Bundle of Joy?

Ah...Just another lazy Sunday morning. A teenage girl is asleep in her bed. She wakes up, yawns, and stretches, very much aware of the comfort of her own bed and the much-needed sleep. Then she is jolted out of her reverie. The baby is crying. Again. As she reluctantly drags herself out of bed, eyes still half closed, she grabs the baby bottle, a burp towel, and a spare diaper just in case. As she approaches the crib, she sees her baby. The baby's face is scrunched up, her mouth wide open and screaming, her fists flying and legs kicking. What a beautiful baby, the girl thinks. But no matter how beautiful she thinks her baby is and no matter how much she loves her, she's still a big responsibility. A responsibility the girl could have waited to take on later in life. These are some of the many things teen moms go through every single day of their lives. The constant crying, feeding, burping, and changing is enough to wear down anyone. Not to mention you can never let them out of your sight because something might happen to them. It's a life of constant worrying. This is what my good friend Lynn goes through everyday. I think teens shouldn't have babies because of the huge responsibility, the constant financial worries, and the possible loss of a good education.

My friend Lynn is 17 years old. Her daughter, Asia, is 18 months. Lynn got pregnant with Asia shortly after her 15th birthday. She had a boyfriend at the time who claimed that he loved her just so she would sleep with him. Lynn told me most of the time they used protection, but sometimes they didn't, and she just didn't really think her chances of getting pregnant were good. Then she missed one of her periods. She took a pregnancy test, and it turned out negative. I told her to go to a clinic, because sometimes pregnancy tests can be inaccurate. Sure enough, the doctor told her she was one month pregnant. At first she was scared about telling her parents, but she knew she had to. They were angry at first, but then told her that they would support her with any decision she made. Feeling a little more confident, she finally told her boyfriend. Instead of being understanding and supportive, he got angry and demanded that she have an abortion. She didn't really want to have an abortion, but she figured it would be better than giving up her life as she knew it to an unplanned baby. So her parents set up an appointment at an abortion clinic. When she got home, she immediately called me on the phone crying. "I just couldn't do it," she said. "I felt way too guilty." She had decided to keep the baby. When her boyfriend found out, he broke up with her and now refuses to have anything to do with the baby. Now that Asia is born, Lynn's life is far from easy. She can only go out to see her friends once in a great while when she can convince her parents to watch little Asia for her, which isn't very often because they think if she was responsible enough to have sex, then she should be responsible enough to take care of her baby when she's home. However, she still isn't home that much because now she has to work full time at a local supermarket to support her and her baby, because her parents can't afford to take care of all of them. She had to quit school when she turned 16 because of this. Long time ago, she had wanted to be doctor. Now she feels that's unrealistic, and she only hopes that one day in the future she can go to a community college and earn her G.E.D. If she ever gets the time.

The stress that teen moms go through is enormous. Everyday and in the middle of the night, they have get out of bed and tend to their crying baby. The baby is their biggest responsibility. Teenagers can practically forget about having a social life. The baby is their life. No more going to parties or to the movies or bowling or spending the night at a friend's house; at least not as much as they used to. While other teens are thinking about what to wear to the school dance, teen moms are thinking about what to do with the baby so they can go to the school dance. All of these stresses can keep piling on until the moms lose their sleep and start to feel tired all the time, which can really affect their health also. Not only do they have emotional stress and lack of freedom, but they also have financial worries too.

Let's face it: babies aren't cheap. A teenage mother has to buy clothes, diapers, formula, baby food, and also has to pay for checkups, vaccinations, and day care if necessary. All of these things add up to be quite a large sum of money. It's also very possible that the parents of the mother or the father of the baby aren't willing to support it. So the mom has to go out and get a job. Not part time either, because that wouldn't be enough money. She would get exhausted getting up, working an 8-hour or more day, coming home, taking care of the baby, getting up once or twice in the middle of the night because it's crying, and then waking up again to go to work. Maybe she would get child support from the father, maybe not. Either way, it's not smooth sailing, and the mother would never have time to go to school.

School is practically out of the question unless the parents are completely willing to financially support and baby sit the baby. Dreams of maybe being a doctor or lawyer would be no more. The best one can probably hope for after dropping out is to go to a community college to get their G.E.D. Then, when the mom gets older and wants to get a better job, she might not get it because companies tend to employ people of more extensive education. So the mom would probably be stuck with an unsatisfying, low-paying job for the rest of her life just because she had a baby at too young of an age and was robbed of a decent education. This is not the life anybody dreams about. It seems that the cons outweigh the pros when it comes to having a baby at a very young age. The responsibilities, financial problems, and loss of a good education are too much for the average teenager to go through. Unfortunately, statistics show that teenage pregnancy is still happening very often. According to The Alan Guttmacher Institute, roughly 880,000 pregnancies occurred among women aged 15-19 in 1996. Florida alone is ranked 4th in the number of pregnancies in the country (Goldberg 89). Approximately sixty percent of teenage mothers end up on welfare (Hanson 72).

Maybe if teens were more educated about the responsibilities of raising a child they would think twice about having unprotected sex. At this age teens should be the ones being paid to baby sit, not the ones paying for a baby sitter.


Works Cited Page
"Teenage Pregnacy: Overall Trends and State by State Information". The Alan Guttmacher Institute. April 1999.

http://www.agi-usa.org/pubs/teen_preg_stats.html

Goldberg, Stanley, et. all Teenage Pregnancy Statistics. New York: Free Press, 1994

Hanson, Margaret, Today's World, New York: Penguin Books, LTD.,1995