Care for young adolescents and there are community learning centers. In 1984 about 8.7 million girls were living with a baby and without the father. Only 58% of those girls have been awarded child support. Of those who were supposed to get child support in 1983, only half received the amount due. Twenty-six percent received partial payment and 24% had gotten no payments at all.
Federal, state, and local funds must be provided for after school programs for young mothers. Legislative initiatives have to provide authorization to help communities start and operate a variety of programs that could be run by schools or churches or some kind of agencies.
Unmarried teenage moms, by contrast, are the hearts of underclass problem. Giving birth to children whom will never have a father and who sometimes spend a lifetime on welfare. There's a special program to help moms under 18 which provides a place to live, if the girl doesn't have any, like a church or a shelter. The girls are also provided with parental instructions, supervised childcare, and insist on finishing high school.
There's also allowance and training sessions. Some of the mothers are given federal financing and a mixture of public and private management.
Maybe, if the mothers would be given another chance, they would have taken a different path, and not have kids at such an early age. They have probably learned their lesson and suffered the consequences. First they'd finish their education, get a good job with a good salary, then get married, start a family and support it.
Approximately 60% of children born to teenagers who are not married, and the ones, who live and are not adopted, will receive welfare! "Teenage childbearing cost the nation $16.6 billion in the year of 1985, and 385,000 children who were the first born of teenagers in that year will receive $6 billion in the next 20 years," said a certain study. "The first baby born to a teenager will receive $15,620 in welfare payments and other government support by the time that child reaches 20."- Study released by the privately financed Center for Population Options. By the time these babies will reach
20, the Government will spend $6.04 billion to support them through Aid to
Families with Dependant Children, Medicaid, and food stamps. A third of the welfare total, $2.4 billion, could have been saved if those teenage mothers waited until they were 20 to have that baby. The U.S annually spends about
$21 billion providing health and social services to families begun by teenagers. There are some High Schools that learned a lot about this problem and have tried to help out their peers. For example, John Jay High School. They have a program for teenagers who have kids. The teen mothers are given the opportunity to finish their education while their babies are in the school's daycare center. Also at Spring Valley High, in Spring Valley, New York, a
Key club started a program to help out teenage moms, they have developed the
Cots for Tots program. Club members collect supplies that are often taken for granted. They go to local businesses and citizens and donate their own childhood toys to the disadvantaged infants. We forget that a lot of these teenage mothers have very bad living conditions. Cold, damp shanties - most of them empty, tattered, dirty mattresses that someone else threw away. No strollers, not enough clothes and blankets.
Though teen-age parenthood is a global problem, it occurs much more frequently in the United States than in other industrialized nations. Per capita, the US teen birthrate is about twice that of Great Britain, Canada, and France. Three times that of Sweden, and six times that of Netherlands.
Another important issue of this topic is Family values. Some families help the young mothers, they support them financially and emotionally. It is not uncommon in some families to have kids at an early age depending on their culture. Others my not be that understanding about a situation like that.
They might even kick the girl out of the house. I know that, for a fact, in my family it would be a disgrace to have a child before I'm married and especially when I'm young. I don't even want to think of what my parents would do. Although my older cousin had a baby and she's not married. She lives in a house with her parents and her boyfriend. But, she's 25 years old. Everyone adores the baby and she's a lot more fortunate than some other infants. Everyone buys her things and she's very much loved. It greatly depends on the situation and the family's culture and background, how they will react to a situation like this.
A lot of the girls who get pregnant, also get that way not just because of guys their own age but older men, or even if they get raped. On the other hand, if an older man impregnates a young girl, it is more likely that he will actually take care of the child. Based on 1993 California figures, the
American Journal of Public Health found that adults fathered two-thirds of infants born to unwed teens. Adult men sired 77% of California births to girls aged 16 to 28 and 51% of those to girls under 15 in 1990. The result of this is that the number of births to teenagers still remains high.
Here are a few things that any community could do to help out:
- Provide prenatal and postnatal care for the teen and her baby, it can cost as little as $600 for the entire pregnancy.
- Encourage girls to make use of the medical facilities.
- Educate teen parents about the complex role of parenthood.
