Nature & Nurture: Teen Mothers
June 19, 2006 by kate baggott
Filed under Finances, Mental Health
I grew up in a part of working-class Southern Ontario during a time of huge economic turmoil. In other words it was typical, modern post-industrial Western Civilisation in transition.
When I was in grade 10, three girls in our grade (it was a big school) got pregnant and kept their babies. Some lived at home with their parents until they were 16 before moving out, others left home immediately, some stayed with their parents for much longer. All three of them stayed in school while heavily pregnant and returned once the babies were born. There were many people who said that letting these girl-women stay in school encouraged immorality, but I don’t think any of us envied those girls. They did not make pregnancy look desireable in the slightest.
Instead, adults of my parents’ generation condemned them for making teen parenthood a career choice, relying on mother’s allowance (a form of welfare) instead of focussing on their educations that would enable them to forge great careers.
A few years later I met other single mothers who had been teen mothers and were every bit as ambition and driven as I was. According to an article in the Scotsman, the teenage mothers of my tenth grade class were just following a biological imperative:
- Dr Laurence Shaw, deputy medical director of the Bridge Centre fertility clinic in London, said females had been programmed by two million years of evolution to have babies in their late teens and early twenties, when fertility is at its peak.
- Speaking at the annual meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (Eshre), he said nature intended women to become mothers when young, and for their fertility to decline while they raised their children.
Ambition and opportunity though, don’t decline like fertility. Now that I am 34 with a baby, I have just realised that, biologically speaking, I am old enought to be a grandmother. I wouldn’t even be surprised if at least one of those three teen mothers I went to school with is a grandmother.
What I am curious about though, is how they are doing career-wise. Just because I waited to have children, just because I invested so much time, money and energy into my education and career development doesn’t mean I have anything to rely on for financial stability now or later. That, since I just finished paying off my student loans in March, was a harder epiphany to have than the whole biological grandmotherhood age realisation.
Am I saying I have regrets? Not, exactly. I do think though, that I am more open-minded about what is a good or a right thing to do for each individual. And just because our lives might not turn out the way we planned, doesn’t mean that life can’t be good.
What do you think? Do you wish you had become a parent earlier or later in life?
My biggest regret is not waiting till I was at least 26 years old to have a baby.
I dont regret having them and although I have loads of qualifications to fall back on after they are all big, I often wonder what my life would be like if I had done things more conventially and just did not have sex at all before I was about 25 / 26 years old.
I think that more education is needed for children around ten years of age about all the elements of starting a sexual relationship. Then this education should continue right through school ages going on to discuss and explore the emotional side of intercourse and having children.
Usually, well here in the UK anyway, sex education is done for one year around 12 – 13 years of age. Then that subject is finished in about eight to ten weeks or so. After that at around 14 – 15 years old the subject of babies is touched on in Biology but that only reaches those pupils who are doing Biology as one of their GCSE subjects.
At the Roman Catholic college I went to at age 16 they had actual lessons dedicated to love and relationships study. BUT you only got to do those if you yourself put your name down for them. I missed out on them the first year but the second year I got a place on the subject classes which only lasted about an hour a week for ten weeks. These were in addition to your regular classes and lectures for your qualifying subjects.
I am not saying I regret having any of my children but it was kind of like, oh well I have another baby now just get on with it, kind of thing instead I wish I had never had sex until I was past 25 years old.
Helen
Yeah. I know what you mean. Unfortunately, nothing kills a libido like having children. Before that, it’s a pretty persistent thing.
I have to say that I gave birth at the right time for me. I had finished my education and had a taste of a real job to know that I was ready to “give it all up” for a child. And, I’d somehow come up with the arbitrary age of 30 as the cut-off age to have my first. I gave birth just about two weeks prior to my 30th birthday.
I was 30 for the first one and, you know, it was the right age for me too.
I always wanted children, but I postponed it until I had completed everything. In my case that was a pretty long time – 16 years to be exact from my first day of university until I was done.
In fact I found out I was pregnant on my very last day! I have no regrets for that. Having a child any earlier would have been very very difficult. Probably I wouldn’t have been as strong and content with myself to give enough to a new little person.
So I was very lucky in that sense that I was able to get pregnant right away after all that time. Of course now with my Mother gone so suddenly I do wish that I had started earlier if only so that I could benefit from her wisdom and share this fabulous little boy with her!
So funny how life turns unexpectedly. When I told her the year before that we were thinking of trying, she said well – wait and see, you never know what a year brings. Well, she was right. That year brought Callum, but took away my Mom and her sister – my closest aunt, all within 5 months.
Oh Sarah, your bittersweet year. Maybe your mother and aunt were waiting too, for you to finish getting ready. Big love.
I’m not sure that there is a right or wrong age to have a baby. I have to believe that the “right” age has more to do with the person then societal norms, etc. I also have to say that I think that a lot of time trying to raise a baby as a young adult, or teenager, must be very hard and must have a huge impact on both the mother and child. In some cases I think it might be a better idea to place the child for adoption – but again, that all depends on the person.
I do agree that it’s a complete tragedy to see a young mother who felt she had to raise the child and is now in a very bad place emotionally and physically. It’s always sad to see an amazing person whose been beat by the challenges of being young and being a parent at the same time.
I think it important for people at all ages – who find themselves unexpectedly pregnant – to look into all the options that are out there.
Best of luck to everyone in all your endeavors!!
~W