Thesis: Pregnant teenagers have struggles with being mothers because of the influence from their mother and lack of support from their significant other.
Research article 1: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6045691/ “They must adapt with adulthood social roles, physical changes of puberty, significant brain development, and nurturing of an infant” “...One of the main challenges and described it as several responsibilities, lack of time and energy, and restriction on spending for self-interests” “After becoming a mother, teens have been unable to managing time and planning” “According to statements from the participants, some adolescent mothers had experienced hyperemesis gravid arum, eating disorders, anemia, bleeding, and preeclampsia during pregnancy” Teenagers experience relationships in ways that impact their lives either positively or negatively based on their situations that occur. The situations that occur, teenagers may not have an idea of what they are doing with one another because of the lack of information from their mother. The relationships that occur may lead to a pregnancy that no one was expecting at a young age. Pregnant teenagers, unfortunately, struggle with managing priorities because they are so young and are not mentally and physically prepared. Therefore, the young age of pregnancies and unpreparedness gets influenced by their mothers. There are multiple research articles proving the struggles of pregnant teenagers, the lack of support from their significant other and the influence their mother’s have with their decisions. More specifically, a research article conducted a study from March to December of 2016 in Kerman, Iran. Kerman was known for the highest rate of teenage mothers. The study included 16 adolescents within ages of 14 to 18 and all housewives had to have education levels from middle school to diploma. Teenage mothers were more common in Iran because so many of them occurred. The study showed struggles of teenage mothers. Pregnant teenagers did not have much support from their loved ones or their significant other. The lack of support may come from the less information that they have with the situation. Mothers in general have a difficult transition having to take care of a child and also themselves. As a teenager who has to take care of their child is twice as difficult because teenagers are still in school, tend to not have a job that pays enough, pays bills, and want to have a normal social life. According to the article “Exploring the Challenges of Adolescent Mothers From Their Life Experiences in the Transition to Motherhood: A Qualitative Study” by _______ states “Early motherhood has significantly affected not only adolescent girls, but also their spouse, family, school and the society at large”(Massoumeh). The 16 adolescents from the study struggled with the same issues with managing their tasks and being financially stable. Motherhood is a transition not only for women and young girls but also for men and young boys too. The transition for men and young boys are affected because they have to know how to support their significant other. Without men giving the support to women, women tend to have a harder time with managing themselves as a mother. The article from _____ states “Teenage mothers expected support from their husbands in all child-related responsibilities and this lack of support from spouses was a bitter experience for teenage mothers”(Massoumeh). Although teenagers do not typically get married and have a husband at a young age, they still need their loved one by their side. The significant other that supports the mother brings out less stress with all the tasks they have to manage. Teenagers go through multiple stages of emotions due to having puberty, but with being pregnant as a teenager, it tends to be worse. Women have mixed emotions through puberty because they have periods that transition how they feel. As women move into being pregnant, the emotions grow bigger and affect their relationships with their significant other. ______’s article states “Teenage mothers stated that accepting the role of motherhood is associated with emotional and mental distress such as fear and worry, regret and frustration, guilt and shame, depression, and disruption in relationship of couples”(Massoumeh). The mixed emotions that come from pregnant teenagers do not get handled well because of the significant other being supported nor the teenager’s mother handling the situation. Handling a teenager is difficult, but a teenager who is pregnant is worse because of the hormones. Women tend to be more reliable with helping one another because they have the same situations and have the same body functionings. Though the help turns into high quality services. ______’s article wrote “Providing high quality services requires understanding of the needs of teenage mothers, their challenges and capabilities”. Women tend to be difficult to manage because of the emotions, transitions, and breakdowns that may occur. Teenager’s mothers need to be more reliable because they have been through similar processes with handling a child.
Research article 2: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3174139/ The distress levels are important to acknowledge because distress levels are higher when a teenager is pregnant. The distress may come from the lack of the significant other being around or clearly not having an idea of what to do in situations and how to handle it. A teenager struggles with managing their responsibilities, but having a teenager who is pregnant needs to have the help and support she needs. The help and support is only sufficient if the teenager’s mother knows what she is doing and the significant other does what he is asked to. Another article sampled 80 United States high schools and 52 middle schools regarding the relationship between teenage childbearing and psychological distress. The study uses a CES-D to measure distress between teenage mothers and older mothers. The CES-D is called the center for epidemiologic studies of depression scale. The study from “Investigating the Relationship Between Teenage Childbearing and Psychological Distress Using Longitudinal Evidence” by Stefanie Mollborn and Elizabeth Morningstar states “Evidence showed that teenage mothers were more distressed on average than both their childless teenage peers and older mothers”(Mollborn). The distress mentally and physically destroyed the teenagers, breaking down their emotions and actions. Teenagers who are pregnant have a difficult time reaching out because they may feel they have no one to reach out to and communicate with. Therefore, the mental and physical part was destroyed. Mothers of pregnant teenagers should have a better read of how they are feeling and doing because most of the mothers have had most of the same experiences. Distress continues to grow throughout the teenagers lives because of the lack of contacts they may reach out to. Mollborn and Morningstar’s article wrote “Teenage mothers’ higher distress levels continued throughout adolescence, young adulthood, and middle adulthood, suggesting that their distress may be long-term rather than short-term in nature”(Mollborn). As much as mothers of teenagers should be a good influence and the teenagers' significant others are supposed to be a support system, teenagers should be their own advocate. Teenagers should be their own advocate because they need to hold themselves accountable and use their research to find their answers. Without the answers that pregnant teenagers may need, the longer term the distress may occur. Not only do first time pregnant teenagers have struggles, former teenage mothers have struggles too with having a support system. Former teenage mothers and first time teenage mothers should be able to bond and connect with one another due to the experience the former teenage mother has been through. Though, former teenage mothers may have a hard time with opening up because of the difficult experience they may have had. According to Mollborn and Morningstar’s article “Former teenage mothers had significantly higher distress levels than adult first-time mothers for all age categories from 20 to 39”(Mollborn). Most, if not all women tend to have distress from being pregnant and raising a child because it is a major responsibility. However, the responsibility that teenage mothers have to handle can be reduced if their significant other is more reliable. On the other hand, teenagers may get distress before they become pregnant because of other personal issues such as work, school, or their relationship. The responsibilities may overwork the mental health of one’s self that may break and destroy the teenagers. Mollborn and Morningstar’s article comments “Evidence suggests that teenage mothers may have been more distressed than their childless peers because they were already distressed before becoming pregnant rather than the experience of adolescent childbearing increasing distress”(Mollborn).
