Postponing Pregnancy May Have its Own Costs

The society has shaped the idea of teenage pregnancy as being a irresponsible act that young girls commit. Teenage pregnancy is looked down upon as a mistake that has many consequences. Consequences that mostly follows teenage pregnancy appear to be mothers being the caretaker for the most part, fathers not taking on any responsibility, financial issues, chances of not graduating from high school, and etc. Do you believe having a child at an early age is such a bad thing to do? Do you believe all teenage girls who become pregnant experience a struggle or just teenagers that come from a poor background? Have you ever thought about women at an older age may experience fertility issues that could possibly prevent them having children?

In chapter five of Luker’s book “The Politics of Teenage Pregnancy”, it shares information on how postponing pregnancy having its own costs. Older women face a greater risk of infertility. So what age do you consider to be too old and or too young for a woman to produce a child? Are you analyzing this age in more of what age is a woman fit enough to have a child or at what age a woman could be a good provider for her child? What is the ideal age you feel would be right for you to have a child? If you got pregnant at a young age would you keep your child despite your well-being at the time? If you were older and couldn’t produce children would you view teenage pregnancy as a bad choice considering teenage mothers makeup a proportion of women who put their babies up for adoption? What would you do if you postponed pregnancy for so long and became infertile? Adopt?

Victoria Harrison 

To Birth or Not to Birth? Naturally is the question.

This week we discussed in part the film "The Business of Being Born".  The film discussed the dangers of cesarean sections, pitocin and epidurals on the baby.  When I saw it I was honestly scared for my unborn- unconcieved child.  The marketing student in me started to wonder if this was a scheme to sway more women towards home births.  Then again the film pointed out that doctors had a similar ploy in the early 1900's to persuade mothers to birth in the hospital rather than at home.  Did the film persuade you to want a home birth or are you stubborn like me and want to stick to the hospitals?   Why do you think it is that we have so many cases of maternal and fetal deaths in the US?  Do you think that, as the movie stated it is because of our reliance on doctors interventions and tendency to lean away from natural births?  Or do you think that its because of the unnecessary drugs we take during pregnancy and the birth itself?  Whatever it is you must agree babies are cute and should not be dying.


For the Wednesday class we were asked to read an article entitled: 'Scarlet' or adoption for unwed mothers.  It talked about a law in Florida that makes unwed mothers advertise in a magazine for the possible fathers and state their name and address.  Personally I find this ridiculous, however the fathers deserve a chance to claim their child.  So where should the line be drawn?  How many rights should fathers have?  They can't stop the woman from aborting the child but should they be allowed to stop the mother from giving the child up for adoption?  What punishment would be inflicted on a mother who doesn't notify the father of her pregnancy?   The article points out that if the father has been away long enough to notice the pregnant mother than he must not love the mother or child.  Do you agree?  Would willingly let the father of your child raise your child on his own if you want to give the child up for adoption?


Jean Carr
(Sorry this was up so late my computer wouldn't let me log onto google)

Decision Making and Bad Parenting

As an adolescent many girls feel like once they've messed up they don't have many options. As supported by the Bender article it speaks about 3 girls who were faced with the decision of abortion or child-bearing. The article stated that adoption never even crossed their minds.  This made me ask myself, "would adoption be an option for me"? Honestly i cant say that it would, although i respect people who consider adoption and follow through with it, i don't feel as though it would be a decision i could make. It is one of the most selfless acts any mother or father could agree to. How do you feel about adoption? Is it a method that you would consider? If you know people who are adopted, how has this affected their lives? Speaking as a foster child, i would actually consider myself as an adoptee. In my situation the only difference between the two is paper work. I have been apart of the same family since i was six months old and they are the greatest gift that God could have given me. But the fact of the matter is that my life has been greatly affected by the situation i was put in by my parents for many different reasons.

In the Bender reading the girls discussed different pros and cons to what having a baby would bring to their lives. in my opinion personally i feel as though when it comes to having a child, although you cant tell a woman what to do with her body, i dont think that the decision should be made off of things like what other people will think about you if you did become pregnant. Many of teen moms and women in general feel as though having a child will allow them to become closer with the child's father. Also outside influences play a major role in decision making, such as peer input and family input. what do you think is the biggest contributing factor when dealing with decision making in regards to pregnancy?

