Реферат: Teenage Pregnancy Essay Research Paper The Truth

education to have a baby bafore their twentieth birthday. Some 58% of young women in

the United States who receive less than a high school education give birth by the time they

are twenty years old, compared with 13% of young women who complete at least twelve

years of schooling. (Tunick 11) Teens who become pregnant during high school are

more likely to drop out. (Calhoun 310) A teen mother leaves school because she cannot

manage the task of caring for a baby and studying, and a teen father usually chooses a job

over school so that he can pay bills and provide for his child. (Johnson 4) Teen mothers

usually have fewer resources than older mothers because they have had less time to gather

savings or build up their “productivity” through work experience, education, or training.

(Planned Parenthood 1) Because of this, teen mothers are generally poor and are

dependent on government support. (Newman 679) The welfare system is usually the

only support a teen parent will receive. Welfare benefits are higher for families with

absent fathers or dependent children. (Calhoun 309) In some cases, teen mothers may

also receive help like Medicaid, Food Stamps, and “Aid to Families with Dependent

Children” (AFDC). (Newman 679)

Besides educational and financial problems, teenage mothers may face a great deal

of emotional strain and may become very stressed. Teen mothers may have limited social

contacts and friendships because they do not have time for anything other than their baby.

Lack of a social life and time for herself may cause the teenage mother to become

depressed or have severe mental anxiety. (Johnson 5) Depression may become worse for

a teenage mother because she usually does not know much about child development or

about how to care for their children. Children who are born to teenage mothers usually

suffer from poor parenting. (Berk 188) Also, children of teenage parents start being

sexually active before their peers and they are more likely to become teenage parents

themselves. These children may also suffer from financial difficulties similar to that of

their parents. “Children whose mothers are age seventeen or younger are three times as

likely as their peers to be poor, and are likely to stay poor for a longer period of time.”

(Calhoun 311) The children born to teenage mothers sometimes score lower on

development tests than the children of older mothers. It seems that “rather than declining