Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic Teenage Pregnancy - A Disaster?

There has recently been one story posted on the boards, Family Hour, and another uploaded to the Archive, Coming of Age, where Clark and Lois meet as teenagers and Lois becomes pregnant with Clark's child. Which leads me to consider the following question: How bad is it really if a teenaged girl becomes pregnant and has a child?

The simple fact that most girls start menstruating in their early teens (and maybe even earlier) means that they are physically ready to become mothers at that age. It is certainly very likely that they are not mentally or socially ready for motherhood, but they are physically ready, all right. And because they are physically ready, it is not very strange that their bodies respond by becoming interested in the kind of activities that can lead to pregnancy.

In many cultures all over the world, it has been normal to marry girls off when they are in their early teens. In Shakespeare's immortal tragedy Romeo and Juliet, Juliet's parents decide to marry their daughter off at about the same time that Juliet is celebrating her fourteenth birthday. And Juliet's mother tells her daughter that when she herself was fourteen years old, she was not only married but she had also given birth to Juliet.

The Bible tells us nothing about the age of Virgin Mary. Nevertheless it has often been assumed that she was just a young girl, perhaps around fifteen, because, so the reasoning goes, otherwise she would already have been married. And Islam's Prophet Muhammed, who had ten wives, married a girl, Aisha, who was just ten years old when he married her.

Right now in the United States a "renegade Mormon" pastor, Warren Jeffs, is on trial for allegedly pressuring a fourteen-year-old American girl into marrying her cousin. It should perhaps be noted that the age of consent in Utah is fourteen, so unless the girl was subjected to undue pressure to marry her cousin, her marriage at age fourteen was legally all right.

To summarize, the custom of marrying off thirteen- to fourteen-year-old girls has been commonplace all over the world. Clearly the fact that girls of that age are physically ready to become mothers has led many societies to conclude that girls therefore ought to be married off at that age. And rarely has there been a public outcry at such practices at home or abroad. In short, the idea of girls becoming pregnant at the age of thirteen or fourteen is not in and of itself catastrophic. So where, then, lies the problem?

Some years ago, I saw a documentary about something that had happened at a strict Catholic school for girls in Ireland. One of the girls at this school, undoubtedly a somewhat rebellious girl - you know, the kind of girl who starts smoking before anyone else does and who breaks various rules - became pregnant. I got the impression that she was about fifteen or sixteen.

For all her rebelliousness, pregnancy was more than this girl had bargained for. She didn't know how to deal with her situation. She started wearing big and bulky clothes that hid her figure, and apparently the nuns, who were the teacers at this school, didn't notice anything suspicious. (A few of the nuns were interviewed in the documentary; they came off as frighteningly rigid and stiff.)

In December the girl realized that it would soon be time for her to give birth. She became increasingly desperate. Apparently she didn't feel that she could go to her parents for help. For all her rebelliousness she was still a Catholic, and she clung to the hope that the Virgin Mary could somehow help her. She started sneaking out to a nearby churchyard where there was a statue of the Virgin, where the girl would come to pray.

Shortly before Christmas, the girl went to the churchyard again. When she was there her waters broke and she was suddenly in labour.

The girl was found the next day, which may or may not have been Christmas Day. She was lying in the blood-stained snow on the ground in front of the Virgin Mary statue. Her little boy lay in the snow beside her, the umbilical cord uncut. Both the young mother and her newborn son were dead. In their own way, this young girl and her little son were a modern version of Mary and her Child. But there was no place for them in the inn, and neither, so the girl must have felt, in her school nor in her parents' home, not even in a manger in a stable. So the girl gave birth in the snow in the churchyard, and she and her son died.

We can say that it was the girl's own fault that she and her son died. And of course it was, to a certain extent. It was her own fault that she became pregnant, and it was her own choice not to tell an adult about her situation. If she had told her parents, or if she had told the nuns at school, they would have helped her. They would have been required to help her, and they would have done it, too. But when I saw the harshness and the lack of generosity and tolerance in the faces of the nuns, at least as they were portrayed in the documentary, I don't blame the girl for not daring to confess her pregnancy to the nuns.

