Abstract
Teenage pregnancy poses real risks to positive developmental outcomes. Indeed, longitudinal research suggests that, for young mothers, these risks include inadequate educational attainment, entrenchment in poverty, unstable romantic relationships, and elevated risk of depression; while for the children of adolescent mothers, risks include poor attachment relationships, low IQ scores, language delays, school-related problems, emotional and behavioral problems, and abuse and neglect (Furstenberg, Brooks-Gunn, & Morgan,1987; Hotz, McElroy, & Sanders,1997; Whitman, Borkowski, Keogh, & Weed,2001;). However, by no means does teenage pregnancy inevitably doom young mothers and their children to poor developmental outcomes.
Before I found out I was pregnant, I don’t know where I would be now. I was into drugs, I was never home at all. I would maybe come home to sleep for a couple of hours and then I would be out again. It was like from morning to night for a whole year. I never looked at my sister. I never looked at my parents. I never talked to them much and then when I found out I was pregnant, I became friends with my sister. Her and I are really close now…I don’t do drugs anymore. My mom says that my daughter saved my life.
(Eve, age 18)
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Acknowledgments
This chapter is based on research supported by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Doctoral Fellowship, A Gift of Time Dissertation Grant from the Association for Moral Education, and an Ontario Graduate Scholarship to the first author. We thank Mary Louise Arnold, Avril Thorne, Kyle Matsuba, and Thiago Kurtz for their very thoughtful comments on an earlier version of this chapter.
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Breen, A.V., McLean, K.C. (2010). Constructing Resilience: Adolescent Motherhood and the Process of Self-Transformation. In: McLean, K., Pasupathi, M. (eds) Narrative Development in Adolescence. Advancing Responsible Adolescent Development. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-89825-4_8
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