Parent-Daughter Interaction and Teenage Pregnancy in Jamaica

Abstract

The author seeks to show that unsatisfactory parent-daughter interaction is a contributing factor to the social problem of teenage pregnancy in Jamaica. It is argued that the attitude of Jamaican working-class women and their daughters towards early child bearing and illegitimacy demonstrate that there is ambivalence on the part of both the daughters as well as the mothers. Many mothers are themselves unmarried and have experienced teenage pregnancies. Where marriage is concerned it is not uncommon for Jacaican working-class couples to live a life-time together and not marry; many feel that marriage is for the economically well-established. This family form has been described as faithful concubinae. The data on which the study is based were obtained from interviews and observations of 200 teenage girls 1/2 of whom were pregnant while the others were school girls. An interview schedule was administered to the respondents and an interaction index was compiled from responses on 9 items in the teenager and parent section of the interview. For both parents the interaction score was higher for the school girls than for the pregnant group. In general and for both groups the scores suggest much less interaction between fathers and daughters than between mothers and daughters. For mother-daughter interaction 27% of the pregnant girls had low interaction (less than 25) compared with 19% among the school girls. The school girls in general seemed to receive more attention from their parents and were more likely to have frequent discussions with both parents. The topics discussed by the girls and their parents ranged from school work to plans for the future financial matters politics and life in general. Female relatives and friends at school were to mother in importance in informing the girls about the growing-up process. The data reveal that the quality of the interaction with the parents is of great importance in determining susceptibility to pregnancy in teenagers. Frequent discussion with parents emerged as the most important difference in the relation experienced between the child and her parents for both groups.