To shift thought a little, in class we discussed the idea of bad parenting. What do you think makes a person a bad parent? What do you think makes an individual a good parent? Although parenting is subjective, there are certain things that a parent is required to do to ensure safety and responsibility for a child. The things we discussed in class had to do with health, safety, and discipline mainly and there seemed to be mixed opinions about these different topics from students in the class. I believe situations involving safety are primary when it comes to parenting, and although i currently don't have children, safety will be primary when it comes to my child. The child did not ask to be here but it still is the role of the parent to protect the child's life and avoid any situations that would cause danger. Another issue is discipline. On one of the slides spanking was mentioned and i happened to be a strong advocate of spanking. I do realize that this form of negative reinforcement does not work for every child, but it instills in them morals and helps them identify between right and wrong. Although they are the ones who ultimately have to chose between the two, they are still cognizant of the consequences of their decisions. How do you feel about spankings? How will you correct your child's repetitive wrong behavior? Were you spanked growing up? what ways were you punished? What forms of disciplined worked best for you as a child? And which forms do you feel are most effective overall?

J'Quana Brown

What role do grandparents play?

After reading some of the articles due for today I started to wonder how influential the parents of the teen parents are. In one of the readings it talked about the pressure that mothers of the teen mothers receive when their child is pregnant. These mothers feel like they failed society by their child getting pregnant young. When, they did not have that much control in the situation. I do see that parents do have an impact and their parenting or behaviors can lead to their children adopting that behavior or not. But I don’t know to what extent parents actually can influence their child to do/not do certain things. I think there are so many environmental factors that it is very hard to tell what really allowed or caused children to do drugs, drink, get pregnant, drop out of school, etc. What do you think? Do parents have a clear cut ability to create little angels instead of devils? What other factors do you think play a role in influencing kids in their behavior? The problem is even though there are social influences, parents, mom’s especially, are blamed for their child’s behavior. Mom’s then have to pick up the slack when their children continue to go down a different path. Take Janelle’s mom for example. Now, I haven’t seen all the episodes but correct me if I am wrong she takes custody of the baby since Janelle doesn’t want to become responsible. Do you think that her mom just felt like she had to do that since her daughter didn’t want to? What if she told Janelle that she needed to put the child up for adoption or foster care? Would that have been as acceptable or would that be skipping out of her responsibilities as a grandma? I mean I see her being responsible in the sense that she is totally taking care of the kid, but I would almost tell my daughter she needs to move out of the house if she is going to continue to live an irresponsible life. Because the baby is still going to watch his mom go out and party if she is in the house. What do you think you would do? Don’t get me wrong I don’t think that women should have to be mothers if they don’t want to, but do the responsible thing and choose another option. I mean legally, there are 3 options when a woman/girl gets pregnant. Pregnancy isn’t just some thing that is flippantly thrown around. I know I have been focusing on mothers and daughters mainly but now I want to switch to fathers.

What influence do you think fathers could play in teaching their daughters or sons about pregnancy, sexual health, etc? The hard part from the shows I have watched in 16 & Pregnant most of the dads are absent or don’t saying anything. In the article about fatherhood in South Africa most of the time the fathers, uncles, grandfathers, were there as financial support or negotiating power for damages toward the girls family. This falls into the whole patriarchal standard of financially supporting and nothing else. Similar to what Jennifer Beggs Weber was saying masculinity and fatherhood are dichotomous entities and they don’t work well together. Boys, men, don’t get training on how to be good fathers or what the best thing to do when their partner is pregnant. I would say that masculinity has been so engrained in out culture that good representations of fatherhood are very slowly rising to be visible. But I think there is a lot more progress that needs to be made. What do you think could change to make fatherhood more acceptable? I don’t really know what fathers actually tell their boys about fatherhood but I remember boys in high school saying their dads would say “always wear a condom, because you never know” or when the girl was pregnant “step up be a man”. But what does “step up be a man” even really mean? I still think that men think as long as they financially take care of their child then everything is ok. But people need emotional, physical, financial support when parenting. As the old saying goes “it is the hardest job you will ever have.” Do you think fathers of the young fathers could do better in teaching their boys how to be better dads? Or do you think that society needs to start somewhere else? Do you think more pressure needs to be put on the men of the world to change the difficulty these, grandparents, mothers, etc. have in taking care of these children. Do think that the only way things will change is if more women just simply say “I do not want to take care of this child, you take her/him!” Will men then finally realize how hard parenting is?


Maegen Hahn

Sexually Educated Household or Not?

Every parent is well aware of what sex is. But not all parents go about educating  their children about it growing up so they could be instilled with this information to prevent them from becoming sexually unhealthy and or pregnant. Every household is different and people come from different backgrounds such as a household communicating sex openly or where you have a household who uphold religious morals. In this type of household chances are sex may or may not be discussed because of the morals this particular household value. What type of upbringing did you experience? Was your home open about sex education or did you experience a very religious lifestyle where sex was unacceptable? How or who was your source of becoming sexually educated? Either way having that “sex talk” with your child and or teen still comes off to being one of those awkward conversations some parents still struggle with today.

