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Originally Posted by jorgelito
Wow, Gilda, that is a really interesting point that should be explored: Why is that young mothers follow in each others footsteps? What is contributing to the social decay?
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The mothers in these cases are nearly always single mothers, and are either on welfare or absent working. They typically have little to no parenting skills, don't know how to show affection effectively, and either don't know how or don't care to monitor their daughter's activities.
The fathers are typically older high school boys, and disappear or make little to no attempt to be a parent. These girls often get pregnant, and I heard this time and again, because they want someone to love and someone to love them, and believe in the myth of the mother instinct and the natural bond between mothers and children. They're, to a girl, determined not to do the same thing their mothers did, and they have to prove this by getting pregnant young (just as their mothers did) and raising their child differently from how their mothers did.
The other dismaying thing is the copycat pregnancies. This doesn't happen often at our school because our district has a special school for pregnant girls and their babies. But it does happen; a girl gets pregnant, she gets a lot of attention, she come to school with her baby after it's born and it's so cute and adorable, and suddenly, getting pregnant is "cool". It's seen as a positive thing. I don't have it online, but I remember one school that was holding baby showers in home ec classes for the girls who'd had babies, the teachers seemingly not recognizing that they're encouraging behavior that should be discouraged.