The Nature and Support of Adolescent Mothers' Life Aspirations

Abstract

The Nature and Support of Adolescent Mothers' Life Aspirations* Phame M. Camarena,** Kris Minor, Theresa Melmer, and Cheryl Ferrie Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 58 young mothers from a rural region of upper midwest to examine how mothers construct life aspirations in face of new parent roles. The majority of participants reported that parenting demands had resulted in an adjustment of expectations rather than a dramatic change in either level or nature of aspirations. Although all of mothers reported some support for pursuing life goals, this support was generally weak and inconsistent. Access to resources and firm encouragement to pursue aspirations now characterized participants with most resilient stories of adjustment. Although negative consequences of early parenting have been well documented, societal image of teenage parents has become too stereotyped and fails to recognize diversity of adolescent parents' experiences (Chase-Lansdale, Brooks-Gunn, & Paikoff, 1992). One of these stereotypes is belief that early parenting dooms young mothers to a life of unfulfilled dreams and aspirations. The consistent link between adolescent pregnancy and relatively low levels of educational and employment achievement certainly does lend some support to this belief (e.g., Barbour, Richardson, & Bubenzer, 1993; Hayes, 1987). These connections, however, are not necessarily causal in nature since many of factors that predict adolescent childbirth are linked to educational and employment aspirations prior to pregnancy (Melhuish & Phoenix, 198788; Upchurch, 1993). The resultant picture of adolescent mothers' aspirations is, therefore, somewhat difficult to disentangle. What is clear, however, is that life aspirations are an important component of adolescent mothers` adjustment. As suggested by Blinn (1990), aspirations for family. education, and work become highly salient to adolescent mothers as they are to reevaluate their visions of future. Both long and short term choices that most adolescents face now take on a new sense of urgency for adolescent parent as priorities shift to account for future of new child (White & Cummings, 1995). The Significance of Aspirations The importance of aspirations and for adjustment during adolescence generally are manifest conceptually in two different ways. First, they provide a yardstick or standard to help adolescents weigh degree to which different choices will help or hinder their chances of achieving desired goals. Second, as a motivational force they influence degree to which effort is expended on tasks that make achievement of aspirations and possible. For adolescent mothers forced to confront new parenting demands, a clear set of aspirations and may provide an important protection as a guide through difficult choices and serve as a buffer against discouragements and stressors they experience. Evidence for this power of aspirations as a protective factor for populations. generally, and adolescent mothers, specifically, is found in both Kauai and Baltimore longitudinal studies. The Kauai study (Werner & Smith, 1992) was designed to examine factors that protected an at risk sample of individuals born in Hawaii in 1955 from prenatal development into young adulthood. Although Werner and Smith describe a number of different factors that distinguished adolescents and young adults who had overcome their earlier high status, they concluded that greatest differences could be found in goals they had set for their adult lives and their sense of personal competence and determination (pp. 69-70). These same factors were highlighted as being central parts of the paths that led to improvement for adolescent mothers in this sample (p. 95). In a similar vein, Baltimore study followed a sample of primarily African American urban adolescent mothers from birth of child to young adulthood to trace developmental paths of both mother and child (Furstenberg, Brooks-Gunn, & Morgan, 1987; Furstenberg, Brooks-Gunn, & Chase-Lansdale, 1989). …