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Teenagers, Pregnancy and Child Rearing

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Childbirth can be a life changing experience in a teen’s life. Teenage pregnancy refers to a female being pregnant or giving birth under the age of twenty. The changes that occur can be psychological, physical, mental, and even emotional. Not only do these changes affect the teen, but they can affect their families and friends. Health, freedom and education are usually affected by the decision to become a parent during the teen years. A lot of teen mothers grow up wondering “What if I stayed in school?”, “What would I have become?”, “Would it have been easier if I had thought this out first?” “What if I had waited?” These questions may plague the minds of many adolescence when they realize that being a teenage mother is neither an easy nor a glamorous job. The early responsibility imposed or enforced on them can change the teenager’s psychological profile by changing her personality completely. Going from being in school full-time and being educated to having responsibility of bringing a child into the world, makes it more difficult to gain a high school education. In the Bahamas, pregnant teen mothers are given the opportunity to continue their education, as they are placed in a special school called Providing Access to Continued Education (PACE). However, some students who have graduated from this program have emphasized that there is a stigma attached to students who attend this school. They also reveal that they have experienced a feeling of shame when they have to be enrolled in that program because of their situation. The fact that being pregnant comes with added responsibility, these teenagers are forced to grow up fast and become more mature. This means that they are now stripped of their childish thoughts. They can no longer think of ‘me’ as this is now replaced with is ‘us’ since they have to think of not only themselves but their child as well. Mentally they are forced to grow up overnight and

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