Pregnant teens often miss out on a proper education.
Teenage pregnancy occurs more often than you may think. By the age of 18, 1 out of every 3 teenage girls will get pregnant. Nearly 500,000 teenage girls become mothers annually.
If you are sexually active, and do not use protection, you can become another of these statistics! There are serious consequences involved with becoming a teenage parent:
- Pregnant teenagers have an 80% dropout rate, and schools ''neither seek nor want an active role'' in dealing with the problem, as reported by the National Institute of Education.
- Around 40% of these parents are under 18 years old. Over 75% are unmarried, and most parenting teens do not have the economic or social resources to provide for themselves or their children.
- Additionally, teenage mothers are more likely to have more children in quick succession, limiting their life options even further than having only one child. (New York Times)
There is little financial or social support for teenage mothers.
But the consequences are not just limited to girls:
- Teenage fathers usually have lower incomes, less education and more children than men who wait until the age of 20 to have children.
- One reason for this is that a teenager who has gets his girlfriend pregnant often drops out of school. "When they leave school, they head right for a low-paying job," says Amy Williams, the executive director of the Teenage Pregnancy and Parenting Project in San Francisco. (Time magazine)
There are easy ways to avoid becoming a statistic!
Don't let this happen to you! Instead of getting pregnant, dropping out, and/or landing a dead end job that will trap you into poverty, take precautions. It isn't difficult to obtain birth control.
- Condoms can be bought at local pharmacies, drug stores, and are given away for free at many clinics, such as Planned Parenthood.
- Contraceptive pills can be prescribed by a doctor.
Take proper precautions and avoid the fate of so many others just like you.
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