1994, at least eighty percent of the teenage moms were poor before they became pregnant. The most imperative conditions are predominantly poverty and poor educational opportunities and abilities. In fact some experts convey information that young women tend to become more motivated to finish school and find jobs once they have children to support. Not only are they more motivated to finish school and find a job but they have the need to obtain a career and make a decent living in order to support their offspring. Statistics also reveal that adolescent moms are less probable than their peers to engage in drug abuse and other self-destructive behaviors. Sociologist Joan Moore, an expert on delinquent girls, calls this relationship a conversion to conventionality. (Joan Moore, Going Down to the Barrio (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1991), p. 114) One of the crucial reasons why teenage moms have been demoted is because they get little recognition. This is partially because people of authority do their best to make their accomplishments invisible. For example, two student mothers with grade-point averages of 3.9 and 3.7 on a scale of 4.0 were denied membership in the National Honor Society. These students were told they did not meet the requirements, that is the character requirements. The admissions committee announced that they did not want other girls in the organization to look at the teen mothers as role models. Stigmas placed on young mothers are inappropriate. Another stereotype of young motherhood is that they are incapable of raising healthy children. Researchers have documented that teenagers that have in fact cared for younger siblings are sometimes more pragmatic in their feelings about parenthood and more dedicated to parenting than older parents. More labels are placed on single parent households claiming that the children often end up in jail. Newspaper correspondents called illegitimacy the smoking gun ...
