Staying Together No Matter What: Becoming Young Parents on the Streets of Vancouver

Abstract

Among young people who use drugs in the context of entrenched poverty and homelessness, pregnancy is often viewed as an event that can meaningfully change the trajectory of their lives. However, youth’s desires and decision-making do not always align with the perspectives of various professionals and systems regarding how best to intervene during pregnancies and early parenting. Drawing on longitudinal interviews and fieldwork with young people in Vancouver, Canada, we explore how their romantic relationships powerfully shaped understandings of what was right and wrong and which actions to take during pregnancy and early parenting, and how these moral worlds frequently clashed with the imperatives of healthcare, criminal justice, and child protection systems. We demonstrate how a disjuncture between youth’s desires, decision-making and moralities, and the systems that are intended to help them, can further entrench young people in cycles of loss, defeat, and harm. These cycles are powerfully racialized for young Indigenous people in our context.