Why do teenagers have babies?

[Pumbaa_]

many teens are too embarrassed to talk about BC with their boyfriends. They can have sex with them but can't talk about condoms or heaven forbid buy them

good luck on your paper!

 

[fortheluvofpooh]

because the majority of teenagers don't think long term.

 

[mjkacmom]

But that is MY point -- not everyone thought it was shameful, even that long ago. In a really poor community like the one I lived in, the poor were NOT ashamed of it, there was no stigma to illegitimacy even then. Most of those girls were third generation unwed teenaged moms and didn't feel any kind of shame at all; there hadn't been a stigma in that community since at least the 1940's.
.

But I think that is what is different today. I grew up in an upper middle class community (and still live here). The shame that came with teenage pregnancy is less today. There are more pregnant teens here today than when I was a teen. The kids can afford birth control, and abortions, but are choosing to have babies instead.

 

[BeachGirlFLA]

I graduated 14 years ago from a private Catholic girls' school. There were still two girls who got pregnant (and one got married) between my Junior and Senior years and there were only 30 girls in my class.

 

[MrsPete]

My mom and dad got married the weekend after she turned 16 (he was 18) because it wasn't legal to be married in MI under 16. She was already pregnant with me. They had 3 babies in 3 years, so she was 19 with 3 babies. You know what was funny? She graduated at the top of her class in 1974 and gave the valedictorian speech with me in the audience and very pregnant with my sister.

They did really well for themselves and didn't spend a day on any sort of welfare or aid. I know that's not the norm, but it does occasionally happen.

This is the future that all the teens EXPECT for themselves: marrying the father of the child, going on to have other children together, completing their educational goals . . . but we all know that only a few, few, few will do this well with a baby in tow. Good for your mom for being the one who "made it".

 

[rie'smom]

I grew up with upper middle class friends, my dad was a lawyer ( he's retired) and several of us got pregnant. This was in the 70s. It wasn't something I was proud of but we weren't shunned. Some had baby showers but there was no way that my mom would have allowed it nor would I have wanted one.

 

[NotUrsula]

But I think that is what is different today. I grew up in an upper middle class community (and still live here). The shame that came with teenage pregnancy is less today. There are more pregnant teens here today than when I was a teen. The kids can afford birth control, and abortions, but are choosing to have babies instead.

You're right, of course. I guess what I was trying to get across to the OP (but not doing very well at -- sorry, I'm sleep-deprived right now) is that class still plays a part in the reasons why girls do it. Not as much as it used to by far, but it still does.

Most urban poor kids who do it do so because that is just the way life is; they see it as the natural order of things. They may plan it if they feel that the person they are sleeping with has a future as a kind person and a good provider, because it's an advantage having a good father for your kids, as opposed to a loser who ends up in jail and can't contribute to the child's support.

That was also the way that it was for the poor black girls that I knew at my public high school. The town I went to HS in wasn't like Mrs.Pete's. It was a racially segregated community of 20K that had quite a few wealthy people, and a majority population of poor blacks who were mostly the descendants of slaves (who had once been the property of the grandparents of the wealthier folks in town.) It was the county seat, more a market town than a farm town, though we had plenty of truck farmers, and I lived in a rented house that sat in the middle of a soybean field outside of town. (The fields were leased, as were many in our area. The "farm" that I lived on was the property of folks who no longer farmed; they had gone into a different business right after WW2.) We had FOUR private whites-only high schools -- white flight was so accepted and entrenched that the only reason that a white kid would attend the public high school was either poverty or parents who were politically active (and who needed votes from minorities.) Two of those private schools are now defunct.

I don't want to give the impression that all of the blacks were poor folks and that all of the whites were prosperous, because that wasn't the case. At least half of the whites were lower-middle-class working stiffs who repaired equipment or worked "six and six" on an oil drilling platform, and there were at least two black families that owned large tracts of land and whose grandparents had been slaveowners themselves before the Civil War. However, there was a pretty strict caste system that governed behaviour, and there was a definite class divide on the subject of illegitimacy in those days. Now the racial divide on that issue is gone. However, the more prosperous families still make a major point of preaching to their daughters that tying yourself down with kids too soon is the road to financial hardship, and because they are likely to be religious conservatives, many of them also will feel that premature pregnancy demonstrates a moral failure on some level. Abortions are not available anywhere near that area these days, because the religious Right is in control of local ordinances and commerce. If you want one you have to travel to New Orleans or, more likely, Houston. (I should note that even in this largely Catholic community, illegal abortions used to be common back before legalization, because we also had two very well-known cathouses in town.)

I have a niece who is 21. She lives in a mid-sized city in the south, and she went to a racially-balanced magnet high school for the gifted. Of her former group of 6 high school girlfriends, 3 have children; none are married. One of them did it by choice because she and her partner wanted to; the other two just accepted accidents. All of them were at least 17 when they got pregnant. She thinks that what they did was foolish because it is limiting their life choices at this point, but she doesn't see them as morally flawed. She does think that abortion is morally wrong, though she is not a very religious person.

I think that another factor at work is that the idea of surrendering a child for adoption as a good thing is now darned-near dead among teens. IME, they think of giving a child up for adoption as tossing it away, and they largely think that it is morally reprehensible and heartless. To them, connectedness is everything, and cutting ties on purpose is alien. They tend not to be able to see far enough into the future to realize that it is sometimes the best thing for the child. (And yes, I know that open adoption is an option, but the majority of prospective adoptive parents are very frightened of what that could mean for them, and therefore shy away from it.)

