Lee SmithBattle

The vulnerabilities of teenage mothers: challenging prevailing assumptions.

The belief that early childbearing leads to poverty permeates our collective understanding. However, recent findings reveal that for many teens, mothering makes sense of the limited life options that precede their pregnancies. The author challenges several assumptions about teenage mothers and offers an alternative to the modern view of the unencumbered self that drives current responses to teen childbearing. This alternative perspective entails a situated view of the self and a broader notion of parenting and citizenship that supports teen mothers and affirms our mutual interdependence.

Helping Teen Mothers Succeed

Because the success of teen mothers is enhanced by completing high school, school districts should give high priority to supporting teen mothers to remain in school and to graduate. This article reviews the literature on the educational attainment of these students, their school aspirations, and the policies affecting their education. Although teens often begin mothering with a range of educational and social disadvantages, many teen mothers recommit to school to enhance their future opportunities. Unfortunately, rising school aspirations among teen mothers often are undermined by competing demands and the lack of consistent family and school support. School nurses can support teen mothers’ aspirations and contribute to their long-term success by linking them to resources and advocating for policies and practices that promote high school graduation.

Teenage mothers at age 30.

This longitudinal, interpretive study explored how teen mothers experienced the self and future during a 12-year period. Sixteen families were first interviewed intensively in 1988-1989 once the teen’s infant reached age 8 to 10 months; they were reinterviewed in 1993, 1997, and 2001 (Time 4). Twenty-seven family members were reinterviewed at Time 4. The metaphor of a narrative spine is used to describe how the mothers’lives unfolded during the 12-year period. The narrative spines of some mothers were large and supported well-developed, coherent “chapters” on mothering, adult love, and work. For others, mothering provided a “backbone” for a meaningful life; however, chapters on adult love and work were less fully developed. The lives of a third group of mothers lacked a coherent narrative structure. Each pattern is presented with a paradigm case.

Family Legacies in Shaping Teen Mothers’ Caregiving Practices Over 12 Years

In this article, the author focuses on the theme of family legacies. The research is based on a qualitative study of family caregiving practices in a cohort of teenage mothers and their families. Families were first interviewed in 1988-1989 and reinterviewed in 1993, 1997, and 2001. The author explored continuities and turning points in caregiving practices over the 12-year period. Eleven families participated at Time 4, including 9 mothers, 3 of their partners, 6 first-born children, and 9 grandparents of the children (N = 27). At each time period, family caregiving legacies emerged as a salient theme as the mothers and partners described their concerns, accomplishments, and the resources for or impediments to becoming the parents they wanted to be. Four cases are presented to highlight how family legacies were refined, rejected, or modified over time. The author also describes implications of the findings for clinical practice and future research.

Moving policies upstream to mitigate the social determinants of early childbearing.

The teen birth rate in the United States is one of the highest in the post-industrialized world. International comparisons suggest that U.S. rates reflect high levels of social disadvantage and misguided policies that frame teen parenting as costly for mothers, children, and taxpayers. Studies that control for background factors that predispose teens to become parents highlight the social inequities that contribute to early childbearing and unfavorable maternal-child outcomes, regardless of maternal age. After reviewing these studies, federal policies that target and scrutinize teenage and single mothers are described and critiqued for the ways they disregard the social determinants of early childbearing and further the marginalization and social exclusion of low-income families. This review calls for public health nurses to challenge the ideological assumptions driving downstream policies and to advocate for comprehensive reforms that reduce the wide and growing inequities in education, income, and health among U.S. citizens. Building the public support and political will to move upstream will remain daunting in light of the pervasive stereotypes of teen parents and the ideological assumptions that early childbearing and poor maternal-child outcomes stem more from individual choices and lifestyles than from social inequities.

A Preliminary Investigation of the Grandparent Support Scale for Teenage Mothers

Although numerous instruments are available to assess the teen mother’s social support, an instrument that is more narrowly focused on the support teen mothers receive from their parents (the grandparents) is lacking. To remedy this gap, the Grandparent Support Scale for Teenage Mothers (GSSTM) was developed. The purpose of this article is to review what is known about grandparent support and describe the initial psychometric testing of the teen version of the GSSTM. Four questionnaires were completed by 72 teen mothers. Factor analysis of the GSSTM resulted in reduction of the questionnaire from 22 to 16 items and yielded three factors: Grandparent Responsiveness (α = .90), Grandparent as Decision Maker (α = .76), and Grandparent as Actor (α = .72). GSSTM subscales significantly correlated with the other measures, supporting their validity. Although further psychometric testing is needed with a larger sample, the GSSTM shows promise in assessing teen mothers’ perceptions of family support.

Writing Therapeutic Letters in Undergraduate Nursing Education: Promoting Relational Skill Development

Although therapeutic letters (TLs) have been included in graduate nursing programs, studies have not examined the impact of TLs on the clinical learning of undergraduate students. This qualitative study was part of a larger project that introduced TLs into already established undergraduate clinical courses. Instructors prepared students for writing TLs by discussing their purpose and by providing a relevant article and examples. In all, 74 students participated in 12 focus group interviews. Interviews were audiotaped, professionally transcribed, and analyzed using qualitative description. Results suggest that TLs cultivate rapport building and the development of students’ relational skills. Although the assignment promoted clinical learning and reflection on helping relationships for the vast majority of students, a few students treated TLs as an instrumental activity. Implications for educating health professionals are described.

Inequities Compounded Explaining Variations in the Transition to Adulthood for Teen Mothers’ Offspring

Teen mothers as a cohort are disproportionately disadvantaged before pregnancy and are assumed to be further disadvantaged by an early pregnancy. A growing number of studies report that teen mothers and their children are disadvantaged slightly, if at all, by young maternal age. These studies highlight the social determinants of early childbearing but do not reveal the social contexts that shape the transition into adulthood for teen mothers’ offspring. This report addresses this gap by presenting two cases from a longitudinal study that investigated how family members’ lives unfold in the context of race, class, family practices, and communities. By the sixth wave, two of the mothers’ first-born children had become teen parents. Both cases showcase the diverse outcomes and cumulative impact of social advantage and disadvantage on the transition into young adulthood. Implications are described in relation to what is known about social inequities in the transition into adulthood.

Listening to the Baby: Evaluating a Baby Book Journal for New Parents

Browsing the parenting section of any bookstore reveals a wide variety ofcommercially available baby books. In spite of their popularity, the baby book format has rarely been used to develop materials that support the transition to parenting. This article describes the development of a baby book for this purpose, the phenomenological scholarship and research findings that shaped its design, and the results of an evaluation study that assessed its appeal, use, and readability by low-income parents. Forty-four low-income parents who had received the baby book were asked to describe their use of the book and to rate its appeal and readability during phone interviews. Parents’ suggestions for revising the baby book and their thoughts about sharing journal entries with clinicians were also elicited. The baby book text, written with the baby’s voice, appealed broadly to parents, suggesting that this format shows promise as an educational tool.

It's the little things that count: the value in receiving therapeutic letters.

The focus of this qualitative study was to explore patients perceptions of having received a therapeutic letter (TL) from a nursing student. Patient feedback contributes to student learning and is especially salient when students are trying to understand complex relationships and to deliver care that is individualized and personalized. Four themes from recipient interviews were identified, which show the influence of TLs on the student-patient relationship and the benefits of TLs to patients who receive them. Strategies to promote relationship building, such as TL writing are needed, particularly when students are required to work with patients who have long-standing psychiatric and social disabilities and find these relationships challenging. Findings are discussed in light of the value of TLs to patients and as a powerful strategy for student learning.