Reality Sucks for Teenage Mothers

Many people read with disbelief the recent story of ninety teenage mothers or mothers to be at one school in Tennessee. Others walk by the checkout counters and see headlines such as one MTV mother doesn't know who exactly is the father of her baby. More people tune into MTV and watch the latest installment of Teen Mother 2. Ask a teenager and they know of at least one pregnant person in high school. With a country that has so much information and supplies about pregnancy prevention, how do we explain this atmosphere that condones, and encourages young girls to get pregnant as young as twelve.

Many people will say blame the media that projects this illusionary picture of teen motherhood as though it is tough, the pregnancy will workout some way in a positive manner for the young mother. Maybe the pregnancy will and maybe the opposite outcome will occur, but once the cameras are turned off the question becomes how did these young women end up in such life changing situations?

Does peer pressure cause young girls to become women too fast? When the mentality of everyone doing it or an acceptance that somehow being sexually active is a rite of passage at such an early age, many girls have intimate relationships long before they are mentally and emotionally ready to handle the responsibility and the consequences of these choices. Many mistaken sex for love and instead of realizing that sex is an expression of love.

Their need for acceptance and love is so great that if that relationship doesn't fill that void in them, they mistakenly believe a baby will fill that void, when the void can truly only be filled by themselves. Self-love and acceptance will fill the void, not sexual trysts or babies. These young women do not realize that a baby is a life altering event and once mothers, all the self-centeredness of teenage years, the parties, the dances, the going out, are gone and life revolves around the baby who is completely dependent on a mother.

Not only does the expectant mother have a life altering event, so do the family and friends that surround them. Friends may be excited in the beginning with their pregnant friend, eagerly anticipating the birth and the few weeks that follow, but life will again flow for their friends. These friends will continue to be teenagers and have that semi-carefree life, and not wish to be tied down with a friend with a baby. Sounds cruel, but this choice is a reality many teen mothers experience.

Other friends will drop them when they learn of this pregnancy not wishing to be associated with the poor choices of a friend. For some young people, reputation still plays an important part of their social status in high school. These young people may be polite, but will exclude them from events surrounding them. This young woman who may have made a poor choice may find herself a complete outcast, with programs like "The Secret Life of the American Teenager" portrays them as having good friends who stick with them through all these events, including one young man who loves the new mother though he isn't the father.

These young women do not realize that their parents are NOT built in babysitters. Many young mothers believe their parents will take care of this child while they live their lives and discover their parents refuse to help with childcare. Some parents reject their daughter, disappointed and angry with her pregnancy. Other parents will make the young mother solely responsible for her child. Some young mothers will find they are suddenly homeless and have to seek assistance from their state welfare systems.

Too many young women believe the father of their baby will be there to support them, and they create this illusion that the baby will have two wonderful parents to support, love and nurture the child. Often, these young men responsible for the child do not have the maturity or the resources to support the child and/or the mother. These young men, especially if there was no true relationship will be resentful, angry and callous of being tied down with a baby.

Even when the young man loves his child, the relationship with the mother may be one of the most tumultuous ones filled with fighting, resentment, abuse or hatred. As hard as she may try to build a future with this person, she doesn't know this person and the immaturity of both may put teen parenthood on a horrible path of emotional abuse and destruction of self-worth. She may be oblivious to the reality of her baby's father focusing on what she believes are the baby's emotional needs believing that somehow he will become that wonderful father and nurturing husband for her.

Relationships today are challenging, require work and dedication, maturity and compromise, but teen mothers want these relationships now. Perhaps they have read too many romance novels, seen too many movies or programs that have lulled them into the false belief that everyone lives happily ever after? What thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen year-old male teenager is ready to be tied down and live a family life? The numbers of those men who don't will be many times more than those men who are willing to give up their teenage freedom for their baby.

Perhaps as a society we have given our teenagers too much freedom and idle time. Perhaps we have spent too much time trying to give them things instead of instilling in them the tools to make wise choices no matter their age. Perhaps we are continuing a cycle of single motherhood that started with her mother or grandmother and with a welfare and education system here in the US, make getting pregnant too easy. How many young mothers are welfare mothers, probably most because they are too young to have a job, haven't finished high school (and may never), and lack skills to educate and nurture their children to make better choices. A quiet acceptance, with a tinge of disappointment when a family cycle is continued may permeate these similar households.

Do income, education and race play a part in this acceptance of this growing trend of teen mothers? Statistics will validate that yes these factors may play a large part in these choices, but statistics mean nothing to that teenager who had sex and is now pregnant. She is caught up in an emotional cycle of fear and excitement. And as most teenagers are caught up in the very short-term future, they do not realize how they have changed their lives forever until that one day when they realize the life they knew is over and the life they have now is filled with harsh realities, struggles and the removal of their carefree teenage freedoms.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2011/01/15/2011-01-15_pregnancy_epidemic_90_teens_11_percent_of_student_body_pregnant_at_frayser_high_.html