            Growing up in my household my parents basically spoiled me with any and everything I wanted and now that I think I about it, I think it had something to do with preventing me from thinking about boys. Honestly I have to say it worked. My mom nor dad though still didn’t sit me down and decided to talk to me about til much later in life. This conversation did not come up til my older sister surprisingly became pregnant. I think back now and realize if they could get around the awkwardness and wanted to prepare my sister and I things would have went differently. If my parents discussed all the different types of consequences from having sex and statistics of pregnancy among teens, im sure my sister’s pregnancy may have been prevented. How old were you when your parents decided to have the “talk” with you? How early of age were you when you felt like you wanted to know? If your parents didn’t have a struggle having the sex talk with you at an early age do you find it useful today and or in your teen years?

If you had children how do you think you may go about educating your teen about sex? Would you discuss the various statistics of unhealthy diseases and pregnancy among teens? What type of household or upbringing will you allow your children and or teens to be raised?

Victoria Harrison

An Umbilical Cord's Length in Questions

So, lets lay out the facts.  I'm a white, blonde haired, green eyed, Christian woman.  I haven't been through the troubles of discrimination due to anything except, maybe, occasionally not being allowed to play with the boys growing up.  I didn't have a child at a young age nor do I have any facial deformity that makes people look at me when I'm in a crowd.  Yet, even though I'm so very BLAND I still fit into stereotypes; I'm a daddies girl, say like every other word, love mayonnaise and, like most white people, like to think of myself as unique and a "non-conformist".
So those are the facts.   I'm fine with those stereotypes but I have a HUGE issue when they are directed at other people.  Now let me tell you a story, one of my good friends is black and baby sits for her cousin.  She has baby sat for him since we were 15.  Ever since she started taking him to the park people would give her mean looks or ask how old her son is.  When she would tell them it's her cousin they were genuinely surprised.  I baby sit for kids all the time and I've only had someone give me a weird look probably one time and I've never had someone ask me if they were my kids.
Why do you think as a society we are so quick to jump to the conclusion that because someone is of a different race then just boring the Caucasian they would have a child?  Do your opinions change when you see a young Mexican mother versus a young white mother? Are you less surprised?
Who do you think is more "fit" to raise a child?  Or, does it depend on the person rather than their race?

This brings me to my second topic.  What environment do you typically expect the teenage mother was raised in?  Do you think that a supportive environment is more or less helpful to raise a child?  Jenelle's mother was very supportive taking the child completely out of her daughters care.  Jenelle stop expecting to have any responsibility even when her mom asked for help with Jace.  On the other hand when Kailyn went to talk about schooling in her episode she talked to a fellow teen mother who said her parents had disowned her when she was pregnant but Kailyn's tour guide said it was for the best.  Is there a middle ground where the teen can still be a child but be a parent too?  What would this look like?   How much freedom should the young mother get?
If it was your child who was pregnant what type of support, if any, would you give if able?
As a teen what type of support would you want from your parents? From your friends? From the father? Most importantly what do you expect from yourself? Would you chose to keep the child?

Jean Carr

Dead beat dads and Autonomy

Although we touched on this last week i want to take time to discuss more about the fathers role in a childs life. The present phrase "Dead-beat dad" dates  back as far as during Puritan times. Around this time period it was a complete moral disgrace to have a child out of wedlock, so as a result many fathers denied their children. These children were then seen as illegitimate and bastards. In the Puritan society there was punishments for two people who produced bastard children but mainly for the mother. the result of having a child out of wedlock was hasty forced marriages. This reminds me of the case involving Macy and Ryan except they weren't forced. Why is it that in American society after a girl/woman is pregnant people automatically feel that marriage is the next option?

Although Puritans didn't condone the idea of "dead beat dads" they still existed. According to Luker, women were sometimes forced to tell the names of their child's father because Puritans wanted the man to live up to their responsibilities a father. They did this by inciting a form of modern day child support on them. They would make the father contribute financially to help in the upkeep of the child if a marriage could not be arranged. This is the same thing that court officials mandate in the case when one parent is ordered to help the other by providing monetary contributions.

In my life i am a testament to having a "dead-beat dad" and i would be considered a bastard. This is why this subject is important to me. When speaking of this subject and knowing the background, i wonder how would i be affected if i were living during the Puritan time period. Technically i would belong to no one and would have no kin. How would you feel if you lived back then as a bastard child? What problems do you think bastard/ illegitimate children faced? How do you think this effected the mother?