- Teach them about nutrition, child development, health care, discipline, and related topics.
- Encourage young girls to stay in school and develop job skills.
- Provide high-quality day care that will help the child's development, while allowing the girl to stay in school and/or work.
- Sponsor pregnancy prevention programs that will keep teen mothers from having more babies before they are ready.
It is estimated right now that 40% of girls who are 14 and younger will get pregnant; 20% of those 14 and younger will give birth, and 16% will have abortions. And furthermore, up to 70% of teenage mothers become pregnant again within two years. It is surprising that in the end, the kids who receive help now, will most likely be the ones who escape the cycle of children having children. In my opinion, the next generation will be kids whose parents are still kids. The parents will not be that much older than their kids and maybe there wont be such a gap between those generations.
Kids won't have a hard time understanding their parents and the other way around. But if you u look at it from another angle, what can inexperienced teenage girls offer their children? They can't teach their babies right from wrong. They probably would like to, but they can't because a lot of them don't know it themselves.
This has been an issue of wrong and right for a long time, ideas of how to work through it are there, but something has to strongly enforce those ideas.
What is being done, I guess, is not enough to work it out, if this is still such a major issue and it concerns a lot of us. I don't know if in the future something will give, but for now, there are a lot of teens with a big and serious task and there is definitely no need for those teens to have that task. MOTHERS

Becoming a parent permanently and profoundly alters a teenager's life.
Most of the girls forget about their dreams of happy marriage, college is almost always out of the question, graduating High School becomes a goal most teenage moms don't achieve. Young girls having babies isn't new, as a matter of fact, teenage parenthood was higher in the 1950 then it is today, but things were different. Most of the girls were eighteen or nineteen and many of them already married. Only a few of single mothers actually kept their babies. Today many mothers are fifteen or sixteen years old. Some are even as young as twelve. Fathers contribute little or nothing to the care of the baby, therefore it's even harder for the mother. All of a sudden the girl is thrown into the world of responsibilities and duties, where the baby's needs come before her own. She is expected to balance her school or a job with the full time task of raising a baby. Her world is changed from her world of dates, parties, sleepovers and waiting for a Saturday so you can sleep late, to the world of doctor appointments, diapers, baby formulas, bills, and day care. Experts say that girls have babies from lack of self-esteem. "Too often, adolescent pregnancy is what happens to poor kids," says psychologist Judith
Musick. "It can be a symptom of having no better options." They need someone to love and someone to love them back. What's cuddlier and cuter than a baby is? A baby gives them something to look forward to and something that gives meaning to their life. Studies show that a lot of teenage mothers come from poverty and some of them don't know any better. There's definitely a lack of education but it doesn't have a direct relationship to race or ethnic background. A lot of teenage moms don't think that they have anything to lose by having a baby.
Communities and Governments have tried to help out teenage mothers but sometimes what they do just isn't enough. There is After-School Care for young adolescents and there are community learning centers. In 1984 about 8.7 million girls were living with a baby and without the father. Only 58% of those girls have been awarded child support. Of those who were supposed to get child support in 1983, only half received the amount due. Twenty-six percent received partial payment and 24% had gotten no payments at all.
Federal, state, and local funds must be provided for after school programs for young mothers. Legislative initiatives have to provide authorization to help communities start and operate a variety of programs that could be run by schools or churches or some kind of agencies.
Unmarried teenage moms, by contrast, are the hearts of underclass problem. Giving birth to children whom will never have a father and who sometimes spend a lifetime on welfare. There's a special program to help moms under 18 which provides a place to live, if the girl doesn't have any, like a church or a shelter. The girls are also provided with parental instructions, supervised childcare, and insist on finishing high school.
There's also allowance and training sessions. Some of the mothers are given federal financing and a mixture of public and private management.
Maybe, if the mothers would be given another chance, they would have taken a different path, and not have kids at such an early age. They have probably learned their lesson and suffered the consequences. First they'd finish their education, get a good job with a good salary, then get married, start a family and support it.
