Having plans for a future

Why do teens get pregnant?

"I believe girls choose to have babies when they don't have a vision of any other options," says Lisa Piscopo in an article in the Denver Post.

Karen Auge writes, "Teenage pregnancy is less a matter of morals or sex education or access to birth control than it is a matter of a girl — or boy— feeling that they have a future. Or not."

"Simply put, girls with prospects do not have babies. It is not just the disadvantaged, but the 'discouraged among the disadvantaged' who become teen mothers," Janet Rich-Edwards, a Harvard epidemiologist, wrote in the International Journal of Epidemiology.

Bill Albert of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy adds, "There's a mentality of 'I'm ready to have a baby, I love babies. I can buy clothes for them. They're so cute and wonderful,' and there's no connection to what's best for that child.  And they'll ask, 'Why wait? Wait for what? I'm not going to college.'"

Pregnancy can seem like an escape from an unhappy home life and can hold the promise of someone to love and to be loved by. That may explain, in part, the high rate of pregnancy among girls in foster care.  A University of Chicago study reported that by age 17, one-third of young women in foster care reported having been pregnant. By age 19, that proportion had risen to nearly half.  The study's author, Amy Dworsky, told a congressional panel that those girls want "to create the family they don't have or fill an emotional void."

Talk to your pregnant daughter about these quotes.  What are her hopes for the future?  Did she felt she had a good future before she became pregnant?  Does she identify with the quotes above that talk about wanting a baby so that someone will love her?  Does your daughter want to attend college and start a career?

You may find it helpful to read the chapter "Our hope for the next five years" in our book "How To Survive Your Teen's Pregnancy".

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