In 1998, there were 484,975 children born to women under twenty years of age, with almost 36% of these births being to mothers who were still of school age-17 years old and younger.

(Source: U. S. National Center for Health Statistics, Monthly Vital Statistics Report, Vol. 47, No. 6, Supplement; in the U. S. Census Bureau, Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2000 [120th edition], Washington, DC, 2000, p. 66.)

"A 'snapshot' feature in USA Today listed the five greatest concerns parents and teachers had about children in the '50s: talking out of turn, chewing gum in class, doing homework, stepping out of line, cleaning their rooms. Then it listed the five top concerns of parents today: drug addiction, teenage pregnancy, suicide and homicide, gang violence, anorexia and bulimia. We can also add AIDS, poverty, and homelessness. . . . Between my own childhood and the advent of my motherhood-one short generation-the culture had gone completely mad."

(Source: Mary Kay Blakely, American Mom, "Prologue", in Andrews, Robert; Biggs, Mary; and Seidel, Michael, et al., eds., The Columbia World of Quotations. New York: Columbia University Press, 1996. www.bartleby.com/66/. [29 November 2001].)

Those sounding the alarm about an epidemic of teenage mothers may be creating public confusion by emphasizing a maternal age category that obscures other, more important maternal characteristics.   We may well wonder, for instance, if the child of a married 19-year-old mother and the child of an unmarried 15-year-old face anything like the same life chances, even though both are the offspring of teenage mothers.   Fortunately, a study recently completed by epidemiologists at Yale and the University of Florida has exposed the foolishness of defining teenage motherhood as a problem, while ignoring other maternal characteristics. 

"Teenage pregnancies have become a public health issue," acknowledge the authors of the new study, "because of their observed negative effects on perinatal outcomes and long-term morbidity."  However, the researchers argue that these effects may not actually be the result of the mother's age, but rather may be the consequence of "the high prevalence of poverty, low level of education, and single marital status among teenage mothers."   To test this hypothesis, the Yale and Florida scholars analyzed educational data for children born between 1985 and 1990 who entered kindergarten in Florida public schools between 1992 and 1995.  Their statistical tests reveal that "after controlling for maternal education, marital status, poverty, race, and sex, there was no residual negative effect of giving birth in the teen years."  In fact, these tests actually highlighted some "protective effects" of being born to a teenage mother (once all of the other background variables had been taken into account).  That is, compared to children of older mothers, children of mothers between the ages of 11 to 19 were found to be at "significantly lower risk" for being diagnosed as "trainable mentally handicapped" or for being reported with academic problems.  In addition, compared to children of older mothers, children born to mothers aged 18 or 19 were at significantly lower risk of being labeled "Learning Disabled."

In pointing out that "teen age birth does not appear to have a detrimental effect," the researchers hasten to add that teenage childbearing is typically tied to "low maternal education, unmarried status, and/or poverty" and that all of these factors carry "known, large, negative effects on educational disabilities."  Among these sociodemographic factors, the researchers found that low maternal education had "the strongest" negative effect on the children of teenage mothers, but they stress that "marital status, poverty, and race were also very important."

In light of this new study, perhaps we should stop worrying so much about whether a mother is still in her teens and worry more about whether she has graduated from high school and gotten married.

(Source:  Ralitza V. Gueorguieva et al., "Effect of Teenage Pregnancy on Educational Disabilities in Kindergarten," American Journal of Epidemiology 154[2001]: 212-220, emphasis added.)