Approximately 60% of children born to teenagers who are not married, and the ones, who live and are not adopted, will receive welfare! "Teenage childbearing cost the nation $16.6 billion in the year of 1985, and 385,000 children who were the first born of teenagers in that year will receive $6 billion in the next 20 years," said a certain study. "The first baby born to a teenager will receive $15,620 in welfare payments and other government support by the time that child reaches 20."- Study released by the privately financed Center for Population Options. By the time these babies will reach
20, the Government will spend $6.04 billion to support them through Aid to
Families with Dependant Children, Medicaid, and food stamps. A third of the welfare total, $2.4 billion, could have been saved if those teenage mothers waited until they were 20 to have that baby. The U.S annually spends about
$21 billion providing health and social services to families begun by teenagers. There are some High Schools that learned a lot about this problem and have tried to help out their peers. For example, John Jay High School. They have a program for teenagers who have kids. The teen mothers are given the opportunity to finish their education while their babies are in the school's daycare center. Also at Spring Valley High, in Spring Valley, New York, a
Key club started a program to help out teenage moms, they have developed the
Cots for Tots program. Club members collect supplies that are often taken for granted. They go to local businesses and citizens and donate their own childhood toys to the disadvantaged infants. We forget that a lot of these teenage mothers have very bad living conditions. Cold, damp shanties - most of them empty, tattered, dirty mattresses that someone else threw away. No strollers, not enough clothes and blankets.
Though teen-age parenthood is a global problem, it occurs much more frequently in the United States than in other industrialized nations. Per capita, the US teen birthrate is about twice that of Great Britain, Canada, and France. Three times that of Sweden, and six times that of Netherlands.
Another important issue of this topic is Family values. Some families help the young mothers, they support them financially and emotionally. It is not uncommon in some families to have kids at an early age depending on their culture. Others my not be that understanding about a situation like that.
They might even kick the girl out of the house. I know that, for a fact, in my family it would be a disgrace to have a child before I'm married and especially when I'm young. I don't even want to think of what my parents would do. Although my older cousin had a baby and she's not married. She lives in a house with her parents and her boyfriend. But, she's 25 years old. Everyone adores the baby and she's a lot more fortunate than some other infants. Everyone buys her things and she's very much loved. It greatly depends on the situation and the family's culture and background, how they will react to a situation like this.
A lot of the girls who get pregnant, also get that way not just because of guys their own age but older men, or even if they get raped. On the other hand, if an older man impregnates a young girl, it is more likely that he will actually take care of the child. Based on 1993 California figures, the
American Journal of Public Health found that adults fathered two-thirds of infants born to unwed teens. Adult men sired 77% of California births to girls aged 16 to 28 and 51% of those to girls under 15 in 1990. The result of this is that the number of births to teenagers still remains high.
Here are a few things that any community could do to help out:
- Provide prenatal and postnatal care for the teen and her baby, it can cost as little as $600 for the entire pregnancy.
- Encourage girls to make use of the medical facilities.
- Educate teen parents about the complex role of parenthood.
- Teach them about nutrition, child development, health care, discipline, and related topics.
- Encourage young girls to stay in school and develop job skills.
- Provide high-quality day care that will help the child's development, while allowing the girl to stay in school and/or work.
- Sponsor pregnancy prevention programs that will keep teen mothers from having more babies before they are ready.
It is estimated right now that 40% of girls who are 14 and younger will get pregnant; 20% of those 14 and younger will give birth, and 16% will have abortions. And furthermore, up to 70% of teenage mothers become pregnant again within two years. It is surprising that in the end, the kids who receive help now, will most likely be the ones who escape the cycle of children having children. In my opinion, the next generation will be kids whose parents are still kids. The parents will not be that much older than their kids and maybe there wont be such a gap between those generations.
Kids won't have a hard time understanding their parents and the other way around. But if you u look at it from another angle, what can inexperienced teenage girls offer their children? They can't teach their babies right from wrong. They probably would like to, but they can't because a lot of them don't know it themselves.
This has been an issue of wrong and right for a long time, ideas of how to work through it are there, but something has to strongly enforce those ideas.
What is being done, I guess, is not enough to work it out, if this is still such a major issue and it concerns a lot of us. I don't know if in the future something will give, but for now, there are a lot of teens with a big and serious task and there is definitely no need for those teens to have that task. MOTHERS

Becoming a parent permanently and profoundly alters a teenager's life.