When I was a young teacher in the early eighties, I had a colleague who was born around 1940. Around 1955, when she was fifteen, she became pregnant. When this was discovered, she was immediately forced to leave school. Not only that, but she was forced to leave her own home, her family and her friends and her own hometown, and she was placed in an institution for misbehaving girls. Here she had to stay until she gave birth. Immediately afterwards the baby was taken away from her. She was not allowed to see her child, and she wasn't even told if it was a boy or a girl. The baby was given away for adoption, and it didn't matter whether she, its sixteen-year-old mother, wanted this to happen or not.

When this girl came home again she was confused and lost. She could not go back to school, because she had lost a year of schooling and her parents no longer wanted to pay for her education, since they didn't feel she deserved it any more. Her "nice" friends didn't want to see her. She had to take a string of unqualified jobs, and she became friends with a rougher crowd, so that she started drinking too much. After more than ten years she managed to get back to school and finish her education, and finally she became a teacher. But when I met her, she was bitter. She felt that her youth had been taken away from her. But wasn't that her own fault? Yes, it was her own fault that she became pregnant, of course. But was it her own fault that she was sent away from home? That her former friends didn't want to see her anymore? That her parents didn't want to pay for her education? That she met so much condemnation from society?

That is what things were like in Sweden in the mid-fifties. Today things are very different. One of my own students is an eighteen-year-old girl with a two-year-old son. Unlike my colleague, this girl has met support and understanding from the surrounding society. She most certainly wasn't sent away from home. She was allowed to stay in school for as long as she had the energy for her classes during her pregnancy. After she had given birth, she stayed at home for a year, nursing and taking care of her son. After that, she returned to school. Her little son was placed in daycare. The social services helped her to get an apartment where she could move in with her son and her boyfriend, the father of her son. She was not able to get married, because Swedish law forbids marriage for anyone who is not yet eighteen years old.

Folks, you should see this girl! She is so conscientious, and she is a model student, even though she isn't gifted or bright. She is so mature and responsible. She dresses simply and unassumingly, but not ugly. When she is with her little boy, she is positively glowing. I kid you not if I tell you that there is something about this girl which reminds me, at least, of a young, innocent, mature, brave, loving and lovely Virgin Mary. It's the girl's own good qualities that have made her such a good mother and such a good student, of course. But, darn it, it is the fact that the surrounding society has given her support and not condemnation that has made it possible for her to live a happy life with her little family.

So I think it is imperative that we, the rest of us, support the teenaged mothers instead of condemning them. If their lives go to heck after we have made them feel that they are no better than irresponsible sluts, then we shouldn't put the blame squarely on the girls if things go as badly for them as we had predicted.

Ann

P.S. When I say that "we" should support the teenaged mothers, I'm not implying that the members of these boards are an intolerant lot. When I say "we", I mean the surrounding society, or everyone who meets these girls.

What it comes down to is how supportive (even now) the family and community is. In 1971-72 (yeah, I actually remember this), many big city school districts already had rules in place forbidding the expulsion of girls simply for being pregnant. Some high schools even went so far as to make arrangements for Early Childhood Education centers to be put into the high schools so that not only could young mothers complete their education, but other students could get ECE training as well.

There are a variety of reasons as to why a teen gets pregnant - accidents are not the only one - but a supportive family is the key as to whether or not the girl can make a go of the situation or not.

As a counter to the poor Irish girl - I was raised in the Midwest. A relative just a little younger than me had a horrific family situation at home, but had a very loving boyfriend who was a little older and very mature for his age. Her abusive father hated the boyfriend. She got pregnant, knowing her mother would sign her emancipation papers so she could leave home and get away from her father and move in with her boyfriend.

The rest of the family - grandparents, cousins - were very supportive of her choices. The last I heard, she and her boyfriend (husband) were celebrating their 35th anniversary not that long ago.

In the case of a pregnant teenage Lois - we know she has relatives besides her parents (Uncle Mike and Aunt Esther), and we're talking about the late '80's. It wouldn't be easy, but a successful unmarried Mommy Lois is distinctly possible.

Thank you for a highly intersting essay, Ann! There's a lot I want to say on this topic, especially considering the extremely conservative situation in Sri Lanka which infuriates me on a daily basis, but I'm too sleepy right now. Maybe later.

