COLUMN: Tenn pregnancy: A stand-in for social ills

From Nadia Dowshen's, "Urban Guerrilla," Fall '99 From Nadia Dowshen's, "Urban Guerrilla," Fall '99Each year over one million adolescent girls become pregnant and over half give birth. Policy makers, educators, health care and social service workers and individual citizens have identified adolescent pregnancy as one of our nation's most pressing health and social problems. Ironically, the issue of teen pregnancy came to public attention during the late 1960s, a time of relatively sharp decline in all birthrates, especially when compared with the "baby boom" of the 1950s. Although overall teen birth rates were declining at this time the proportion of births to unwed teen mothers was increasing dramatically. The legislative reaction to this shift was pronounced. In 1978, Congress passed the Adolescent Health Services and Pregnancy Prevention Act. Unfortunately, interpretations of much of the published data on early childbearing reflects societal anxiety about adolescents, rather than what has really happened. The actual birthrates to teens have remained stable throughout the 20th century and actually declined slightly in recent years. The youngest teen mothers -- those under 15 -- account for only 1 percent of out-of-wedlock births and only 2.3 percent of births to all teens. Eighteen- and 19-year-olds actually account for the majority of births to teens, about two-thirds of the total. When we talk about "babies having babies," we are really only talking about 12,000 births to teens under 15 per year. Attitudes about teen pregnancy -- and the resulting presentation of data -- reflect concerns about a host of other worrisome changes in society. Societal concerns about sex, marriage, poverty, race, dependency, difficulties of getting ahead in an increasingly competitive global economy, family values and relationships of individuals to communities have all affected perceptions of teen pregnancy. Public officials, activists, academics and private citizens have used teen mothers -- as a tool and as a scapegoat -- to bring attention to inequalities in our society and to blame someone for our social ills. The discourse of teen pregnancy exemplifies our society's uncertainty about gender roles, economics and race. We have come to expect women to emulate competitive, selfish, male behavior in the workplace, but to carry on their traditional roles as altruistic nurturers elsewhere. The same social conditions that encourage teens to have babies also work to prevent them from ever being ready to have kids in the way that the white middle class might prefer. Also the discussion of teen pregnancy is forced to focus on teen mothers instead of young parents because the data on young fathers is limited. However, the discourse should not be feminized; it should not be taken as natural that teen pregnancy is just a women's issue. We must be aware of how the discourse has been constructed. This in no way denies the reality of the teen pregnancy problem and its consequences for adolescent mothers and their children, but rather brings attention to how we frame the discussion. Don't be fooled by the stereotype of the 15-year-old mother on welfare and don't blame young mothers for society's problems that have only made their lives more difficult.