Teen Pregnancy Essay
Teen Pregnancy
Teenage Pregnancy can be referred to as an underage girl becoming pregnant (Dubhashi & Wani, 2008: 236-239). If the girl is below 19 years of age, and if she becomes pregnant, she is associated with a hazardous sexual activity. This activity in teenage, generally, involves a number of menaces such as sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy through failure or non-use of contraception. Meticulously, for emotionally amateur adolescents, it brings about added risks of emotional distress or future dearth. The most common causes for teenage pregnancy are early marriage and lack of contraceptive use, adolescent sexual behavior, sexual abuse as well as indirect causes like poverty and little education and guidance.
Teen Pregnancy is a social issue which causes impact on the mother, baby, family as well as the society. Measures to decrement the incidences in the appearance of sex education, legally incrementing age of marriage, and contraceptive use should be followed strictly and in previously teen pregnant patients, early diagnosis of pregnancy, as well as the analysis and treatment of Sexually Transmitted Diseases may reduce maternal and parental morbidity and morality in advance.
Being a young mother can influence one’s entire career. Most teenage mothers live in poverty and factors that determine the causes of closely spaced repeat birth are inclusive of marriage and education. Early motherhood can adversely affect the psychosocial development of the infant. The occurrence of development disabilities and behavioral issues are increased in children instinctive to teen mothers (American Academy of Pediatrics, 2001). This assignment is based on the issue of teen pregnancy which can by comprehended easily as we discuss three cases of interviews with 3 families, thereby, discovering the common themes within them and then research on it by relating it to these interrogations. Further, this paper delineates about how teens pregnancy passes on the responsibilities on to the parents and the effects of it. To elaborate further, 3 families were interviewed, which demonstrated absolute issues of teen pregnancy and the impact of it.
Joanna, who is thirty-three years old, never even thought in her dreams that she could be a single mother. She was well cognizant of the fact that her parents were high-school sweethearts. She was the only one exposed to intact families. Hence, when she looks back, she realized that she had never even thought of any other kind of family. Divorce was only a term to her as she never happened to witness it. She always had an idea of growing up in the same way as it usually happens, further having the same type of marriage which her parents had. The idea of marrying her first love, having children, staying at home and taking care of her children when her husband is at work, amused her. All in all, she believed that she would reside in a big house with a picket fence. However, the idea of marriage has drastically transformed after she became a mother. According to her, it has never been what she actually witnessed while her development as an adolescent. She finds her parents’ relationship as non-existent in today’s world. In today’s scenario, it is acceptable for a man to have a baby and not regard as dedicating his life to his family. However, it is actually conceivable for people to not even try to work mutually in order to build a family.
Joanna was eighteen years of age when she got pregnant. Before it happened, she used to stay with his guy for about two years. She relishes the past moments, chiefly the first year, when they went out together, and possibly spent every minute with each other. This relation was a true delineation of friendship, just like her parents. However, things started changing as time passed by. She was mistaken a number of times as her guy no more believed in surprising her with presents, or hang out with her after work. It was not like what it was previously. They started quarreling over the littlest of things about the relationship which quickly transformed into physical disagreements. Later, when she discovered that she was pregnant, she thought things would go back to normal. Things did calm down for a while, but the guy didn’t seem to be excited the way a would-be father actually is. This was taken in stride. Eventually, with the delivery of the baby, the guy acted like he hated Joanna and bragged to his family and friends. She finally discovered that it was all a show to escape from the real responsibilities of life. Regardless of her parents calling her back with an excuse of taking effective care of her, she refused for about 2 months. However, when she broke up finally, she rested for eight hours in the emergency room the previous night when she was with her infant son.
It has been fifteen years since Joanna has spoken to her son’s father in a direct way. The guy has all correspondence with Joanna’s parents. However, she admits that he is a great father and is happy that her son shares a great relationship with him. Moreover, there is another thing which she feels bad for, and wants it to change, which is that whenever her son has a problem, he straightly approaches her parents and not her. This is indeed a pain feel, although, she knows that it is her parents who have brought her son up. It is always required to maintain a discipline in the household. In Joanna’s case, it is not her but her parents who discipline her son. They are efficiently concerned about his career and expect the best for his career.
Joanna’s son is 15 years old today, and it is his Grandpa and Grandma who have raised her. However, Joanna has participated as much as she could, and thus Joanna has made an effective place in her son’s heart. Children like Joanna’s son have a considerable influence of such a form of living. They are innocent and would react in whichever way they have been brought up. Joanna’s son was never interested in moving in to her mother’s house as he did not want to leave his Grandparents. This is an obvious fact, as he has spent his entire life with them. On asking Andrew, who is the father of Joanna’s son, about the similarities and disparities regarding the raising up, he replied that nothing has been identical between him and his son. He gets to meet his son in the weekends.
