Teenage pregnancy is generally perceived as a negative thing. As a teenager, you are basically still a child yourself and so to have a child of your own is hardly considered to be an ideal situation. When you're a teenager, you should be focusing on your education, so that you have more options as an adult and can pursue the career of your choice. If you have a child, it becomes much more difficult to concentrate on your studies and you may not be able to support your child – financially or emotionally – without your family's help or state
provision.When you have a child, but no way of providing for that child, this becomes a problem for the state. It is therefore unsurprising that within the national context, teenage pregnancy is regarded as a legitimate issue for concern. In the past, when there was no welfare state and people died younger, it wasn't uncommon for people to get married and have children at a younger age. However, as societies have become wealthier, health provision has improved and people's expectations have changed. Couples are deciding to wait to have children, so that they can focus on what they want.
It is therefore frowned upon when a teenage girl falls pregnant, because she is not generally perceived to be physically or emotionally mature enough to have a child. By having a child at an early age, she may have to give up school and if she leaves without any qualifications it obviously becomes more difficult to find a decent job. A child born to a teenager is more likely to grow up in poverty and to go
on to have children at an early age, too, which propagates the cycle of poverty. High pregnancy rates are thus considered to reflect badly on a nation's reputation.No nation wants to have the highest pregnancy rates, as this signifies a failure to address issues such as sex education, the provision of contraception, the family unit and poverty levels. Teenage parents are often stigmatised by the media, so that the general perception of teenage parents is a negative one. Newspapers highlight cases where feckless teenage fathers have lots of children with different mothers, are out of work and do nothing to support their children and instances where teenage mothers seem to revel in the fact that they are young, out of work and reliant upon the state. Even though there are some good teenage parents, this is not the impression you are given in the media.
Consequently, the fact that teenage pregnancy is frowned upon is to be expected. When you have it drilled into you that you have to go to school, so that you can get a good job before you get married and have children, it can be frustrating to see teenagers have children and rely so heavily on the state. Not everyone has the support and encouragement from their family, though, and so what you aspire to achieve in life may not be the same as everyone else. That doesn't mean teenage pregnancy should be encouraged, though, when it can have a detrimental impact on the life chances of teenagers and their children.