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Teen Mothers & Discipline

© Trula Breckenridge

Ah, if only raising a child was easy. As we all know, it is not an easy thing to do. Rewarding, yes, challenging, certainly. But easy, it is not. I had a discussion recently with a woman who felt I was too encouraging of teen pregnancy and teen motherhood. Although I don't think she quite understood that my point is to help teens who are already parents and not to encourage teen girls that aren't to become so, I was able to dispell in her mind many myths about teenage mothers. Number one being about teen mothers and discipline.

I am talking about discipline on all counts, but her two main themes were teen mothers and self-discipline and teen mothers and the discipline of their children. On self-discipline she felt that simply being a young mother showed a lack of self-control. I asked her if she ever heard of maturity and growing up. I don't belive this supposed lack of self-control is a life-long condition, did she? After asking me for further clarification, I pointed out that a) the older teen mom, 16+ will mature faster than her peers without a baby and b) often teen mothers, especially the very young teen moms, 12, 13, 14, were taken advantage of by much older males, sometimes grown men. Where were their parents? that's molestation and parental neglect, not a lack of self-discipline on the teen's part.

On the discipline of children, she felt that teen mothers hit their kids too much and in general don't know how to discipline their children properly because they are still children themselves, and would produce yett another generation of adults mentally messed up becaue of childhood abuse. Hmmmmmm. I asked her to look up statistics on what age group of parents are the majority who are caught physically abusing their kids. The consistent factor in determining who is more likely to hit rests on how the parent themselves were disciplined as children, not their age at parenthood. Meaning, if you were spanked you are more likely to spank, regardless of age. Meaning, if you were abused you are more likely to abuse, whether you become a parent at 15 or 30.

Now that I am older I don't find myself battling teen mother stereotypes face to face with someone as often as when I was 17, 18, 19, etc. When I do I am proud if I can state my position in a calm and deliberate manner and perhaps get that person to challenge their beliefs in the many teen mother stereotypes.

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