On to another subject, the most important and controversial issue discussed in chapter 3 of Luker's book was a woman's autonomy over her own body. This also dates back to the early 1900's with the introduction of contraceptives and abortions. The question raised is whether or not all women should have access to contraceptives and abortions. The problem posed was that married women of much wealthier statuses were the ones who took advantage of these options instead of the poor women who were not in a financially stable situations.  How do you feel about married women receiving abortions?This is controversial today because women argue that it is their body and they should be able to do with it as they please, Back in the early 1900's this was a problem because people felt as though the wealthy people weren't reproducing at a rate to replace themselves. This gives me the idea that contraceptives; such as condoms were only legalized for poor women.

In regards to 16 and pregnant, they never mention abortion as even being an option. I think this portrays a false reality to viewers and is deceiving. Today more than half of the people you encounter has had and abortion, and many more contemplate it. Do you think abortions should be just limited to poor people or people of lower economic statuses? Or, should all women be allowed to make a decision to receive and abortion and why? Do you think that contraceptives are being used by teen moms? Or, does the condom really break? What do you think are some ways to alleviate the social problem of teen pregnancy?

Babies having Babies

            So I decided to start off with our Blog title as this is a play on an image of what teenage pregnancy is viewed as, mostly from adults. What do you think of when you read the words “Babies having Babies”? For the most part this term raises alarm in many because it implies that young parent’s do not have the ability to care for their children. As discussed by Luker, historically speaking, age was not a factor of good parenting skills. The concept of an in between time between childhood and adulthood called adolescents wasn’t created until after the turn of the century. Even now with a firm establishment of what teenage life is all about most teen parents are legal adults, they can vote, enlist in the army, smoke, and all the jazz. For the few that do have children in their earlier teen years have children hardly any higher than individuals from many decades ago. So what’s the big deal? I would say Luker does a good job explaining how pregnancies out-of-wedlock were a moral issue then the tables turned to argue against age because of course these newly identified teens could not possibly be smart enough to take care of a child. The idea of parental fitness spread to all feebleminded people, not just young individuals. Along with this came the eugenics movement trying to reproduce a better, smarter, more superior population. The only way to do that is by sterilizing people. So truly the idea of young-pregnancy and parenting is not truly about age it is about social issues of perfection almost.

            Even now there are arguments that look down upon teen-mothers for keeping their child because they will reproduce another teen-parent in their child, or they won’t be able to give their child the necessary tools to succeed, or the family will not be stable, etc. Are these arguments truly about the individual or is it about wanting more economically savvy people who don’t need help from the government, are making great salaries, contributing to society, etc. A huge argument about today’s youth who have children young is about their dependence on welfare. There was so much hype about this that Clinton restructured welfare and renamed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act (1996). Similarly to our blog title, what is your reaction to even this title? To me It comes off as the “pull yourself from your bootstraps” mentality which is not always possible. With this bill it encouraged those who have government assistance to find work so that they may no longer be on welfare. Yet, forcing someone to go to work may not solve the issue of poverty, welfare, parental fitness, etc.

Take a young mother for instance. She became pregnant at 17, has no support from her family, decided to keep her child, graduated high school and wants to go to college, is from a lower class background, has no support from the father, and has to pay for living and daycare expenses. Well as is the case for most high school graduates one is hired in a remedial minimum wage job that is not secure, not understanding of her needs as a parent (sick child), and demands sometimes over 40 hrs. a week for her. The problem is without state assistance daycare costs almost as much as what she gets paid and so she has to scrimp and save and sometimes ask for her family to loan her money when the bills are due and her paycheck isn’t coming in for a few more days. Even with state assistance she spends a bulk of her income on daycare. If nothing changes for this girl how is she supposed to have economic mobility and give her child all the things I am sure she wants to give but can’t because of how hard it is to make ends meet.

Now, I know this is just a hypothetical situation, but it isn’t that far from the truth for many individuals. But I am curious do you think that because she was young and did not have much financial support that she should have chosen adoption or abortion instead? Will that solve the issue of un-planned pregnancies? Or do you think that policies and laws should change so that there is more assistance in furthering education, trades, and other options that improve economic mobility? Or do you not even think that economic mobility is the issue? Has your ideas around teenage pregnancy changed after reading any of the articles? Do you think more about how the issues are being represented instead of just believing what politicians and researchers say, such as the term “babies having babies”?

By: Maegen Hahn