A lot of young females think that having a child is easy. I know a couple of females that are teen parents, ranging in age from 14 all the way to 17. One of my friends that is a teen parent, who doesn’t wish to have her name displayed for the public, has told me that it’s hard. She said that mostly all of your friends leave and that people don’t want a crying baby in their house. She struggles as a 15-year old, going from house to house because no one wants to spend time with both her and her baby. She has no money and she has had a lot of problems because she wasn’t ready to become a parent.
If these struggles weren’t enough of a challenge, she also gets nasty remarks as a teen mom. She said,”people are always trying to tell me how to raise my child. They give me dirty looks on the busses and trolleys.” She told me that, from an adult’s point of view, they all say the same exact thing — in short, if you don’t provide for yourself, you shouldn’t be a parent.
Teen parenthood is the leading reason that teen girls drop out of high school. More than 50% of teen moms never graduate from high school. Less than 2% of teen moms earn their college degree by age 30. Statistics show that that 3 in 10 U.S. girls will get pregnant at least once before age 20, resulting in nearly 750,000 teen pregnancies every year. The U.S. has the highest rate of teen pregnancy in the western part of the world. My advice is to spread awareness that teen moms struggle and it isn’t all fun. Girls and boys need more of an educated talk about protection and where to get it. Otherwise you will have more teen moms who aren’t ready to be parents.
Alexis Benhart is a 10th grader at City Charter High School. She lives in Beltzhoover and has never attended a program due to writing. She loves to write online for people all over the world. She reads and writes with all of her spare time.
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