Teenage Parenthood

Teenage Parenthood Teen parents are people under the age of majority and have a biological child; adolescents with offspring. An individual having a child in his/her teenage years is significantly challenging even with the support of a partner. Becoming teenage parents catapults the individuals into adulthood, where they are expected to be self-reliant and to accept responsibility for fulfilling the functions of an expanding family for their child. Most often, teen parents have more negative outcomes than adult families. As often, it is more likely for the teen male involved with the pregnancy of the teen female to back out the relationship in order to have nothing to do with the child; this causes a lack of stable family structure or enduring relationship which adds stress to both the parent and child. There are long term consequences in the process of child bearing and rearing; unplanned parenthood means that they would not have acquired the personal and material resources necessary to be self-reliant as they provide for the physical maintenance and care, socialization, social control, and affective nurturance of their child. The impact of teen parenthood on individuals and families is influenced by several aspects of the dilemma. Many young mothers are in poor physical health due to poor living habits and conditions. Poor mothers have higher rates of depression, which affects all aspects of their lives, including diminished parenting ability, inability to show warmth to their children, and lack of effective socialization and supervision of their children. They are more likely to experience stressful major life events than older parents; these may include having a child removed from the home, having a child die, experiencing a disabling or life-threatening accident themselves or having their child experience one. The children also face many challenges in life as the teen parent lacks the education, life experience, and support of more mature