I read with cynical interest the article about Sarah Palin's (US Ex-Vice Presidential Candidate) daughter, Bristol Palin and her teen pregnancy. 

Seems to me that the issues surrounding teen pregnancy and parenting never change. All anyone seems to be able to focus on is the fact the teenagers are having sex!

How come everyone is so surprised? And what hypocrisy on behalf of most people who have quite clearly forgotten their own and their friends' teenage years. Sex, drugs and rock and roll! Come on people where are you??

In one of my nurses reincarnations I helped develop and coordinate a support group for pregnant and parenting teens. I loved working with this group of young women and worked hard to support them in their efforts to be good mums as well as break down the stereotype that depicts them in all the unrealistic ways that the media and (I'm sorry to say) many health professionals do.

So here are my 8 Truths about Teen pregnancy:

1. Teen pregnancy is NOT about sex or government money and baby bonuses. So many young adolescent women find them themselves pregnant  because they are vulnerable to the search for love; and sex so often means love when you're a teenage girl.
2. Girls who are looking for love often fantasize that a baby will give them all the unconditional love that they are searching for. One of the tragedies about teen pregnancy and parenting that the birth of a demanding child only intensifies the teens search for love because it is a mother who teaches the child about unconditional love not the other way around. The conundrum thus becomes a generational problem and teen mums often become very young grandma's!
3. Competent decision-making is not a well developed strength in teenager. They don't have much experience to draw on except for the barrage of media, internet, movies and popular culture. The consequences of having unprotected sex just isn't known or appreciated. The average teenager is a physiological bundle of developing synapses, impulsive, inexperienced hormones and a pre-frontal lobe that isn't quite working as well as it will at 25 years!
4. The teen years are meant to be about beginning the search in earnest for self identity and having fun. Teen mums are most often sad, lonely, isolated, angry, depressed, disadvantaged financially and educationally, have insecure accommodation and are judged very harshly by society. This harsh judgement prevents many young women from finding good supportive workers and services to help them.
5. Teen mums love their babies - but they still need their own mum. Teen mums are babies having babies. If they don't have their own mum to help and guide them, then the sad reality is they do often flounder and do stuff that puts them at risk of becoming involved in the criminal justice system, hurting their children and losing their children.
6. Health and Community Service workers who work with these young women often become just as professionally disadvantaged and unheard as their client group because of the social injustices that are still attached to teenagers making mistakes.
7. Sex education and handing out condoms is all very well; but more importantly we need to take an integrated agency approach to identifying and helping those young women who are searching for love and approval and displaying all those anti-social behavours that we are so fond of condemning but not especially good at doing anything about.
8. Finally Teen pregnancy IS NOT a moral issue.

Who else has worked with teen parents and what do you think? I have lots of lovely success stories of young women who, because we supported and believed in them, were able to go with their heads high and be the sorts of mothers that they dreamed of being.

 Image courtesy of Microsoft Clipart.