Most of the girls forget about their dreams of happy marriage, college is almost always out of the question, graduating High School becomes a goal most teenage moms don't achieve. Young girls having babies isn't new, as a matter of fact, teenage parenthood was higher in the 1950 then it is today, but things were different. Most of the girls were eighteen or nineteen and many of them already married. Only a few of single mothers actually kept their babies. Today many mothers are fifteen or sixteen years old. Some are even as young as twelve. Fathers contribute little or nothing to the care of the baby, therefore it's even harder for the mother. All of a sudden the girl is thrown into the world of responsibilities and duties, where the baby's needs come before her own. She is expected to balance her school or a job with the full time task of raising a baby. Her world is changed from her world of dates, parties, sleepovers and waiting for a Saturday so you can sleep late, to the world of doctor appointments, diapers, baby formulas, bills, and day care. Experts say that girls have babies from lack of self-esteem. "Too often, adolescent pregnancy is what happens to poor kids," says psychologist Judith
Musick. "It can be a symptom of having no better options." They need someone to love and someone to love them back. What's cuddlier and cuter than a baby is? A baby gives them something to look forward to and something that gives meaning to their life. Studies show that a lot of teenage mothers come from poverty and some of them don't know any better. There's definitely a lack of education but it doesn't have a direct relationship to race or ethnic background. A lot of teenage moms don't think that they have anything to lose by having a baby.
Communities and Governments have tried to help out teenage mothers but sometimes what they do just isn't enough. There is After-School Care for young adolescents and there are community learning centers. In 1984 about 8.7 million girls were living with a baby and without the father. Only 58% of those girls have been awarded child support. Of those who were supposed to get child support in 1983, only half received the amount due. Twenty-six percent received partial payment and 24% had gotten no payments at all.
Federal, state, and local funds must be provided for after school programs for young mothers. Legislative initiatives have to provide authorization to help communities start and operate a variety of programs that could be run by schools or churches or some kind of agencies.
Unmarried teenage moms, by contrast, are the hearts of underclass problem. Giving birth to children whom will never have a father and who sometimes spend a lifetime on welfare. There's a special program to help moms under 18 which provides a place to live, if the girl doesn't have any, like a church or a shelter. The girls are also provided with parental instructions, supervised childcare, and insist on finishing high school.
There's also allowance and training sessions. Some of the mothers are given federal financing and a mixture of public and private management.
Maybe, if the mothers would be given another chance, they would have taken a different path, and not have kids at such an early age. They have probably learned their lesson and suffered the consequences. First they'd finish their education, get a good job with a good salary, then get married, start a family and support it.
Approximately 60% of children born to teenagers who are not married, and the ones, who live and are not adopted, will receive welfare! "Teenage childbearing cost the nation $16.6 billion in the year of 1985, and 385,000 children who were the first born of teenagers in that year will receive $6 billion in the next 20 years," said a certain study. "The first baby born to a teenager will receive $15,620 in welfare payments and other government support by the time that child reaches 20."- Study released by the privately financed Center for Population Options. By the time these babies will reach
20, the Government will spend $6.04 billion to support them through Aid to
Families with Dependant Children, Medicaid, and food stamps. A third of the welfare total, $2.4 billion, could have been saved if those teenage mothers waited until they were 20 to have that baby. The U.S annually spends about
$21 billion providing health and social services to families begun by teenagers. There are some High Schools that learned a lot about this problem and have tried to help out their peers. For example, John Jay High School. They have a program for teenagers who have kids. The teen mothers are given the opportunity to finish their education while their babies are in the school's daycare center. Also at Spring Valley High, in Spring Valley, New York, a
Key club started a program to help out teenage moms, they have developed the
Cots for Tots program. Club members collect supplies that are often taken for granted. They go to local businesses and citizens and donate their own childhood toys to the disadvantaged infants. We forget that a lot of these teenage mothers have very bad living conditions. Cold, damp shanties - most of them empty, tattered, dirty mattresses that someone else threw away. No strollers, not enough clothes and blankets.
Though teen-age parenthood is a global problem, it occurs much more frequently in the United States than in other industrialized nations. Per capita, the US teen birthrate is about twice that of Great Britain, Canada, and France. Three times that of Sweden, and six times that of Netherlands.
