Abstract
Stories about teen motherhood permeate many areas of social life, especially within the media and popular culture. Often the academic work on the subject has focused on teen motherhood as a social problem, positioned as a symptom of crumbling family values and cycles of poverty. Mary Patrice Erdmans’ and Timothy Black’s new book, On Becoming a Teen Mom: Life before Pregnancy aims to correct these narratives by centering the voices of teen moms and highlighting the larger social forces that their stories are embedded within. The authors’ ultimate aim is to identify the varying trajectories to young motherhood, focusing on the experiences that led to the pregnancy, as opposed to the aftereffects and consequences that have so often dominated the social science literature. To do this, the authors use in-depth life story interviews with 108 teenage mothers who were selected through a Connecticut statewide home-visitation program for first-time mothers. The strength of Erdmans’ and Black’s study is the diversity within the sample, which includes white, Latino, and black mothers from both poor and working-class families.
The authors begin by reviewing the histories and implications of policies that have aimed to curb teen motherhood (chapter 1). These policies have framed unintentional pregnancies as a social problem and have relied on dominant logics of the culture of poverty and the importance of aspirations for meritocracy. Each following chapter focuses on a different issue or identity that influenced particular trajectories toward teen motherhood, including “young young” mothers, mothers that experienced sexual abuse and intimate partner violence, mothers who experienced school failure, and “good girls.”
In doing so, the authors challenge and complicate common explanations for teen births, including poor parenting, lack of education, and family instability, by showing that these explanations are embedded in a larger social context. For example, many young young mothers (girls who became pregnant before the age of 15) in Erdmans’ and Black’s sample (chapter 2) reported that they experienced restrictive parenting styles as teens, as opposed to lacking family rules or stringency, which the authors tie back to dominant messages regarding poverty, immigration, and parenting. Additionally, the authors find that contrary to popular belief, having a baby did not greatly alter the young mothers’ school trajectories (chapter 5). They instead found that those who were doing well in school prepregnancy generally stayed in school, and those who had previously dropped out or were disengaged prior to the pregnancy did not complete high school. Those teen mothers who experienced school failure were imbedded within larger social forces beyond their pregnancies, such as poverty, migration, and underfunded public schools.
The book really shines in chapters 3 and 4, in which the authors explore the connections between child sexual abuse, intimate partner violence, and teen pregnancy, arguing that the suffering that survivors experience may propel them down the trajectory of teen motherhood. The authors do commendable work in this section balancing horrific experiences of abuse with understanding the larger social issues at play. In doing so, they push back against dominant class and racial frames that pathologize families with sexual abuse by highlighting that these patterns exist in white and privileged families as well.
The authors end by focusing on an understudied group of teenage mothers (chapter 6)—those who were unlikely to get pregnant, as they came from economically stable, nonviolent households and were succeeding in school prior to their pregnancies. Despite the potential consequences of motherhood for their identity and belonging, these teens did not choose contraception or abortion. The authors tie these choices back to larger gender and class ideologies that emphasize taking responsibility for one’s actions while striving for material resources and individual betterment.
What is most beneficial about Erdmans’ and Black’s study is the understanding and documentation of the diversity of teen mothers’ trajectories and experiences. By not assuming a monolithic group or experience of teen motherhood, the authors are able to successfully challenge and complicate the dominant conceptions of unintended teenage pregnancy. As the authors argue, “The dominating narratives around teen motherhood distract us from more vital parts of their suffering” (p. 221), such as gendered, classed, and racialized dynamics that support sexual violence, poverty, and racism.