Teenage Pregnancy on the Rise

What a difference a day makes. Yesterday one news report says that teen pregnancies were declining, now the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention releases a report that states that teenage birth rates have risen for the first time since 1991.

Unfortunately it is no surprise that the largest increase was among Black teenagers. There however were also increases among Whites, Latinos and American Indians. The only group whose teenage birth rate continues to decline is Asians. According to the report "unmarried childbearing" reached a record high in 2006, accounting for 38.5% of all births.

What study after study shows is that the births among teenage mothers and umarried women tends to have poor outcomes: the families remain mired in poverty and the children are more apt to end up in jail. Yeh, yeh, some women are holding it down, but few will hail it as an ideal situation.

The issue is not marriage---marriage does not cure all ills. If you do the math, two unmarried adults, who are each gainfully employed and who are engaged parents, trumps an immature married couple that is financially unstable and only marginally interested in parenting.

In several Scandanavian countries unwed motherhood is practically the norm. The difference however is that generally these women are well educated and can at least provide financially for their children. Moreover, the children's fathers are usually gainfully employed and active in the children's lives.

In comparison, in our country many of these teenagers and unmarried women are neither emotionally or financially equipped to deal with the daily challenges of parenting. More problematic is that in many cases the mothers have a tenuous relationship with the child's father, who may or may not regularly contribute financially and emotionally to the child's upbringing. Moreover, unlike decades past, the support network(grandmothers, aunts, neighbors) who could help with babysitting or money, if a mother ran low one week, is rapidly dwindling as more women enter the workforce and stay in it longer.

The old people used to say that children are a blessing. I believe that to be true. That being said, innocent children are done a disservice if their parents are not prepared to give them a steady dose of love and attention as well as food, clothing and shelter.