I think that the teenage preganancy issue is simply a part of how much the society in question believes in second chances. Conservationism goes hand and hand with absolutionism (is there such a word? There ought to be!) and that is the root of all evil. Within absolutes there is no compassion, no redemption and no choices that do not define your whole life. We find a society who worships a God of Wrath and Thunder, who skews morality to accord with the stolid security of bourgeoise conformity. We see a society that destroys its deviants and stunts its members because it fears change and alternate practices as the devil's own tools. A society full of unquestioning, self-righteous sheep.

I felt like crying for that girl who dies in the snow, yet I wonder whether death wasn't the kinder option after all. I live in the kind of society she did. If I ever got pregnant out of wedlock no matter what my age, my parents would be shamed for life, my relatives would disown me or pretend not to know me, my society would persecute me and the very doctor and nurse who tended me would look at me with contempt. I'd never be able to get married, for even if I found a man willing to raise another man's child, what family would want their son to bring home a tainted bride? If I was in school, I'd be thrown out and be left with no government support whatsoever, my friends' parents would not allow them to retain contact with me. In short, it would be a life-long emotional crucification and the guilt and misery alone would either drive me to an instituition or to take my own life. I know because I've seen it happen. What's worse, nobody would feel guilty about it even if I did. People of my generation are more free-thinking, but I have known older people to say that deviants get what's coming to them, and if one makes the choices, no matter how young you are, one will find the consequences. Just hearing them say that is horrifying. Worse yet, they have the kind of mindset that does not even allow them to comprehend a way of life other than this. Either they regard social mechanisms as something they have no control over, or run by a mysterious omniscent entity known as "society" or they view opposition to the traditional thinking as "dangerously Westernized or the amorality of modern permissiveness".

So maybe this was the best way in which the Virgin Mary could have answered that poor girl's prayers. To allow her and her unwanted child to die in the only place of sanctuary left to them. To die at her feet.

Just a comment:

However, their bodies are still developing. Most doctors agree that the best age for a woman to get pregnant is her early twenties. Any earlier will potentially have a, maybe not negative, but stalling effect on the mother's bodily development. And maybe it's not that big a deal if she ends up a few centimeters shorter than she could have been, or if she ends up more prone to osteoporosis, but hey, if you can avoid it, all the better!

Apart from that, well, I don't agree with the concept of teenage pregnancy, but I certainly agree that we should support teenage mothers. A humane society should be tolerant and supportive towards everyone - and teenage mothers certainly do have enough problems as it is.

See ya,
AnnaBtG.

Sorry to butt in, but I can't let you misquote this. Warren Jeffs and the polygamists are NOT Mormons. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) disavowed polygamy over a hundred years ago. That's why groups like the Fundamentalist LDS Church exist. Those who wouldn't give up polygamy were excommunicated and started their own churches. And their doctrine has followed a much more extreme direction ever since.

/me steps off her soap box

Here's a link to The Primer which has some interesting insights into the polygamous communities.

Sorry to go off-topic, but I couldn't stand to see a common mistake go uncorrected.

Thanks JDG for that info! I was always confused because I dated a guy in highschool who's entire family was mormon and I knew they didn't believe in polygamy. I was always confused when I heard about polygamists and wondered why all mormons didn't practice that. I love these educational threads! Then I can justify why I'm on here so much. To get smarter of course!

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.

When talking about teenage pregnancy as a normal concept in earlier times, you shouldn't forget that a family could be very happy if a child survived to the age of puberty. So it seems logical that you start having decendends as early as possible, particularly given that they are supposed to guarantee your supply when you're to old to do it yourself.

Girls from former centuries were most likely older than they are now when they started to menstruate. Even in the early years of the last century the average age was about sixteen, not thirteen as it is now. It depends on health and nutrition at which age a girl starts developing.

Last but not least a young girl's chance to become pregnant is smaller when she has just started menstruating, because this doesn't necessarily mean she has also started ovulating. Thus being married at an early age does not mean that she's going to be pregnant that early.

I wouldn't say that the society has been more tolerant in earlier times. It's needs were different. Besided, I wouldn't condemn teenage pregnancy, though I have to admit that in my opinion there is a difference between having a child at the age of sixteen or becoming pregnant at the age of eleven.

I don't think that an eleven year old kid can understand all the implications of having sex. Thus there is also a parental responsibility to protect their children. Of course it's impossible to look after your child twenty four hours a day and if it happens the parents shouldn't send their children away, because that is just no way to deal with such issues.