Their Mothers Were Teenagers. They Didn't Want That for Themselves.
Teen pregnancies have plummeted, as has child poverty. The result is a profound change in the forces that bring opportunity between generations.JENNINGS, Mo. Brittnee Marsaw was born to a 15-year-old mother in St. Louis and raised by a grandmother who had given birth even younger. Half grown by the time her mother could support her, Ms. Marsaw joined her three states away but never found the bond she sought and calls the teen births of preceding generations the family curse.
Ana Alvarez was born in Guatemala to a teenage mother so poor and besieged that she gave her young daughter to a stranger, only to snatch her back. Soon her mother left to seek work in the United States, and after years of futilely awaiting her return Ms. Alvarez made the same risky trip, becoming an undocumented teenager in Washington, D.C., to reunite with the mother she scarcely knew.
While their experiences diverge, Ms. Marsaw and Ms. Alvarez share a telling trait. Stung by the struggles of their teenage mothers, both made unusually self-conscious vows not to become teen mothers themselves. And both say that delaying motherhood gave them and now their children a greater chance of success.
Their decisions highlight profound changes in two related forces that shape how opportunity is conveyed or impeded from one generation to the next. Teen births have fallen by more than three-quarters in the last three decades, a change of such improbable magnitude that experts struggle to fully explain it. Child poverty also plunged, raising a complex question: Does cutting teen births reduce child poverty, or does cutting child poverty reduce teen births?
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Demovictory9
(32,324 posts)3catwoman3
(23,820 posts)...nursery - not the super-early micro premies. These babies mostly needed to grow and be able to maintain their body temps. We called them "feeders and growers." Basically, a fun and happy job.
Two of our babies had moms who were only 13. I arrived one time for my evening shift, to find one of the young moms, whose baby was almost ready to go home, sitting in one of the nursery's many rocking chairs, holding her baby in one arm, and sucking her own thumb on her other hand.
It was one of the saddest, most chilling things I have even seen, and the image is as vivid in my mind now as when I first saw it, way back in 1974. I remember thinking, "Here is the poster picture for why this should not happen,"
MaryMagdaline
(6,849 posts)demigoddess
(6,640 posts)twins about 2 or 3 months old and a little toddler under 2 yrs. Each morning I would find the twins laying on a rubber mat with urine pooled under their whole bodies and heads. First thing I would do is bathe them and put dry diapers on them. I started them on solid food and the toddler would often not have anything for lunch so I would ask my mother for something from our house. The mother worked but still..... I guess neither parent had enough time in the morning to do anything for those kids. this is what overturning Roe V Wade will bring on for some people. Poverty and having children too young, a tragedy.
love_katz
(2,562 posts)Decent and factual sex education. Birth control and abortion on demand. Planned Parenthood. These things are what can cut down on teen pregnancy. May the fundy fanatics agenda be defeated. May patriarchy fall! Everyone and everything benefits from family planning and birth control.