The reality of being a teen mum
By Sue Mitchell
Producer on It's My Story


The girls enjoy motherhood
With teenage girls now choosing pregnancy as a "career option", according to a leading charity, three young mothers talk about how they dealt with the experience.

Britain has the highest number of teenage pregnancies in Europe and they cost the country about £63m a year.

Many young girls even see having a baby as a better option than a low-paid "dead-end" job, recent research for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation suggests.

But with 40,000 teenagers giving birth in Britain every year what is the reality of having a baby so young? What challenges do such young mothers face and how do they cope?

Housewife

Zoe and Jenny were just 14 when they got pregnant and Olivia 15. The three girls met at Cyfle a special educational unit in Wrexham, north Wales, for young mothers. Cyfle provides support so they can continue with their education, while looking after their babies.

The girls are transferred to the unit in the later stages of pregnancy and usually return two weeks after the birth. An on-site creche is provided so the girls can bring their babies with them. They are usually taught at the unit for a term, before returning to their normal schools.


Zoe's twin helped her cover up her pregnancy
Zoe, from Wrexham, managed to conceal her pregnancy until just two weeks before giving birth with the help of her identical twin, Gemma. At school her sister stepped into her place when it came to sports lessons and at home the youngsters managed to fool their parents and younger sister.

"I didn't want anyone to force me into an abortion and I felt sorry for my Mum - she always tries so hard and I didn't want to disappoint her by telling her I was pregnant," she says.

"I was scared though - we were both scared. The longer you go on without saying anything the harder it is to tell someone."

Choices

Zoe's mother, Collette, finally realised what was happening during a family holiday in Spain, when it became impossible for Zoe to conceal her pregnancy with baggy clothes. Just two weeks later she gave birth to Georgia and went to Cyfle to study for her GCSEs.

The unit was set up by a former secondary school teacher, Teresa Foster Evans, who was concerned that girls getting pregnant whilst still at school are often forced to leave without finishing their education.

Olivia also attended the unit. She had been at a private girls school in Chester when, on the brink of starting her GCSE year, she told her mother that she needed to pop into a supermarket to take a pregnancy test. She came out of the store in tears and announced that the test, which she'd taken in the shop's lavatory, was positive.


Jenny wanted to be a mother and housewife
"In some ways I wasn't surprised," says her mother, Anne Malcolm. "I was shocked of course and a lot of things crossed my mind but there was no question of not keeping the baby. Some people suggested a termination - I wasn't one of them."

Olivia has no regrets about having her daughter Ayeasha at 15. "She's the best thing that ever happened to me," she says. "If I had to do the same again I would. I don't have contact with Ayeasha's Dad but I have help from my parents and there's nothing else I wanted to do with my life.

"I don't want a career - I want to bring my little girl up and I still go out and have fun."

'Better lives'

Teenage pregnancy rates in north Wales are particularly worrying. The most common scenario is for the daughters of teenage mothers to go on and repeat the same pattern as they grow up. This was the case for the third of the girls, Jenny, who set out to get pregnant when she was just 14.

"I wanted a baby, I wanted to be a housewife and I thought it would bring me and my boyfriend, Danny, closer together," she says. "He was 17 at the time and he wasn't saying I had to use contraception. But once I got pregnant he wasn't happy then and told me to get rid of it."

Jenny, however, chose to go ahead with the pregnancy and now lives alone with two-year-old Holly. She's supported by her own mother, Sara, who knows what it's like to bring up a baby young and on your own.


Foster Evans: 'Education is key'
"It's not what I would have wanted for her, she knows how hard it was for me and how poor we were but still she went ahead and did it," she says. "She so wanted it to work and she thought she'd be with Danny for the rest of her life, even though I knew it would never work out."

Teresa Foster Evans believes a large part of the work going on at Cyfle has to centre around helping these teenage mothers lead more fulfilling lives so their own children can be given more choices as they grow up.

"Education is the key to it," she says. "If we can get them through their GCSEs and help them finish their schooling we can give them and their children far better lives."

Celebrity pregnancy is the ‘new black’ unless you’re a teen mum

Notice how everyone is talking about the possibility of a newly pregnant 16 year old giving up her baby to her mother with a kind of creepy glee? The idea that pregnant Jamie Lynn Spears, sister of another case study in motherhood moralising is ”reluctantly agreeing that giving up the baby is the right thing to do” [my emphasis] isn’t ringing alarm bells for us. In fact, we’re all a-ok with that kind of decision making because it really is for the best that this baby not be raised by a teenage mother, even one with family support and lots of cash besides. Apparently Jamie Lynn should try to put this whole silly mistake behind her and move on with her life, because teenagers don’t get attached to their babies and anyway, it is All For The Best. “Jamie Lynn will be back at work and trying to remind people of her talent and not that she is an unwed teenage mother”. This thinking is all sooooo retrograde, you’d think we still dashed pregnant teenagers off to homes for the unwed mother. But it is permanently open season for teenage pregnancy. The idea that being pregnant is tragic or a sign of stupidity and that having sex is shameful and disappointing; there is a lot you can’t say in polite company these days about your bigoted views on women’s sexuality unless you’re talking about a teenage mother.

