User:AdoraRebel/sandbox

Parenting as a teenager
Parenting as a teenager is rare as the average age people decide to have children continues to rise. Of the 3,855,500 births recorded in 2017, approximately 5% or 194,377 were births to young women aged 15-19 and 1,917 were to girls younger than 15. The majority (75%) of these births are to female adults aged 18-19. The birthrate for teenagers has fallen steadily since 2009 and dropped "70% since the 1991 high" of 61.8 births per 1,000 teenage women aged 15-19. About 16.3% of births to young women aged 15-19 in 2017 were "repeat births," a term used to describe women who decide to have another child before the age of 20.

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People who parent as teenagers in the United States experience social stigma. Teenage pregnancy prevention campaigns, public scorn, and overt discrimination against young parents contribute hardships to the difficult unpaid labor of carrying a child to term and raising a child to adulthood. Young parent activists and support organizations advocate for institutional and social changes to improve the lives of young parents. For example, #NoTeenShame, is a movement founded by 6 diverse young mothers who advocate for acceptance and respect for young parents as part of the movement toward reproductive justice.

Beginning in the 1970s, politicians and lobbyists encouraged the public to worry about "teenage pregnancy" and births to teenage women by associated teenage births with societal ills such as poverty, incarceration (for boys), educational failure, suicide and abuse. Researchers have since questioned many of these claims, often showing that these are correlations, not indications of causation. Many point out that the "consequences" of teenage parenthood are actually the consequences of economic inequality, patriarchy, racism, and environmental problems.

Some lobbyists and researchers still maintain that parenting as a teenager has detrimental effects on the parents and children. Children born to teenage mothers are more likely to: be born prematurely, 50% more likely to repeat a grade, live in poverty, and suffer higher rates of abuse. The sons of teen mothers are 13% more likely to end up incarcerated, and the daughters of teenage mothers are 22% more likely to become teenage mothers. More than 25% of teen mothers live in poverty during their 20s.

Teenage pregnancy imposes lasting hardships on two generations: mother and child. Evidence from U.S. studies show that women who bear their first child at an early age bear more children rapidly and have more unwanted and out-of-wedlock births. Children of teenage parents are more likely to have lower academic achievements and tend to repeat the cycle of early marriage and early childbearing of their parents.

Since the Great Recession, young people take three times longer to gain financial independence than it took for young people three decades ago. It is much harder for teenage parents to be able to support a family compared to the past due to the competitive work environment.