Teen Mom Research Paper

Teenage pregnancy is not the symbol of a broken society, claimed by many politicians, but can be a positive force for good. Despite a one-third decline since the early 1990s, the US still has the highest rates of teen pregnancy and birth among comparable countries. If the teen birth rate would have stayed at the 1991 level, then 1.2 million more children would have been born to teen mothers. 460,000 additional children would be living in poverty. 700,000 more children would be living in single-mother households. If a mother didn’t receive a high school diploma or GED, then a child’s chance of growing up in poverty is 7%. One media of teenage pregnancy portrays a girl in the movie, ‘Pregnancy Pact’ wanting to have a baby because it seemed like …show more content…
The consequences include: dropping out of school which then causes peer pressure, premature birth, and cause of depression which can lead to an unwanted child by having an abortion. Teen Mom portrays teen pregnancy to teenagers by ‘sugarcoating’ teenage pregnancy and also the alternative of media scaring teens with the harsh reality and struggles. Teen Mom also portrays that you can be rich and get paid to get pregnant as a teenager and be on their show. So just because they get paid to be on television for being pregnant, doesn’t mean it will happen to anybody else. Existing research suggests that both young mothers and young fathers have backgrounds characterized by a range of disadvantages and risk factors. “3 in 10 girls in this country become pregnant by age 20 -- over 750,000 teen pregnancies annually.” (Lee, Cintron, Kocher) “Recent research concluded that almost all of the decline in the pregnancy rate between 1995 and 2002 among 18-19-year-olds was attributable to increased contraceptive use.” (Lee, Cintron, Kocher) “The study ‘Teenage Parenthood’ challenges preconceptions, arguing that many teenagers are motivated to turn their lives around to provide for their children.” …show more content…
“The study of ‘Violence, Teenage Pregnancy, and Life History’ tested the hypothesis that sexual precocity and violence are influenced by sensitivities to local environmental conditions.” (Copping, Campbell, Muncer) “The first model of strategy is based on indirect perception of ecological stressors.” (Copping, Campbell, Muncer) “These models support the contention that violence and teenage pregnancy are part of an ecologically pattern of strategy development and suggest that while the family unit is critical in affecting behavior, individuals’ direct experiences of the environment are also important.” (Copping, Campbell, Muncer) “Violent crime and teenage pregnancy represent challenges not only to society, but to those who attempt to explain their etiology.” (Copping, Campbell, Muncer) “This study also examines whether these social phenomena share common origins in the social structure of a person’s environment, based on the idea that both may represent adaptive behavioral alternatives rather than symptoms of pathology.” (Copping, Campbell, Muncer) “Some studies have also reported poor outcomes for children born to teenage parents in terms of education, employment, income and health.” (Ross, Church, Hill, Seaman, Roberts) “Early pregnancy and childbearing are closely linked to a host of other critical social issues, including poverty and income disparity, overall child well-being, out-of-wedlock births, and education, to name just a few.” (Lee, Cintron, Kocher) “For the