For the first week of class, we read a piece by Edin and Kefalas detailing the reasons behind why lower-class women get pregnant at a young age. They attributed this phenomena mostly to: women believing that a baby is the most important thing they can have, women believing that a baby will solve all of their problems, and women using the baby as a way to test men as possible father-figures.
I agree that these are probably leading reasons in most areas, but I believe that my hometown might be different.
I am from a little town called Williamston, SC. It is halfway between Greenville and Anderson, SC and has a population of about 4,000. My high school has about 900 students, and teenage pregnancy is the biggest issue. In the class of 2008, of the 100 females enrolled, 20 of them were pregnant or already had a child at one count. This number was not particularly shocking, as this appears to be the trend. Keep in mind that this number only applies to known pregnancies and does not include abortions or miscarriages.
The pregnancies at Palmetto High School seemed to be, for the most part, planned. In a school where the majority of students were from low-income families, those girls who ended up pregnant were treated almost reverently once they had announced that they were expecting. Pregnancy was viewed as something to be desired, and girls who weren’t pregnant could often be heard expressing the desire to be so as soon as possible.
Bizarrely, many of the teachers encouraged this behavior and would often be the first to hear of the girls’ pregnancies. The school also failed to take a negative stance on the issue. The idea of condom or contraceptive giveaways has been vetoed again and again for no apparent reason. The Palmetto girls are not getting told that their choices are wrong or could have long-lasting negative effects later in their lives.
Groups of friends would often get pregnant right around the same time and then spent their class time discussing the play-dates their children would have with one another.
Luckily, these girls almost always continued school after having their babies, and their parents supplied childcare during the school day. More often than not, their boyfriends stayed with them (since the babies were usually planned by both involved parties), and in many cases, even proposed.
So I’m left wondering what motivating factors were and are driving the teenage girls at my high school. It almost seems to be a simple case of mimicry; the girls seemed to be hemmed in on all sides by this one example of life. In most cases, their mothers followed the same patterns-- most got pregnant in their teens before establishing a career or getting married and then became stay-at-home moms or pursued minimum wage careers. They also see their peers following this trend.
With no other example prominently displayed to them, it seems to be the most logical thing in the world that they would follow this path.
Here is a link to general teen pregnancy statistics in South Carolina. Notice that teen pregnancy has been on the rise since 2004.
http://www.teenpregnancysc.org/documents/Simply+Stated+-+2007+new+data.pdf
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