Word: pregnants
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When they do become pregnant, many girls simply hide the fact, denying it even to themselves. For Angela Spencer, 16, of Lawndale, reality did not hit home until five months into her pregnancy, when she entered a special school for young mothers. "A lot of the girls had already had their babies," she relates. "When I walked in that classroom, it was like the first time I realized what was happening to me." Unable to grasp their situation, adolescents frequently wait too long even to consider having an abortion. The gravity of such a decision often eludes them...
...poor. Take Zuleyma, 16, of Los Angeles, who gave birth last May: "I thought I might want to have a baby," she says. "I was thinking more in the future, but things happen." Or Derdra Jones of Chicago, who gave birth at 15: "Part of me wanted to get pregnant," she confesses. "I liked the boy a lot, and he used to say he wanted a baby." Or Marquel, 17, of Hawthorne, Calif.: "I had birth control pills in my drawer. I just didn't take them," she says. "My life was getting boring. I wanted a baby...
...young girls trapped in poverty, life offers few opportunities apart from getting pregnant. High school may seem pointless. Even graduation is little guarantee of a job. Their lives are circumscribed in every sense. Says Social Worker Lisa Rost, who counsels such youngsters at Project Hope in Chicago: "Some of these kids have never seen Lake Michigan." Pregnancy becomes one of the few accessible means of fulfillment. "Nobody gets more attention than a little girl who's pregnant," observes Bishop Earl Paulk of Chapel Hill Harvester Church, a Protestant church in Atlanta that sponsors a program for pregnant teens. "It feels...
Youngsters who get pregnant often have a history of feeling deprived and neglected. Many have been abused or raped. "Their getting pregnant has nothing to do with sex," observes Pat Berg, director of a Chicago program for homeless youth. "It's attempting in a perverse sense to get some security and nurturing needs met . . . It's like when kids get puppies." Finally, there is little social pressure to persuade them to postpone childbearing, notes Joy Dryfoos, who has conducted research for the Rockefeller Foundation. Middle-class girls tend not to have babies, she says, "because Mother would kill them...
...however, that the welfare system is at most a minor factor in teenage pregnancy. "It's possible that with no assistance, we would see fewer kids going to term," says Radosh of New York City's mayor's office. "But I don't think you'd see fewer getting pregnant...