Things are always different for the grandparents as they are the ones who need to play efficient roles in such cases, despite of their hatred towards their daughter for such a mishap. Another case we discuss about is of a Grandmother, Susan, who is raising her grandchild. She tied knot when she was twenty one years old and has been married every since. She believes in keeping up with peace in marriage with the idea of give and take. Since, her husband is twenty-two years elder than her, so things have always been different. She has never had intricacies in her life as of now, she has three children whom she raises, along with a grandchild she gets to stay home with. Among his sons are, David who is in the military, Tony who is a cop, Jonathan who expired seven years ago, and Christopher who is his grandson. Christopher is eleven years of age.
David was nineteen years old when he conceived Christopher. He is married with a daughter of same age as Christopher, another daughter who is a year old and a son that is three years old. David’s wife genuinely opposed for Christopher, but David took him. After two years of stay with Christopher, David asked his mother to take care of him from now on, since, he was ill-treated by his biological children and wife. Susan feels bad for what Christopher has been through and so she tries to make up for it. She doesn’t want him to feel uncomfortable and has always made him fell comfortable. Susan is happy with her family as for now, however, she would always wish David could talk to Christopher more, as they get to converse only about two or three months.
Such happenings lead to strong differences amongst the family members as well. Christopher’s presence in Susan’s house has increased differences between her and her grandchildren. They feel uncomfortable and thus, do not see their grandmother often. On the other hand, her husband claims that this attitude of her towards Christopher would spoil him as he thinks that Christopher should have chores and should help around the house. David, has a bleakish attitude toward his son. A father who comes across situations like this, fails to adjudge the complexities and search for the most viable option which could save them from further botheration. This is what David did. He forcibly handed over Christopher to Susan, and now does not even relate to him since, Susan once agreed to take him.
The Teenage Pregnancy cases aren’t limited to the ones stated above. There is yet another kind of case of a girl called Alicia, who had always wished for the life showed on television. When she discovered that she was pregnant, she told her mom about it. Her mom literally threw her out of the house and told her to stay with the guy she slept with because she wasn’t going to raise another child. That is what Alicia did. However, when she told her boyfriend about it, he acted happy and quit from the school in order to make money so that they could get an apartment to reside in. Meanwhile, they stayed at the guy’s parents’ place. When Alicia was eight months pregnant, she discovered that her guy was cheating her over two other girls. They resulted in big fights and the guy’s mother supported Alicia as she was pregnant. The guy didn’t even come to the hospital when the baby was born. He made excuses for dropping out of the situation. Things didn’t work out and when he baby was 6 months old, Alicia was forced to leave her guy’s place and find some other accommodation. However, her mother agreed to it only if Alicia went back to the school. Thus, her child stayed back with her grandmother.
Such handling of cases is shaped by values, attitudes as well as beliefs of the parents. There are different parenting styles which emerge when children are at the pre-school stage of family development and continue on through adolescence. The three styles are authoritarian, authoritative, and permissive (Olsen & Fuller). Authoritarian parenting style delineates total parental control and the obedience of the child, since the parent is definitely the person in power. On the other hand, authoritative parenting style emphasizes on the use of reasonable limits and controls for the child behavior, keeping in concern the child’s stage of development as well as individuality. Lastly, permissive parenting style lurks to promote the regulation of child of his or her own behavior rather than regulating it y intervening, since, in this approach, the child has more power than the parent.
Teenage Pregnancy is the issue of children having children, which includes numerous perspectives, including the economic and social impact on the mothers, fathers, children, and the society (Maynard, 1996). Pregnancy at a tender age could cause many problems to the mother as she may not be physically fit or ready for a baby (Apollolife Content Team, 2002). Physical complications could be due to the scarcity of proper nutrition as well as poor eating habits, whereas, mental or psychological problems could be due to the lack of support from parents and society, and in some cases, from the father of the child, which causes a feeling of guilt in the teenager. With the harp on teen pregnancy, what really has been happening is a striking decline in the importance of marriage (Raspberry, 1999). However, the main problem would always be the children having children. Child marriages can never be encouraged. Teen pregnancy is the main problems and is needed to be reduced for the welfare of society, both physically as well as psychosocially.
References
American Academy of Pediatrics. 2001, Care of adolescent parents and their children. 107: Pp. 429-34.
ApolloLife Content Team. 2002, Teenage Pregnancy. Apollo HealthHiway Pvt. Ltd.
Dubhashi, Shruti S and Reena J Wani. 2008, Teenage Pregnancy. Bombay Hospital Journal, Vol. 50, No. 2. Pp. 236-239.
Olsen, Glenn W. and Mary Lou Fuller. 2007, Home-School Relations: Working Successfully with Parents and Families (3rd Edition). Allyn & Bacon.
Maynard, Rebecca A. 1996, Kids Having Kids: Economic Costs and Social Consequences of Teen Pregnancy. Urban Institute Press.
Raspberry, William. 1999, The Real Pregnancy Problem. The Washington Post, (October 1, 1999).