Most people look upon teenage pregnancies from the perspective of their class.
Middle-class parents horrified that their daughter might not go to university and all the benefits that entails, including a better class of husband.
But look at what a teenage pregnancy is for a young woman was not destined for the University and the fast lane.
You go from being an extra on the stage of life to being a mother. Instant respect.
Everyone’s cheering for you. No matter how far your fall, now matter how badly you screw up, there are people ready to help you find your way back for the sake of the children.
Ethnographic studies show that teenage mothers looked down on their contemporaries that delay having a child into their 20s.
Teenage mums to be start to clean up their act, they get off drugs, they get off alcohol.
Most of all for the first time in their lives, these teenagers have a purpose – to be a mother.
They don’t marry the father because they do not look upon him as husband material.
In many cases, the young mothers hope that becoming a father might turn him into husband material.
The reason why they don’t in the end marry the father is the persistent antisocial behaviour of the fathers, and most of all, their persistent infidelity.
Teenage mums know what they’re doing.
All too many do-gooders and busy bodies will look upon teenage pregnancies as a mistake – an accident – somehow the product of a lack of knowledge of contraception or access to the same.
This myth persisted despite the invention of the Internet by Al Gore and the considerable amount of information you can find out about the facts of life on the Internet with the help of those cell phones most teenagers have.
It’s far easier to explain behaviour you think is foolish from your own perspective rather than that the perspective of the teenager concerned and the options that they have before them.
It’s no coincidence that a large number of teenage mums did not finish high school and don’t have much to look forward in their working life. The biggest thing in their life will be being a mother. Why wait?
Recent Comments