Clashes of Common Sense: On the Previous Child Care Experience of Teenage Mothers-To-Be

Abstract

Out-of-wedlock teenage childbearing is thought to be a destructive behavior that threatens children's wellbeing. Common sense beliefs about teenagers' inexperience with children, and the unremitting responsibilities they will hold for the care of their own, help to encourage this view. Little empirical evidence addresses these questions, although some ethnographic evidence challenges this view. Here, 21 southern rural and northeastern metropolitan teenage mothers were intensively interviewed. In both locations, most interviewees reported extensive previous child care experience. Most anticipated active participation from family members in caring for their children. Those who were raised in extended families, and who planned to remain in such families (rather than marry, for example), reported the most extensive previous child care experience. The interviewees who comprised this group were from the poorest communities, based on socioeconomic characteristics of their original residential zip code areas. The...