“Having sustained multiple levels of pain, teen mothers like Tanika channel betrayal into resiliency as an antidote to their pain, telling of newfound self-respect as a consequence of having gone through pregnancy and now raising a child. Teen mothers borrow aspects of self from strong women around them who pass on valuable lessons about who they should become and others whose contrasting lives become pivot points for their own decision making as parents…Kaplan characterizes motherhood as it has been framed for her by parenting teens as a “resistance strategy” where pregnancy and parenting substitute for the absence of intimate relationships, in effect allowing them to gain control and restore meaning lost on them up to this point in their lives.”

I think this is really interesting, and have never heard of teen pregnancy framed in such a way. I think as a culture we definitely follow a deficit-based model on teen pregnancy – we only talk about how bad it is for the child, for the mother, and how it can be avoided. It’s treated like an epidemic, a disease. I think it’s really valuable to see teen pregnancy as the ultimate teaching experience that allows single mothers to feel like true adults, resilient and strong. It follows the same strategy of upending our traditonal expectations of a situation – substituting “at-promise” with “at-risk”, and pointing out that teen motherhood can allow someone to restore meaning to their life.