Another important issue of this topic is Family values. Some families help the young mothers, they support them financially and emotionally. It is not uncommon in some families to have kids at an early age depending on their culture. Others my not be that understanding about a situation like that.
They might even kick the girl out of the house. I know that, for a fact, in my family it would be a disgrace to have a child before I'm married and especially when I'm young. I don't even want to think of what my parents would do. Although my older cousin had a baby and she's not married. She lives in a house with her parents and her boyfriend. But, she's 25 years old. Everyone adores the baby and she's a lot more fortunate than some other infants. Everyone buys her things and she's very much loved. It greatly depends on the situation and the family's culture and background, how they will react to a situation like this.
A lot of the girls who get pregnant, also get that way not just because of guys their own age but older men, or even if they get raped. On the other hand, if an older man impregnates a young girl, it is more likely that he will actually take care of the child. Based on 1993 California figures, the
American Journal of Public Health found that adults fathered two-thirds of infants born to unwed teens. Adult men sired 77% of California births to girls aged 16 to 28 and 51% of those to girls under 15 in 1990. The result of this is that the number of births to teenagers still remains high.
Here are a few things that any community could do to help out:
- Provide prenatal and postnatal care for the teen and her baby, it can cost as little as $600 for the entire pregnancy.
- Encourage girls to make use of the medical facilities.
- Educate teen parents about the complex role of parenthood.
- Teach them about nutrition, child development, health care, discipline, and related topics.
- Encourage young girls to stay in school and develop job skills.
- Provide high-quality day care that will help the child's development, while allowing the girl to stay in school and/or work.
- Sponsor pregnancy prevention programs that will keep teen mothers from having more babies before they are ready.
It is estimated right now that 40% of girls who are 14 and younger will get pregnant; 20% of those 14 and younger will give birth, and 16% will have abortions. And furthermore, up to 70% of teenage mothers become pregnant again within two years. It is surprising that in the end, the kids who receive help now, will most likely be the ones who escape the cycle of children having children. In my opinion, the next generation will be kids whose parents are still kids. The parents will not be that much older than their kids and maybe there wont be such a gap between those generations.
Kids won't have a hard time understanding their parents and the other way around. But if you u look at it from another angle, what can inexperienced teenage girls offer their children? They can't teach their babies right from wrong. They probably would like to, but they can't because a lot of them don't know it themselves.
This has been an issue of wrong and right for a long time, ideas of how to work through it are there, but something has to strongly enforce those ideas.
What is being done, I guess, is not enough to work it out, if this is still such a major issue and it concerns a lot of us. I don't know if in the future something will give, but for now, there are a lot of teens with a big and serious task and there is definitely no need for those teens to have that task. Young people today have a tendency to rush in to commitments before fully understanding what they are getting into. One of the most serious of these is marriage. This commitment is taken lightly by many teenagers.

The factors causing teenage marriage are as varied as the effects. Sometimes marriage is looked at as an escape from difficult situations at home or with parents. Parents may even encourage their children to get married before they are ready to assist their own financial situations. Other teenagers get involved in serious relationships from a very young age. This could lead to pregnancy or even the idea that they must move on to the next step before they are really ready.

There are several serious effects and problems associated with rushing into marriage. Anyone considering getting married should be aware of some devastating statistics and possibilities. In Eleanor H. Ayer's book, Teen Marriage, she noted that: "A girl married at 17 is twice as likely to be divorced as a girl 18 or 19. If a girl waits until she is 25 the chances that her marriage will last are 4 times better" (Ayer). More than one half of those who marry in their teens will be divorced within five years (Teenage Marriage...).

This large percentage is due in part to the lack of realization of the many sacrifices that must be made in order to have a successful marriage. Another factor that affects this statistic is the widespread acceptance by society of divorce. If people would enter into the commitment of marriage without thinking of divorce as an option, relationship problems would be looked at more seriously and solved before marriage. Many married people must also sacrifice their own independence and their education.

There is really no good reason to rush into marriage. If two people are really in love and meant to be together, time will only better their relationship. A happy, successful marriage is worth the wait.