Essay on Teen Pregnancy

There is a plethora of reasons as to why single-parent households are toxic to a child’s future. Single parenthood has problematic consequences for children’s school performance at all levels in their educational career. Children who grew up with only one biological parent are twice as likely

Ketteringham, Kristin, . "Single Parent Households - How Does it Affect the Children? ." 6 July 2007: 5. Web. 28 Sep 2009. .

In the U.S., African-Americans are less likely to be married. In fact, 29% were married compared to 48% for the national average (2014 est.). Also, up to 72% of African-Americans children are raised by single parents compared to 25% of Whites, 42% of Hispanics, and 53% of Indian and Native Alaskans (Jacobson, 2013).

In the 1960s and early 1970s, more unmarried women who became pregnant decided not to get married. As more teenage mothers remained single, public concern increased. Teen pregnancies were, often presented as a medical problem to be, treated with more access to clinics, birth control and abortion. There was a shift from viewing teen pregnancy as a moral problem to that of seeing it as a psychological or health problem (Adams, 1997).

All across the globe, there are children growing up in single-parent households, and through some research

I believe that children should be raised in a stable nurturing home by either both parents, mother and father or by a single parent. I feel that if it is a loving home where each parent is taking part in raising the child it is beneficial to the child. On the other hand if both parents argue all the time than it is not beneficial for the child’s upbringing. In having just one custodial parent the child is better off because the one parent will be able to provide a better stable social environment. Few parents decide on becoming single parents other reasons why someone might become a single parent are the death of one partner, abandonment or adoption of a child by a single person out of his or her choice.

One of these is financial problems. “In 2002, twice as many single-parent families earned less than $30,000 per year compared to families with two parents present. At the opposite end of the spectrum, 39 percent of two-parent families earned more than $75,000 compared to 6 percent of single-mother families and 11 percent of single-father families” (Davidson).

According to the U.S. Census' most recent information, there are approximately 13 million children living in single-parent households. That in itself isn't all that surprising, but here's something that is: 2.5 million of those children are being raised by single fathers. That's nearly 1 in every 40 households –over half as many as ten years ago –in which custodial fathers are raising children, many of whom are girls.

Today in America, 34% of children are living with an unmarried parent. In 1960, only 9% were living in a single family household, and the number increased to 19% in the 1980s. Fewer than one-in-three children are living

Of the 16,497 households, 22.4% had children under the age of 18 living with them. 60.2% were married couples living together, 4.3% had a female householder with no husband present, and

problems because they tend to lack economic security and adequate time with parents”. The simple statement that raw criminals are products of single-parent adolescence is absurd. What this writer must understand is that it can be extremely difficult for one parent to raise a child by themselves for many reasons. A single-parent must work full time to be able to afford to provide for themselves and their child. They must also be able to still have time to offer an exuberant amount of emotional time for the well being of their child. However, even though this may seem impossible, it can be done.

According to a recent study from CBS, the United States has the highest divorce rate of any country at 45%. Due to this high rate of divorce, many families find that there is an imbalance of family roles in these newly created single parent households. Being a single parent has its own set of challenges for the individual and creates challenges for the family such as, spending smaller amounts of time with your children, having an excessive work load and disrupting the wellbeing of the children.

"Over one million teenage girls become pregnant each year. In the next 24 hours, about 3,312 girls will become pregnant. In addition, 43% of all adolescents become pregnant before the age of 20. These are incredible statistics when you consider that there are only 31 million females. The United States has the highest adolescent pregnancy rate in the developed world. As statistics show one in nine women between the ages of 15 through 19 become pregnant each year. Also, every 26 seconds a teenage girl becomes pregnant and every 56 seconds a child of a teenage mother is born."

"Teen pregnancy in the United States: In 2015, a total of 229,715 babies were born to women aged 15-19 years old, for a birth rate of 22.3 per 1,000 women in this age group. This is another record for U.S. teens and a drop of 8% from 2014. Although reasons for the declines are not totally clear, evidence suggests these declines are due to more teens abstaining from sexual activity, and more teens who are sexually active using birth control than in previous years. Still, the U.S. teen pregnancy rate is substantially higher than in other western industrialized nations, and racial/ethnic and geographic disparities in teen birth rates persist (cdc.gov)." As teenagers (in the United States), we are peer pressured or tempted to try new things. Some teens tend to try out drugs, and alcohol. However, some are having unprotected sex in which, is leads to having babies. This is called, teenage pregnancy. This has caused the United States to create records based off of the statistics and facts given from, researchers across the United States. In order to help prevent teenage pregnancy in the United States, teenagers must understand why, having a baby now isn’t such a smart move on their part.

The teen pregnancy rate had decreased by the maximum of about 55 percent. Most teen birth rates had also gone down about 64 percent, but yet teen pregnancies and birth rate for teenagers ages 15-19 in the U.S still remains one of the highest comparable countries. Due to parenthood, most of teen moms drop out of school. More than 50% of teen mothers never graduate to get their diploma. Sexually active teens that don’t use any type of protection has a 90 percent chance of becoming pregnant within a year, 84 percent of teen pregnancies are unplanned.