Never let facts get in the way of selling newspapers! - or in flogging the old myths

'There is little evidence to support the common belief that teenage mothers become pregnant to get benefits, welfare, and council housing. Most knew little about housing or financial aid before they got pregnant and what they thought they knew often turned out to be wrong......
Few of them expected to end up as lone parents, in council housing or dependent on social security benefits'

'Few of them had considered termination of pregnancy. However, continuing with the pregnancy was often not so much a decision as an acceptance of what had happened, reflecting the sense of fatalism which characterised much of their subsequent behaviour.'

From -
Teenage Mothers Decisions and Outcomes
examines: the factors surrounding the decision to continue with the pregnancy; the extent to which housing and support played an important part in this decision; the young person's awareness and use of benefits; the housing and household changes made or considered throughout the pregnancy and after the birth of the baby; the young person's perception of their housing options at different times; and the sources and relative importance of support in these decisions

As well as better sex education, which is obviously not a factor in these uninformed/misinformed 'choices', the report concluded 'romantic views of life as a teenage mother should be dispelled by those who have had the experience of seeing their relationships hit the rocks and have been left 'holding the baby''


If it wasn't for people like our anonymous 'guests' (many of whom are actually members I would guess) it might be possible to have an objective discussion on the effects of poverty, poor educational achievement, and deprivation on some, but by no means all, young women's attititude in 'planning' an early pregnancy in the absence of what they see as any realistic opportunities for work or independence (in the above study nearly one third of the teenagers were unemployed when they became pregnant)

as one young mum in the above report stated....

'They make it sound like the council put you in palaces, but they don't... Who'd want to get pregnant for the sake of being put in a council flat?'