There is always the possibility that Jamie Lynn Spears really has made a well-informed decision to give up her child to her mother when it is born (or even that the whole rumour is fabricated). But with all this talk of her pregnancy as a moral scandal threatening the purity of her young fans, and the thrill of pondering whether being the kind of girl who gets herself pregnant she might also be the kind of girl to be sleeping around (ie. who is the father-to-be of her baby) - it is disturbing to think how disempowered she might be feeling about her pregnancy and, to what degree she is responding to our intense pressure on her to do the 1950s thing.

Ariel Gore, well-known motherhood writer and previous young mother herself’, rolls her eyes thoughtfully at the media response to Jamie Lynn Spears’ pregnancy in “congratulations, Jamie Lynn”

And, you know, even if you’ve got a hundred reasons why teen parenting isn’t a good idea—don’t you think it’s rude to share your opinions with expecting moms?

The decks are stacked against teen parents. We all know that. So why not unstack the decks instead of making everyone feel bad on top of it all?

I guess I just wanted to remind everyone that when you hear that someone is pregnant, no matter her age, marital status, sexual orientation, or financial situation, the correct response is:

CONGRATULATIONS.

What is the effect of media broadcasting celebrity teen pregnancy on teens?

Ever since the teen sister of pop star Britney Spears, Jamie Lynn Spears, came out with her news about being pregnant at 16, the paparazzi have gotten their fair share of photographs and headlines have been posted.

Now what is the effect of celebrity teen pregnancy on today’s teenagers? Jamie Spears is the star of Nickelodeon’s “Zoey 101,” a show made particularly for a teen audience. And with fans like this and young teen girls that adore her, it can come off as quite confusing to them when their idol becomes pregnant so early. This may make some teen girls think that getting pregnant at such a young age is not as bad is it seems. But this of course would be the wrong message.


A lot of people have been pressuring her as a negative influence to the young teen girls out there but she could actually also be a teen following the trend of teen pregnancy in 2006 and not making it. The teen birth rate in 2006 increased by 3 percent compared to the year before. It was the first increase of its kind in more than a decade according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. These statistics may come as a shock to many but even the professionals in healthcare are not totally certain about their interpretations of these numbers.

According to Reuters, Stephanie Ventura, a center official remarked "It's way too early to know if this is the start of a new trend. But given the long-term progress we have witnessed, the change is notable."

But although some experts speculate that Spears may be part of the rising pattern in teen pregnancy, her pregnancy may break through the existing taboo regarding teen sex.

Child psychologist Judy Korianski told Reuters, "This is a very shocking and bad lesson for kids."

The amount of attention that Jamie is getting regarding her pregnancy could also spark a positive focus on the issue wherein the realities of teen sex and pregnancy could be discussed. Because of her popularity, counselors or teachers, even parents could use her predicament as the starting point of important conversations regarding sex education. More importantly, keeping a teenager well-informed is a good point that parents should take from Spears’ situation. Use whatever negativity that may lie in this occurrence in a positive way.

The Daily Telegraph: Keisha Castle-Hughes defends her teen pregnancy

March 10, 2008 12:00am

BECOMING the poster girl for teenage pregnancy was never on Keisha Castle-Hughes' "to do" list but then again neither was going down in history as the youngest female ever nominated for the best actress Oscar.

Stepping out in Sydney for the Australian premiere of Hey Hey It's Esther Blueburger yesterday, the young celebrity mum, 17, defended her position as a role model for girls after falling pregnant at 16.

"I have a job to do and there are other things that come with it that you don't sign up for," Castle-Hughes told film writer Erin McWhirter at the Westfield Bondi Junction screening.

"I respect other people's opinions and decisions and I hope that they respect mine."

The Whale Rider actress, who was born in Western Australia and moved to New Zealand at four, admitted she was shocked at the public backlash she received over her pregnancy.

Now, happily playing mum to her 11-month-old daughter Felicity Amore with long-term boyfriend Bradley Hull, the actress says no amount of controversy could spoil her role as a mum.

"It's amazing I have learned so much and I am so much happier. The happiest I have ever been.

"I can't even imagine I existed before becoming a mother," Castle-Hughes said.

In Hey Hey It's Esther Blueburger, Castle-Hughes plays effortlessly cool girl Sunni opposite big screen newcomer Danielle Catanzariti in the title role - a teenager on the quest to fit in.

