Teen Pregnancy and Parenting

    Nowadays, society does not provide pregnant teens or young parents with much opportunity. Instead, pregnant teens and parents are forced to face society’s harsh standards alone, adding stress and introducing harmful lifestyles. Take Oprah Winfrey for example, as a teen, Oprah experienced different form of sexual abuse countless times by her cousin and became pregnant at the age of 14 because she never spoke up. Like Oprah, many teens todays have the same issue when it comes to reaching out for help. Not only does this hurt their health, but it can also harm the community by increasing unemployment rates. However, providing education on contraception instead of Sex Ed, having birth control available to teens (that have the consent of a parent) has beneficial effects that can help teens open up to their parents and decrease teen pregnancy rate even further. As for young moms, government supplying reasonable incomes, guarantees more supplies for newborns and better health for mothers

    Since 1990, teen pregnancy rate have dropped tremendously nationwide due to Sex Education, but when researchers dug further into the accuracy of the data by state, the results proved otherwise. The outcome of a research affirmed that states who chose to that educate teens on sex had a higher chance of teen pregnancies and sexual infections than states that taught contraception methods. Over the years, the improvement of Sex Ed promised only impacted a few states. In contrast, 74% of other states showed no changes with Sex Ed (www.psychologytoday.com). In order to prevent further teen pregnancies, transitioning Sex Ed to education on contraception will help states such as Florida, Tennessee, Minnesota, etc. with premature births issues. Therefore, Sex Ed does not decrease the rate of teen pregnancies, but shows to do the opposite.

    Introducing birth control and contraception suchlike condoms to adolescents in public areas encourage teens to “open up” to their parents too. When adolescents that go through anxiety, depression, or any kind of mental disorder, are aware that available ways to avoid pregnancy are within reach, they feel a sense of ease. As a result, pregnancy rate and infection such as Sexually Transmitted Infection (STI) decrease. Thus, young teens that had no hope before will become compelled to speak with their parents before it is too late to act upon this problem. Additionally, birth control promotes relationships between parents and children in various ways. Resultantly, rather than parents losing trust in their own children, teens will have the courage to speak about their current situation which will in turn improve their situations.

    Providing birth control also has other benefits, including a reduction in suicide and abortion rates. According to a conducted study of approximately 105 teens, 13.3% of the teens attempted to commit suicide due to pregnancy (ajph.aphapublications.org). Teens childhood includes the way their parents treated them along with the people that surrounded them that influenced their self-esteem and self-worth. However, by providing birth control, 24% of teens struggling through abortion or deciding on abortion will decline (www.childtrends.org). Not only does abortion make a portion of teens uncomfortable but it requires an extreme amount of money that many teem don’t have. Abortion options involves methods from medical pills, early pregnancy removal, to late pregnancy removal that prices can range from $75 to $15,000 (www.Thecut.com). Though the prices may be in the range of a few teens’ budget, other teens don’t have the capability to support this much money.

    For teen moms who struggle to maintain a financially stable life, one effective solution is to increase teen moms’ hourly wages. With the increase in salaries, teen mothers would have the ability to afford essential supplies such as diapers, baby food, baby powder, etc. By providing this benefit, young moms will still have access when supplies become expensive. In unfortunate scenarios, the father and/or the teen’s family abandons the mother because of how much responsibility, burden, and financial aid that they would have to carry on their shoulders. Hence, the mom is required to provide financially to help support her child. So as a teen mom it’s more difficult compared to adult moms, to earn a greater income by herself despite the low income society provides for teen moms and her family (www.ziprecruiter.com). Dealing with financial issues is one of many problems that pregnant teen have to face, not to mention the mother would have to pay attention to her health as well as her education.

    After a teen mom burdens to become a mom, nowadays, living as a young mom will become nearly impossible to get education and accomplished dreams. This issue also comes from the lack of income that jobs provide for teens. Suppose that teen moms had superior pay, this would help teen moms and their situation by supporting companies such as Hellofresh and Blue Apron, a company that specializes in delivering healthy, planned meals. Along with their physical state, teens could have a higher stress level as a mom thus, therapy usually become a prominent way to remove stress though they come with extremely high price tags for teens to afford by themselves. Again, with a raise, teens would have the ability to afford therapy and even continue to pursue their dreams and education. Gaining education, also gives adolescents opportunities to reconstruct lost trust from parents who truly wants their daughter to succeed in life.

    Though teen pregnancy has fluctuated throughout the years, society should still provide more opportunities to prevent pregnancy and provide hopeful chances for teen moms. Possible solutions can go as far as educating teens on contraception methods, open up access to birth control in public areas particularly schools, and expanding the pay for teen moms. Providing birth control to teens would help young teens to speak up if they know there that possible solution are available. Furthermore, it would most definitely decrease abortion and suicide rates. Teen pregnancy and young parenting shortens various opportunities that teens would have experienced, but by allowing solutions from out of the box to assist that means it’s never too late to return.