Why Do Teenagers Have Babies?

A friend recently forwarded me an article from www.alternet.org, "Why Do We Shame Teen Moms?"

It read the typical statistics, scare tactics that have been less than successful at moving teenager girls to postpone motherhood. It included some mention of the high school senior that faked a pregnancy as a social experiment at her school, documenting how her peers responded to her predicament.

My friend forwarded the article to me, because I was pregnant at seventeen, seventeen years ago. She wanted me to weigh in. So here I go.

The fact is, I believe most teenage girls who get pregnant, want to. It doesn't matter if they have access to birth control, church, etc... they are missing something so they get it. The sexual irresponsibility is a choice. The fact that all of these girls have such a void is what should be addressed. Especially since, as much as I love my daughter, she did not fill the void... so then I am a young mother, without a supportive family and still with the void!

I will say this once, I am not talking about every teen mother under the sun. There, I said it.

When I see a girl who has found out she is pregnant, she is worried about her boyfriend, her parents, money. Rarely isn she really upset about the baby! Yes, there are abortions and yes there are true accidents. I just do not think they are the norm.

Birth control is easy to get! Condoms are easy to get! Boys are usually never wanting a baby, subconscious or otherwise, so they will find the money, etc. Yet the babies keep coming.

When I was pregnant with my daughter, my best friend was pregnant with her second son. We were smart girls from middle class families. We had blind, strict parents who had no idea who we were. We were also pregnant by the same boy. We wanted those babies.

Now that I am thirty-five, I of course have a lifetime of knowledge and I can look at things differently. I still would never see any pregnancy as a bad thing. I am pro-life. Every baby is a miracle...yada yada. My daughter is seventeen, she has had sex, but I don't necessarily consider her 'active' and I don't encourage it, but I am realistic. She has condoms. I have found them in her room more than once. Despite my opinion on the sex and despite the fact that I love babies. She has condoms.

That is awesome. Somewhere inside, she is not trying to fill a void.

So my point is that teen pregnancy is not the problem. Pregnancy is the result of a problem that is already there.

I know there will be some people who disagree with me. This is ok. Just my opinion. :)