Media Discussion On Teen Parent Rights

May 23, 2001



In the mid-eighties when I was growing up there was an onslaught in the media about teen moms, how horrible they were and how messed up their kids would be. Teen moms (and dads) were practically cast as the harbingers of the end of society as we know it. There were predictions that their children would be nothing but school drop-outs, criminals, and go on to breed another generation of the under-class. The whole war against teen moms was based on the fact that so many young women were keeping their babies, choosing to raise them despite the odds, often as single mothers. The world considered them selfish and greedy for not wanting to abandon their children, for loving and wanting to cherish their children in the same way that older moms do. No, it was not a war against teen pregnancy, but against teen parenthood. Had the bulk of these young moms given their children up for adoption, which by default means abandoning them up to older people, there would have nary been a ripple of news.
By the time I had by daughter in 1989, the media had backed off a bit and teen pregnancy was not spotlighted so frequently in the news. By the end of the 1990's, politicians, educators, and more were discussing the "success" of programs designed to curtail teen pregnancy and teen sexual behavior. They felt these programs were successful because the number of teens giving birth had dropped considerably since the eighties. I have no issues with any of these programs, and certainly would never encourage any teen to become pregnant on purpose or engage in sex. But I think the success of these programs depends more on teens being more consistent with condom use to avoid sexually transmitted diseases such as HIV than out of avoidance of pregnancy.

Now that we are firmly into the new century, I see the pendulum swinging back the other way. The media has stepped up once again to wage war on teen moms. Now that welfare has been reformed, no one can argue that they are leeches on society's coffers, that is, if they are, it won't be for long. The main argument today is that teens are automatically unfit to parent and should not be given any encouragement or support. They should be counseled into either abortion or adoption, depending on your political/personal view. I think this is a shame.

Media Discussion On Teen Parent Rights

May 23, 2001



In the mid-eighties when I was growing up there was an onslaught in the media about teen moms, how horrible they were and how messed up their kids would be. Teen moms (and dads) were practically cast as the harbingers of the end of society as we know it. There were predictions that their children would be nothing but school drop-outs, criminals, and go on to breed another generation of the under-class. The whole war against teen moms was based on the fact that so many young women were keeping their babies, choosing to raise them despite the odds, often as single mothers. The world considered them selfish and greedy for not wanting to abandon their children, for loving and wanting to cherish their children in the same way that older moms do. No, it was not a war against teen pregnancy, but against teen parenthood. Had the bulk of these young moms given their children up for adoption, which by default means abandoning them up to older people, there would have nary been a ripple of news.
By the time I had by daughter in 1989, the media had backed off a bit and teen pregnancy was not spotlighted so frequently in the news. By the end of the 1990's, politicians, educators, and more were discussing the "success" of programs designed to curtail teen pregnancy and teen sexual behavior. They felt these programs were successful because the number of teens giving birth had dropped considerably since the eighties. I have no issues with any of these programs, and certainly would never encourage any teen to become pregnant on purpose or engage in sex. But I think the success of these programs depends more on teens being more consistent with condom use to avoid sexually transmitted diseases such as HIV than out of avoidance of pregnancy.

Now that we are firmly into the new century, I see the pendulum swinging back the other way. The media has stepped up once again to wage war on teen moms. Now that welfare has been reformed, no one can argue that they are leeches on society's coffers, that is, if they are, it won't be for long. The main argument today is that teens are automatically unfit to parent and should not be given any encouragement or support. They should be counseled into either abortion or adoption, depending on your political/personal view. I think this is a shame.

American Idol Success..Fantasia Barrino Single Mother Wins

May 31, 2004



This year's American Idol was filled with an array of amazing talent. It wasn't until the Three Divas, Latoya London, Fantasia Barrino, and Jennifer Hudson were at the bottom three when America knew that this competition was unpredictable.
The finale two were Fantasia Barrino and Diane De Garmo; two powerhouses soaring to become the next American Idol. Fantasia singing "Summertime," a blues melody that put a knot in everyone's throat, and Diana De Garmo singing the famous "No More Tears," originally sung by Donna Summer and Barbara Streisand.

America chose Fantasia Barrino to be the next American Idol. A young Patti Labelle, Aretha Franklin, and a voice similar to Macey Gray; this young girl was a star to be born.

But, what really burned me was when I was listening to my local radio station, a woman came on and said that Fantasia wasn't an American Idol. She felt that someone who was an unwed mother and on food stamps shouldn't get the American Idol title. This blew me away.

Fantasia, a nineteen-year old mother of a two-year old daughter, to me, did what she had to do to support herself and her child. She had a dream and she fulfilled it successfully and honestly. She earned that title and she deserves it.

There is one thing when a person depends on the government and does nothing to better themself, but this young mom went for her dream, she had talent, and it paid off. She deserves every success that comes her way.

It amazes me when people will say such negative things about other people, as if they are perfect and no one else is. But, in reality, no one is perfect; we do what we can to survive and we make the best of it.

My hat goes off to all the young moms who do make a difference, who work hard to support their children no matter what they have to do to support them. Whether a single mom waitresses for a living, sells Avon, works in a factory, and even applies for social services, they are doing the best they can to support their children and provide them shelter and food.