Interesting post!
Aside from the moral issues of teenage sex (including the issue of coercion, often by much older men), there is an economic advantage to postponing motherhood beyond the teen years. Teen mothers are almost never financially self-supporting. They must depend on their families, their boyfriends, or society to pay their bills. Also, motherhood interrupts or ends their education, which makes it more unlikely that they will ever get to the stage that they can support themselves. So they must continue to find someone to support them, either society as a whole or some man. They may stay in an unhealthy or abusive relationship because they cannot afford to go anywhere else, or they may end up in a series of relationships with different men. At my end of the world, the problem I see is not a lack of support for teen mothers; it is that more and more, this kind of situation is being accepted as normal. As a 1970's-style feminist, who was the first woman hired in my particular office in my particular field, I see this situation as a step backward.
Several years ago I interviewed several girls who were on welfare. I realized that for my friends and me, "growing up" meant getting a job so we could pay for an apartment and a car. In contrast, for these girls, "growing up" meant getting pregnant so they could get their own food stamp allotment, separate from their mother's allotment. I am not kidding! It was sad.
Just for the record, I do not have anything against stay-at-home moms. I just think that every woman should have the capability of supporting herself if necessary.