 

[DSNLvR]

I can only speak for myself. I didn't think it would happen to me. We were not careful enough. I was 19 when I had DD8. I am still with her father and we have since had one other child. Financially we are doing great at this point and have to say I think we are incredible parents considering we started so young.

I do not want that for my DD's though. Being 19 and responsible for a little life was no easy task and to be honest growing up overnight sucked.

 

[DSNLvR]

Just to add I am white and grew up in a very poor neighborhood where teen pregnancy was more common than not.

 

[themarquis]

Sorry if this has already been pointed out, but teen pregnancy rates are now quite a bit lower than they've been most of this century, so teen pregnancy is not exactly a new epidemic and nor can we attribute it to anything culturally recent.

This decline is is the case both for the rate of girls who get pregnant and those who actually give birth -- so abortions have also decreased in the last 30 years or so.

I believe there was a peak in teen pregnancy rates in 1991 and the rates have declined about 40 percent since then. But even farther back, there was a larger peak in the 50s and 60s at about 95 births per 1000 teens 15-19 (today the number is closer to 50 births per 1000 teens). (n.b. there's been a little blip in the last 2 years & it's risen by a small amount -- nobody is quite sure why & whether it might be an issue of statistical reporting or something else).

So there are, simply stated, FEWER teens today having babies than in the past. But what has actually changed is the percentage of teens who are giving birth unmarried. That has risen dramatically. Some of that was likely teens on the higher end of that age range who got married right out of high school. And a lot of it would have been the intense atmosphere of coercion and shame driving pregnant girls into marriage. Which I for one don't think we should be bringing back.

As a side note, the reason so many people seem to think it's "obvious" that so many more teens today (not true) are having babies is because it's much more out in the open. We don't lock up our daughters when they start "showing" or take them out of school and send them off to reformatories for "wayward" unwed mothers (or ... as they used to say, to "visit relatives" ). Pregnant teens just live their lives, they go to high school (hopefully), they go out in public -- heck, sometimes they even have baby showers. And hey -- it doesn't seem to have led to the downfall of civilization that we no longer punish, shame, and hide pregnant teens -- the birth rate for teens has gone down, hasn't it?

This thread is interesting to me on a number of levels -- it's interesting that many folks assume that teen pregnancy is more common now than it was in the past when they grew up. (despite the recent blip of a few percentage points, I can guarantee you that teen pregnancy rates were much higher when you grew up, whenever that was, since the blip basically puts us back to the rate we were at at around 2001, and any time before that, it was much higher). It's also interesting that folks agree that there is some kind of cultural shift or attitudinal change or something that is oh so obviously reflected by the massive numbers of teens these days who are going off and getting preggers (since they aren't actually doing so at a higher rate than before, it's a moot point).

Finally, it's also interesting that the thread is titled the way it is ... "why do teenagers have babies". Really? Is that really the question you want to ask? Because I think the answer is pretty obvious, empirically. Female teens have sex or engage in some other activity involving sperm, sperm meets egg, conception occurs, then somehwere down along the line, she decides whether or not to get an abortion, and if she doesn't and all goes well, she has a baby. Right? Or is the question meant to be asking something else?

 

[Wishing on a star]

I haven't read every response here, so maybe this has been touched on already.

Teens, especially younger teens, are children!

We can't look at their actions and their motivations thru the same lens or scope that we would an adult.

They are children, having children, because they are engaging in intimate behaviors before they are ready to understand what it is they are doing and what the consequences are.

Asking 'why do teens get pregnant', is like asking why little 5 year old johnny and mary get into the cookie jar...

Short answer - Because they can.

The cookie jar was left open, nobody was watching...
Heck, a good percentage of the time parents are fluffing the pillows....

Of course, we are now treading into moral and religious territory. Because I think we all know the given responses to anyone who suggest that maybe some behaviors should be questionable or off-limits.

Anyhow, IMHO, asking why teens have babies is like buying the cookies and candy and soda and chips and leaving them out, and then asking why our children are obese.

 

[NotUrsula]

This thread is interesting to me on a number of levels -- it's interesting that many folks assume that teen pregnancy is more common now than it was in the past when they grew up. (despite the recent blip of a few percentage points, I can guarantee you that teen pregnancy rates were much higher when you grew up, whenever that was, since the blip basically puts us back to the rate we were at at around 2001, and any time before that, it was much higher). It's also interesting that folks agree that there is some kind of cultural shift or attitudinal change or something that is oh so obviously reflected by the massive numbers of teens these days who are going off and getting preggers (since they aren't actually doing so at a higher rate than before, it's a moot point).

Oh, I agree, it is declining. If I had to guess at a primary reason, I would think that it is probably because kids are learning more about sex at an earlier age. Not only are they trying to protect against STD's, but they are also using more imaginative techniques that are less likely to result in conception.

It does bear repeating that births to teens and births to unwed mothers are not necessary the same categories. In the 1950's and 60's there were an awful lot of babies born to married teenaged mothers.

 

[CaliforniaDreamin]

When I was in High School, a girl got pregnant because she felt unloved by everyone in her family and wanted someone of her own to love and be loved by...very sad

This was basically my reason. I was out of school and 19 yrs old. My mom left when I was 9, my dad had to work all the time to make up for the lost income (she never paid a dime of child support), I was left with my grandmother who was a dry alcoholic and extremely cruel (my dad was unaware of this). I just wanted my own little happy family. A mom and dad, 2 kids and a dog. And thats what happened. I wish I had gone to college first, but 16 years later, we are going strong. I would not, however, recommend this to anyone. It's been tough.