Teen Pregnancy: A Serious Problem in America

Even though this change was painful, now I understand that it was for my own good. Now I believe that I am capable of doing great things. Every obstacle that I went through taught me something good. I learned to value the people around me. I am absolutely a better person than I was before.

I had never previously felt responsible for my own actions and now recognized that I could have worked around difficult things instead of just expecting others to provide what I needed. I was humbled by the realization, but the establishment of a sense of control over my life felt good. The next realization was that I was not superior to others. It may seem strange to not already know this, especially at fifteen, but this belief influenced almost everything I did and thought. My focus shifted to improving myself because I wanted the satisfaction of knowing that I was working towards becoming the best that I could be. It is more important to me now that I am constantly improving, rather than measuring my success by short term

I learned a lot about growing up at the age of eight, when my parents divorced. In 2008, my mom, my brother and I left a toxic environment and moved in with my grandmother. It was a time of several lessons and realizations for me, and also a time that I would learn to grow and adjust to what was happening around me. During several months of transition for us, I learned the meaning of humility, responsibility and accountability.

I changed from a youth to an adult when I found out that I was pregnant and going to be a mom. My first reaction to being pregnant frighten me so I only told my best friend Chasity. When I went to school and out in public I made sure to wear my big hoodie so, no one could tell that I was gaining weight. Being pregnant changed the way my time was spent with my friends. I had to stay home most of the time while my friends went out to parties. I learn that I couldn’t no longer do the things I were doing before n I got pregnant. I stopped playing volleyball on the court and just kept score in the book. I stayed home and prepared myself to becoming a mom. I put school first and made sure that I gradate, because I was in the eleventh grade. On my

The issue being addressed is teen pregnancy rates in the United States. We can measure this problem by giving statistics on teen pregnancy related information and by describing the magnitude of the problem. Teen pregnancy exists everywhere in the world but the main focus of this policy memo is going to be that of the United States.

Each year around 90,000 adolescents become pregnant in the United States. Around 51% of adolescents pregnancies end in live births, 35% end up in induced abortions, and 14% result in miscarriage or stillbirth (Frick, 2007). Historically, the highest teen pregnancy rates in the United States were during the 1950’s and 1960’s before the legalization of abortion and the development of many the current forms of contraception(Frick, 2007). Rates enlarged steadily until 1991; since then, the birth rate among teenagers has decreased 35% for 15-17 year olds(Frick, 2007). Three in 10 teen American girls will get pregnant at least once before age 20. That is nearly 750,000 teen pregnancies every year. In 2013, there were 26.6 births for every 1,000 adolescent females ages 15-19, or 274,641 babies born to females in this age group. To prevent teen pregnancy, we should teach them abstinence, safe sex by using protection, and communication skills to discuss prevention from peer pressure.

My support system was good and I was ready to take care of my child. I grew up without my father he was in and out my life. So I told myself if I ever had a child I would be forever present and be a damn great provider. As I held my little bundle of joy so many thoughts run through my mind, life is about to change for me.

Growing up between two homes, two parents and two different personalities and teaching styles was a unique experience. I had to learn how to adapt to each household and still keep my own identity intact. I believe that this instilled in me new self-awareness and made me stronger in return. Having divorced parents was although hard at times but all in all taught me the art of responsibility and a new in depth understanding about myself.

Raising a child as an adult can be very demanding at times, but can you imagine how difficult it would be to raise a baby as a teen, when you are still a child yourself? Although the teen birth rate in the United States has been on a decline for the past decade, teen pregnancy is still a significant issue affecting many people (Teen Pregnancy and Childbearing). Teen pregnancy has been considered morally and ethically wrong in the United States for centuries (Sprague). Taxpayers all across the country, the parents and the child are all stakeholders of this social epidemic and are affected in many ways such as economically, educationally, and martially.

(Introduction) Since the late 1990s teenage pregnancy in the United States has declined. In the United States teenagers become sexually active earlier than those in other countries. The vast majority of teenagers who are sexually active do not use any type of protection. Since this is not being done it allows the rate of unexpected pregnancies to be higher than if protection was being used. Teenagers start early having sexual intercourse for various reasons such as sexual pleasure, intimacy with someone special, or to increase his/her social status. According to Manlove, Steward-Steng, Perterson, Scott & Wildsmith (2013), in the United States five hundred thousand teenage girls between the ages of thirteen to eighteen years of age give birth

Though reproduction of offspring outside of wedlock has been going on since the beginning of time, it has been drawn to my attention, not only in the world around me, but in my own community, that teenage pregnancy is just as big as an issue. Callow reproduction among teenagers became a social issue when pregnancy rates hit an all time high in the 1950s and early 1960s (“The History...”). As of 2013, there were 273,105 children born to American teenagers ranging from the age 15 to 19. Though teenage pregnancy is on a decline (down 47% from 1991), it is still a huge issue in the world we live in, affecting not only themselves, but their families and the communities they inhabit (Martin).

Many researchers have tried to explain why young women living in poverty are more likely to have kids in their teens, and have concluded that growing up with few economic disparities can lead young women to choose teen parenting. The cycle of poverty and teen pregnancy is a controversial topic in today’s society, and has many contributing factors. Teenage pregnancy is an effect of poverty and economic immobility, not a cause. Studies reveal many different factors such as limited access to health care, poverty, state geography, state culture, low educational attainment, sex-education, and unemployment contribute to teen pregnancies in America. Impoverished teens often do not see the importance of avoiding pregnancy. They often feel uninterested to work toward future planning because they may lack a

After realizing how much help my family needed, and how hard my mom worked everyday I felt more accountable to take care of

Like Amy and Loeber (2009), when it comes to the ecological paradigm of teenage pregnancy, Corcoran, Franklin, and Bennett (2000) also believe one’s socioeconomic status is a huge factor that contributes to this problem. A person’s socioeconomic status a lot of times determines “education, expanded family size, single-parent household structure, and lessened resources in terms of employment and income.” These three authors claim that educational performance and goals “dictate the potential costs of child bearing at a young age.” Their studies have also shown that teenage girls’ relationships with the school setting and poorer performance in school serve a greater risk for adolescent pregnancy.

Telling my family about the pregnancy was going to be one of the most petrifying things I’d ever had to do. I honestly know how to know to tell them or who I was going to tell first, I was nervous about what the outcome would be. Telling my child’s father was first though. Moreover, me and my family finding out the news, he had been in a juvenile detention center. When we would be on the phone I would