● find a tedtalk of a woman speaking about their experience of distress, lack of support from peers and the influence of their mother ● a description of how difficult it was to raise a child ● a compare and contrast of a woman who had a positive influence with their mother and a negative influence with their mother ● maybe describe how raising your sibling at a young age may be the same as raising a child of your own ● the ownership of saying you have a child and being proud of it because of all the hate you may get from being pregnant at such a young age
“Wave three distress levels from Add health measured five years after wave two revealed that although all groups became less distressed as they aged, teenagers who became mothers both before and after wave two still had higher continuously measured distress scores in young adulthood than their peers who did not become adolescent mothers” “Comparing teenage mothers with a “control” group of equivalent respondents would most accurately estimate the association between the experience of teenage motherhood and distress” “Supplemental analyses revealed that just four control variables in combination eliminated the significance of the distress coefficient: parental education, grade point average, family structure, and having had sexual intercourse”
Article three(video of ted talk): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CX0npuJmlA ● Earvean diggs - had son at 17 and got high school diploma ● Graduated from MCC with associates degree, two years after diploma ○ Graduated with bachelor degree from spring arbor university, two years after obtaining associates degree ● Young african american women from poverty ● Families here supporting and to help celebrate accomplishments ○ She says she should have been one of those individuals who lived off the system accepting a welfare check who stood in line with a food stamp card ● She is a statistic and she is okay with that ● “My job is to give my testimony to other young girls who are in the situation that I just came out of to let them know it can be done, to let them know that your trials and tribulations it was creates a strong testimony and for someone like me I have to make it because there’s a young girl who is struggling right now who need to see that it can be done” ● “What’s next for me in life is to give back” ● You can be a successful single teen parent ● “My yesterday does not determine my tomorrow” ● “If we give up on them, who’s gonna run the world in the next 20 years”
Article 3(video of ted talk part 2): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvbajNOETR0 ● Leslea Walters ● Half of all pregnancies are unplanned ● Been a pregnancy expert since 2008 and an obstetrician 2014 ○ Has experienced two pregnancies of her own ● Postpartum depression ● Mood disorders often start in the pregnancy only getting worse with the hormonal changes that happen after birth ● Lots of pressure to becoming a parent, but can also come from family, friends, parenting groups and social media ● “We see a pregnant person there’s this need to comment, to acknowledge. Unfortunately our comments are often peppered with advice and warnings that are largely based in myth not fact” ● People believe that coffee is bad for pregnancy ○ People end up giving decaf to a pregnant person that they neither ordered nor paid for because of that assumption ● Certain foods such as deli meat or sushi are typically on the list of not to eat ○ It’s not the food, it's the bacteria that can contaminate food ● Miscarriages happen in 20 to 25 percent of pregnancies -- gives wrong impression that activity is a cause ● “One of my biggest pet peeves as a care provider for pregnant people is when someone comments on a pregnant person’s size, that’s body shaming”
The struggle of being a teen who is pregnant is more common than others may think due to the sex drive people have. Though, the struggles tend to vary based on the homelife of the mother, if she has enough money to take care of herself, and has a support system. Earvean Diggs, who represented herself in a TedTalk, is an African American woman in poverty who birthed her son at seventeen years old. She was determined to not let others negatively affect her by getting her diploma, earning her Associates Degree from MCC and graduating with a Bachelor's Degree from Spring Arbor University. She was determined to prove everyone wrong. She claims that she “should have been one of those individuals who lived off the system accepting a welfare check who stood in line with a food stamp card”, but she did not let a birth at a teenage age affect her goal of wanting to be a successful mother and person. Today, Earvean is giving back to the community and influencing younger girls how to take care of themselves and to be prepared for similar situations as herself such as poverty and being pregnant as a teen. Earvean comments “My job is to give my testimony to other young girls who are in the situation that I just came out of to let them know it can be done, to let them know that your trials and tribulations it was creates a strong testimony and for someone like me I have to make it because there’s a young girl who is struggling right now who need to see that it can be done”. Earvean wants others to have a place to feel safe to speak for help and to have a person who will support them through it all. Earvean did not have much support nor anything for herself because of how difficult her homelife was. Pregnancies are also having people overcome negative self thoughts and receiving negative comments from others. Leslea Walters, a pregnancy expert since 2008 and an obstetrician since 2014 discusses the background of pregnancies in a TedTalk. She comments about the mood swings and depression women that may affect the mother. She says “Mood disorders often start in the pregnancy, only getting worse with the hormonal changes that happen after birth”. The feelings that mothers tend to feel during and after pregnancy often ruins the idea of wanting to raise a child. Teenagers have hormones as they are growing up, but having teenage hormones and also receiving hormones while being pregnant is a difficult situation. The situation of having to deal with the hormones only grows worse if a support system is not there to push the mother through it.