Teen Motherhood — The New Cool Thing For The Middle Class To Embrace

You know those women who drive up in their Lexus to attend a seminar about the slums of Mumbai, only to leave wishing they had such a “real” and “authentic” existence?

Well they have turned their myopic sights to teenage pregnancy.

As far as I can tell the theory is that teen moms are more in touch with their inner Gaia. They put the important things first and ignore the modern distractions that most of us get caught up in.

Hilary Mantel, an award-winning author, has said that 14 year olds are ready to have children and run houses.

“Having sex and having babies is what young women are about, and their instincts are suppressed in the interests of society’s timetable,” she said in an interview with Stella magazine.

“We were being educated well into our twenties, an age when part of us wanted to become mothers, probably little bits of all of us. Some were more driven than others.”

Part of me agrees with her here. Biologically speaking, 16 years olds are meant to be mothers. And if they could do it a hundreds years ago there is no reason to think that they can’t manage today. The problem is that to do so they have to throw their aspirations away.

Career trajectories are set up for men, and and a result women in their twenties face an awkward choice between their most (adult) fecund years and their most productive professional years.

If the world was ordered in a different way that could mediate the conflict between motherhood and career, then maybe there is a good idea here.

But then she goes on…

“I was perfectly capable of setting up and running a home when I was 14, and if, say, it had been ordered differently, I might have thought ‘Now is the time to have a couple of children and when I am 30 I will go back and I’ll get my PhD,’” she said.

Really? So she thinks that having a kid in 1966 would have allowed her to have the opportunities to get a doctorate later in life? Which college would have accepted a high school drop out in 1984?

And then I think of all the 14 year old girls I know, of myself at 14, and I know she is in la-la land.

But the scary thing is that she isn’t the only one. Carol Midgley had a piece in the Times last week about the benefits of single teen motherhood.

As one 17-year-old said: “They might think I’m doing it wrong but I could say the same to them.” Having a baby for “something to love” is more defensible to them than a thirtysomething choosing to have a baby merely to tick all the boxes before she is 40.

She explains that poverty leads to single mothers, but once they get knocked up these girls develop a new drive to make life better for their kids.

The crux of both these articles is that women exist merely to have kids. They might want careers but everyone knows that babies are the real brass ring.

Sure, if the world were an entirely different place teen motherhood would be a fantastic idea. But we live in the real world. What opportunities does a 36 year old woman have with little work experience and a high school diploma?

The conflict between the biological clock and working hours needs to be resolved, but fantasies about adorable 14 year olds tucking in tiny babies aren’t going to do it.