Teenage Pregnancy Essay

Victoria Silvas
Professor Alonge
English 1301.02
1 December 2014 Children Having Children As children start to become young teenagers, the process of puberty begins and as their bodies change, so does everything else. One thing that starts messing with the young minds is sex. Once sex become an option for teenagers, that is the number one thing that is on their minds when they cling on to their significant others, especially when the teenager is not raised in a proper household and raised in different economic status based on their ethnicity. While these teenagers have sex one thing they do not realize is that becoming pregnant is a real risk. Teen pregnancy is a dramatic issue that is handled differently depending on the culture the mother comes from. Differences include the encouragement of the families, and how each culture handles the academic, and financial situations after the baby is born. As information gets announced on the Internet or media, rarely do we see teenage Caucasians getting pregnant, but we do see some white teenagers pregnant. “Both groups of white teenagers had worse pregnancy outcomes than older white women,” which will support the fact that we see Hispanics and African Americans getting pregnant more than Caucasians (Gilbert). At the beginning of teenagers years, many white parents give information about sex and pregnancy to their child to prevent them from having kids; they start introducing birth control to their daughters because they know their kid will have sex and instead of dealing with pregnancy they try to prevent it from happening. If their child does become pregnant, the support from their parents varies depending on their social class. For example, the rich class will often resent their child because they might end up being a disappointment to themselves, as well as their family, and make up excuses for their teenager who became pregnant; often Caucasians will even go to the extent where the parents of the teenager will raise the baby instead of the teenage mom. On the other hand, the middle and lower class support their child becoming pregnant and encourages them to love their child and to always be there for them. When white teenagers get pregnant one thing that becomes an issue is their academics. The parents of the pregnant teenager, encourages them to continue to go to school and receive a good education. While the teenage mom goes to school, majority of the time, the parents step in and help with the baby. Another issue with teenagers becoming pregnant is financial situations. As Caucasians, depending on the social class, financial situations are handled differently. The majority of the time, white people, with well-educated jobs and money, can handle any type of payment, but for the lower class, it is a hardship for them to support financially. Based on culture and tradition, it is common and normal for Mexicans to become pregnant. Through out the years, “The rate of teen pregnancy for Latina teens is double that of their White, non-Hispanic counterparts in some parts of the country” (Murphy). In tradition, parents are supportive of their teenager becoming pregnant. It is common at the age of fifteen and older for Hispanic teenagers to become pregnant. In the Mexican culture, rarely do the parents’ give their child support because they are always working and the pregnant teenager finds the support and comfort from their significant other or another family member, such as grandparents. Also, in academic situation, Mexican parents do not encourage their pregnant teenagers to go back to school because they wanted them to take care of their babies and, to them, that is more important than school. For example, the majority of my cousins dropped out of school and took care of their kids until the children did not need their care as much as they did when they where born. It is common for Hispanics to struggle financially with teenage pregnancy because both of the parents of

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