Poverty is both a cause and a consequence of teen pregnancy and child bearing. Two-thirds of young unmarried mothers are poor and around 25 percent go on welfare within three years of a child’s birth. Low educational attainment among teen mothers affects their lifetime income levels. Teen mothers are less likely to complete high school or college, and are therefore also less likely to find well-paying jobs. This reality is evident in the fact that over the past 20 years, the median income for college graduates has increased 19 percent, while income among high school drop-outs has decreased 28 percent.
Only around 20 percent of fathers of children born to teen mothers marry the mothers. Therefore, child support generally represents a vital income source for these single parent families, accounting for 23 percent of family income among families that receive it. However, teen fathers may pay less than $800 a year in child support, compounding financial difficulties for the parent responsible for day to day care. Teen fathers are often poor themselves; research indicates that they are also less educated and experience earning losses of 10-15 percent annually.
Resources:
Teen Pregnancy, Poverty & Income Disparity, The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy
As a teen mom I understand what it is like to not have a lot, and we had more then most. What we had that made all the difference is support. We had family that made sure we never went without the things we needed. We never truly had to worry about how to buy diapers when our tiny pay check was gone. We tried our best to do it on our own but if we couldn't, our families helped. With love, support and a LOT of hard work we crawled out of the hole called poverty and are doing very well. We now have all the things we need and a lot of the things we want.
I often think about how life would have been different for me and the kids without our support system. What if my parents had thrown me out, or disowned me. What if I had lost my friends when I became pregnant, like a lot of teens do. What would I have done? I go though all the resources our community has (not that I really knew them at the time) and think about how they could have helped me at 15, pregnant, and alone. We don't have much in this area. Without a teen homeless shelter, the ability to drive, and being to young to get a job or to sign up for a lot of resources without parental consent, it seems nearly impossible. I couldn't even see a doctor without my parents. If I was truly 15, pregnant, and alone, I would have been screwed.
Going to school for my human services degree I learned about "Maslow's hierarchy of need" which states that Physiological needs must be met before anything else can be focused on. Those are the basics, food, water air, sleep, etc. Next is Safety, a place to stay, the security of knowing where your next meal will be coming from, finding a way to survive beyond this moment. The list of needs goes on from there but "going to school and getting an education" is not much of a priority on his list. To you and me we completely see the necessity in an education, but for a pregnant teen, alone, hungry, without a place to stay, it seems pretty low on that list.
I am not trying to end teen pregnancy, although I would like to, I am just trying to meet a few of the Physiological and Safety needs so that it is possible for these moms to focus on making a life for themselves and their children. The sooner they don't have to focus on where their next meal is coming from or if they will have what they need to keep themselves and their babies alive, the sooner they can make plans for their future.
My life and my children's lives are what they are because our needs were met. If we can help even a few of those teens in need, to stay in school, stay off drugs, and dig themselves out of the poverty hole, then we have made a difference. I created Haven so that the teens with no where to go, would now have a place. When they needed someone to turn to, there would always be someone there. When life knocked them down and they didn't know how to get back up, someone would extend that hand. It is a Safe Haven to weather the storm of life.
Girls in foster care are much more likely to become teen mothers than their peers. By age 19, pregnancy rates for girls in foster care are 2.5 times greater than that of their peers who are not in the system, meaning that nearly half of girls in foster care have become pregnant at least once by their 19th birthday. Depending on the state, children in foster care typically “age out” of the system at age18 or 21. Currently states may provide Medicaid, health insurance jointly funded by states and the federal government, which finances prenatal care, delivery costs, and other health care services for foster children up to age 21. By 2014, however, the ACA will extend Medicaid to cover all young people in foster care up to age 26.
ReplyDeleteAround 75 percent of teenage girls in foster care report being pregnant by age 21, compared with only one third of their peers; nearly two thirds of teens in foster care have been pregnant more than once by this age. Young men in foster care also have higher pregnancy rates: 50 percent of men aging out of foster care at age 21 say that they have gotten someone pregnant, compared to 19 percent of young men not in foster care.
Resources:
Preventing Teen Pregnancy Through Outreach and Engagement: Tips for Working with Foster Care and Juvenile Justice, The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, 2012
Teen Pregnancy Among Young Women in Foster Care: A Primer, Guttmacher Institute, 2011
To me this just proves the point that the more we are involved as parents, the less likely teen pregnancy is for our children. Talk to your kids, stay involved.