Adolescent motherhood a likely prescription for failure

According to RI Kids Count, researchers estimate that if all of Rhode Island’s teen moms had waited until they were 20 to have babies, the state’s prison population would be down 11.2 percent. The sons of teenage mothers, they say, are 2.2 times as likely to be incarcerated.

Crime is hardly the only issue here. Premature pregnancies increase all kinds of social problems, from dropping out of school to poverty. In fact, 1 in 10 babies in Rhode Island is born to teen parents, and of those, 85 percent are poor. Premature pregnancy is a big part of families getting caught in a vicious cycle of poverty....

[Dr. Patricia Flanagan, medical director of Hasbro Children’s Hospital’s outpatient services] says teen moms tend to fall into two types. One type loses herself in the child. The baby is an extension of the mom’s life and personality.

The other treats her baby like a doll, a thing, a prized possession — dressing the child up, showing the baby off. As one teen mom said, “I got something that’s all mine, that nobody can take away from me!”

In both cases, the baby isn’t understood as a person in his or her own right, an evolving being with a unique future and a changing set of needs. After all, teens are in the process of forming their own identities. Though perfectly natural, a young parent’s egocentricity keeps the baby’s self from becoming entirely real...

This from the Providence Journal.