There are many obstacles for children of teenage mothers to face. These children have serious disadvantages in contrast to those children who come from nuclear families. Often they lack a father figure, have a high poverty rate, and there are incidents of depression and mental health problems. Many people are blaming the sex education programs in schools and the additional federal aid being offered to single parents as major causes for the countrys high rate of teen pregnancies (Carole).
Although, the real purpose of sex education and federal aid is to help empower the mother and child so they can eventually lead productive lives. The lack of a father figure in the home is the cause of many major problems, which builds into a chain reaction. The child may suffer emotional problems when there is no father present; these problems may be hazardous to their future. Many children tend to be effected mentally because these powerful emotions have the potential to do permanent damage to the childs life.
Children who do not have a father present in the home often feel unloved. Parental rejection is a very traumatizing event in a childs life. Children who lack a father figure in the home may experience sadness and depression, aggressive behavior, frequent illness, difficulty in school, eating problems, and sleeping disorders (Jacobs). Males and females are affected differently by the absence of a father. To be able to learn how to become a man, a boy needs a male role model in his life.
Oftentimes, children choose unpleasant characters to mold themselves after if they do not have a good role model. Males that grow up in one-parent homes may gain negative personality traits like immaturity, laziness, and disrespect for women. Females who grow up without fathers in the home usually end up having pre-marital sex. They do this to make up for the affection that they did not receive from their fathers. These women often become very dependent of males although they dont know how to relate to them and have the wrong idea about what a relationship should be like.
Also because of an unconscious resentment toward their absent fathers some girls even grow up to hate men (Jacobs). There has been a dramatic shift from the traditional nuclear family to one-parent homes. The percentage of children living with single parents has doubled from twelve to twenty-seven percent since 1970 (Young). This change is due to the increase in the divorce rates and the number of unmarried parents. Single parent families now include more than eighteen million children and comprise the most common non-nuclear families (Young).
These statistics may be somewhat of a concern because crime and poverty is directly related to children who are raised by teenage parents. People who are faced with the harsh reality of raising children are most often not ready to deal with the responsibility. Some mens answer to this is running away from the problem. In turn, they fail to provide any kind of financial support for their children and start to reject them as their own. This leaves the mother all alone to juggle the responsibility of raising the hildren along with earning all or most of the family income needed to support them (Young). Most teen mothers turn to governmental aid like Welfare, W. I. C. , Focus Hope, project housing, and Medicaid in order to make ends meet. This allows the mothers to only give their children the bare minimum for survival. Thanks to financial aid and grants, many of these single mothers are able to attend college to further their education and get a step ahead in their career (Young). Government aid is good and people who are in need deserve to receive it.
People who are poor should not be denied the chance to get health insurance, financial aid for tuition, decent housing and suitable food to eat. It is unfair for these children to have to suffer for their parents mistakes. Children of single parents are brought into the highly competitive world with a handicap. They are automatically placed in the lower class. This is a powerful term because it encompasses every aspect of these childrens lives. From the rat-infested housing where they live to the poorly equipped schools that they attend.
Low class is the word that describes their lives and their potential to become productive citizens (Young). Single mothers are often not capable to get high paying jobs; therefore they must support their families with minimum wages and the small amount of money that they get from the government. Hispanics and blacks that live in single parent homes often live below the poverty level (Young). People dont choose to be poor. Poor education and lack of career opportunities causes poverty, and it is hard for poor people to climb the social ladder.
The limited resources and the continuation of cutbacks in government programs also keep people poor. It is tough for a single parent to raise kids, work a job, and pay all the bills. A huge amount of physical and emotional stress is placed on both the mother and child as these pressures build up. To help out these mothers in need, people should support government aid and donate to charity institutions like the Salvation Army. By helping out teen mothers and their children the crime, illiteracy, and poverty rates are being lowered all over the country (Young).
Many options are now becoming available for people who need help because it has been made clear that teen pregnancy not only effects the children, but the whole society as well. Sex education is being taught in school and clinics everyday. Classes on how to raise a child and how to teach values and ethics in the home are also being offered. Teenage pregnancy is due to teens unawareness of important topics like birth control methods, sexually transmitted diseases, pregnancy, male/female relationships, love, dating, and marriage.
Teen pregnancy rates are more likely to decrease, as more people become educated about pre-marital sex and its consequences (Jacobs). Teenage mothers often raise children who never learn how to live productive lifestyles. Lonely confused children who live in poverty-stricken areas often resort to drugs and crime as outlets. These outlets lead to dead-end jobs, jail, and sometimes early death for single parent children. Many of these children end up having kids of their own at an early age; therefore carrying on the vicious cycle of poverty, poor education, joblessness, and lack of hope for the future.