TRIADOPTION ® Library, Inc. - CA ~ Pg 369-480

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By Jeanne Warren Lindsay
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One-fifth -- about 600,000 -- of for pre~nant students, in 1972. Like . .
the babies delivered each year in the many Cimilar California classes, this . .
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United States are born to teenage moth- ARC" Unified School District program is
ers. About two-fifths of these young funded through - Special - Education.
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mothers are not married. Nearly 15,00fi
After two years of offering the
r e less than 15 years old. . .
special class, however, the district real-
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In the past, an overwhelming ma- ized that, while it was great to help
jority of these young single mothers a ~irls stay in school throughout pregnan-
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would have been "expected" to release cy, too often young women were lost from . .
their children for adoption. Today the the system after delivery. Sometimes
pendulum has shifted -- only about eiglzt they brought their babies to school with
percent of the young single mothers i.n them while they were in the Teen Mother
the
.
United States surrender their chil- Program and struggled to complete high
dren school with their babies beside thek.
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on .adoption But this didn't work very well. . .and
1 Z l d L vvt:L--t=II1p116313
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as the "solution" for young
if/when they went back to the regular
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and their babies caucr~rl high school, the babieb could not
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fvamandnllc nain
.
qLu , , L 1 1 1 b I A U V U - r yu LA.
F,., f +ha na,
The
go along.
luarly wl LllL r,;>ple involved.
idea that a 16 year old could give birth In 1974 the district opened an
to her baby, then immediately forget Infant Center for babies aged two
the whole thing and return to her former
life was obviously ridiculous. Life was
weeks to two years. Young mothers
work with their babies one period each
. .
far from satisfying for many birth moth- day and attend regular classes the rest
ers who tried to forqet. C of the day. Suddenly it was possible
I T\.-L - -I- - A. -L---A. BUL w n a L iluvu~ *"? Lrle hundreds of to be a "good" mother and attend
thousands of very young mothers today school at the same time. Grandmothers,
who keep their -- hahies -..-- --- 1 to rear them- many of them unavailable for babyselves?
Are t ~ ., P V ,,..----- u~nera11~ leading . sat- sitting anyhow, no longer were taking
isfying lives? Whern .= aLF =mn they in com- over. Babies fared well in the excellent
parison with young . women who do not developmental center. The young mothctart
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+hair Familioc i
their teens?
ers finally could be successful in their
I dual role of student/mother. Their self-
Results of several re: search projects esteem improved
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remarkably.
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have suggested that a w oman who delivers
a 'baby before she is 18 is apt But were there lasting C results?
to find 90 percent of her life script al- Or did these young mothers fall back
.
ready written. 0-1 .. n v
llLY ~,le in five of into the welfare cycle so often associated
nraJll;lt:es from high
with early parenthood? In order to find
these young mothers ,..UU-.
school. They will have more children out, a survey was made last spring of
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and are more apt to fall LIILU LILC WCIfare
cycle than are women who first begram,
come mothers after age 20.
But is this grim.. filtil~n i n ~ x r i t -
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able for most young mothel :s everywhere? A questionnaire was included in
A-- --- - - - -2 - ----..-: +
UT car1 a L ~ L - L L I CUIIIIIIUIILL~ ~ make a diffthe
invitation to the annual. alumnae
1 erence?
potluck supper. One hundred one former
TMP students who were enrolled in the . -.
One such community -- Cerritos, special program . between 1972 and June, I
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+ + ..., -I alumane of the Cerritos Teen Mother Pro-
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California -- started the Teen Mother 1978, either- returned the completed - ques- 1
Program, a special full school program tionnaire or gave the information td the 1
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