Colorado Teen Parents Talk about the Resources They Have, Want, and Need

Colorado Teen Parents Talk about the Resources They Have, Want, and Need Stefanie Mollborn, Ph.D. Janet Jacobs, Ph.D. Devon Thacker, M.A. Department of Sociology Institute of Behavioral Science University of Colorado at Boulder

Acknowledgements • Collaborators: Leith Lombas and Nicole Moore • Funding: CU-Boulder Innovative Grant Program • Thanks to our research sites and participants

Colorado Teen Parent Study • Areas of Inquiry: • Experiences with being a teen parent • Differences in these experiences by gender • People’s reactions to the pregnancy and the consequences of these reactions • Relationships with partners and family • Resources available to teen parents and who helps them • Implications of these resources for teen moms and dads and their children

Colorado Teen Parent Study • Data & Methods: • 76 semi-structured in-depth interviews • Participants were dads and moms who had their first child by age 20 • Two Denver research sites • a school for pregnant and parenting girls, dads program • a medical clinic for young parents and their children • Interviews included opportunities for teens to bring up ideas of their own

We think the experience of teenage parenthood is changing in important and problematic ways.

What researchers know from the past • Disadvantaged teens are much more likely to become teen parents • Most teen parents and their families remain disadvantaged after the birth • On average, the experience of early childbearing only slightly worsens parents’ and children’s situations

Trends Resource implications Short term Long term Govt support (-) Need family’s help (+) Nonmarital Key family members teen births (+) available (-) Unmet Worse Families’ Family resources basic outcomes resources (-) available (-) needs Norms of family support (same) Family’s willingness to provide resources (-) Norms against teen childbearing (+)

Government support programs

Married Hispanic mother of two: • “And housing. It’s really hard. To get housing, you have to be homeless. It’s like, they want you to live on the street or in your car. … You see all these moms here. Some live with people that they don’t even want to be with, and they come here and ask them for housing, and they ask, ‘Are you homeless?’ ‘No, I’m living with these people but I want to get out of there.’ ‘Well, you have to be homeless, or go to a shelter for a month and then we’ll help you.’ You know what I mean?

Fathers’ roles • Many live with, financially support, and help care for their children • Many others only provide sporadic support • Another substantial group received no support from the child’s father • Almost always, the ultimate responsibility for the child falls on the mother

Examples • “My baby’s dad, if she needs diapers, clothes, anything that she needs, I just tell him and he’ll go buy it for her.” [17-year-old Hispanic mother of one] • “If he has anything to help with, he will, he’s very good about that. But when he doesn’t, he can’t. There’s nothing he can do.” [19-year-old mother]

Families have less to give • Increasing income inequalities in U.S. society • Entry of more women into the work force • Rising costs: child care, health care • The brunt of economic crisis is being borne by workers with less education

Example: “Adriana” • 17-year-old Hispanic mother who lives with “a lot of people”: 2-year-old daughter, several siblings/half-siblings, her father, stepmother, and grandmother • Her father and grandmother provide housing and pay the bills • Adriana does not have spending money because “as long as I don’t need something really bad, I don’t want to ask for it.” • Adriana worries about taxing her family’s resources too much. Referring to her daughter’s laundry, she said, “Her clothes are small. It doesn’t take up that much soap.”

Social norms and their consequences • Norms encouraging family support of teens in general • Norms discouraging teen childbearing • Teen mothers are usually tolerated, but definitely not socially rewarded for having a child • Teens who violate pregnancy norms face mental health consequences, social isolation

Example from Adriana • “It’s like if I was living there and I was just by myself. I’m still under 18, so they still have to support me. It’s [having her daughter in the house is] just a little extra plus.”

Married Hispanic mom of 2 at age 15 (Who isn’t helping that you thought would be helping?) • “His mom. And a lot of it with her, her drinking of course, and I know that if she wouldn’t drink as much, that she would help out. … She never really bought my daughter anything. The most reason that I was so upset with her was because for my daughter’s first Christmas, she did not buy her anything, and she bought her other grandkids stuff. That really upset me. After that, that’s when I moved out. … I’m like, “This is your son’s daughter.” … [I]f we need help, I know that we can’t call her.”

Basic needs are going unmet Especially: • Money • Child care • Independent housing • Transportation

Example from Adriana “I can’t get TANF, I can’t get housing, I can’t get any kind of help because I’m not 18. That’s one of the biggest obstacles ever, ‘cause if I could live closer to the school in some of the housing places, it would be way easier to get to school. If I come to school on the bus, ‘cause I don’t have a car right now, I have to catch four buses to get to school.” (So you’re on the bus almost two hours?)

…continued “Yeah. My daughter’s been at her grandma’s house this whole week because I don’t have a car so that I can take her to day care. And her day care is not here, so I have to take her somewhere else and then come here, so I would have to be at the bus stop at, like, 5 in the morning. So she just stayed at her grandma’s this week until I get a vehicle so that I can take her to day care and then come to school. But either way, I know I’m not gonna stop coming to school, even if it means for her to stay away from me for a little while, so that I can finish.”

The motivation to succeed is almost always there, but supports are often not in place to make success feasible.

What lies ahead for our teen parents? • May not be able to eventually catch up to their peers who had children later or not at all • Catching up gets harder to do the more they fall behind, so early intervention is good • “Magic moment” for intervention and support after the birth of the child

For our participants, the experience of teenage parenthood is changing in important and problematic ways.

So what can we do?

Teen parents’ suggestions • Responses to question about how they would help teen parents and their kids if they were in charge • Another question asked what would help them and their children the most

What they recommend • Schools for parenting teens are a big help • Welcoming peer environment • Staff understand students’ life situations • Onsite child care, other resources • Clinics for parenting teens help, too • Welcoming environment from staff • Accessibility and cost are key factors

What they recommend • Education • Job assistance • Support/counseling • Transportation • Child care • Housing assistance

Hispanic father of two • “I imagine that it would start by helping us to understand the early experiences of being a parent; how we will feel, what problems we will have, what is normal, and tell us how to be prepared for all of it. And then help us economically with money, diapers, all of that. I mean, you have to by the crib, car seat, stroller, and with the first it’s really hard.”

Multiracial 19-year-old mother of two • “I would have to say, the main thing would be a support group to let young mothers know that they’re not bein’ judged because they’re young, because I know a lot of young girls feel like, ‘If I try to get help, someone’s gonna judge me and say I don’t know how to take care of a kid because I’m so young.’ Just to let young mothers know that there’s somebody there and they understand where they’re coming from, to help them get through their pregnancy, especially young mothers who are doin’ it by theirself and know that it’s OK, you can make it still without the dad there.”

Simplify the process of getting help • “Like, if everything was in one place, like, it would be much easier for them, ‘cause they wouldn’t have to worry about getting to all these different places. I mean, even if they would ride the bus, it’d be too complicated. It takes, like, an hour for every bus to get there, you have to wait there, drive over there, come back, all that stuff. So if everything would be in one place, that would be much easier.” [19-year-old Latina mother of one]

Incentives for fathers to stay • “I would try to make it to where the dads would want to be more involved. A lot of moms do stuff, and I know, like, how they’re into, ‘If you come do this, we’ll help you.’ Kind of make it incentives, but at the same time work towards somethin’ the dad will want. Just ‘cause the moms are like, ‘Oh, yeah, I want help, I want to do this.’ But the dad’s like, ‘You do it and I’ll sign the paper. You go and I’ll drop you off and come back and pick you up,’ type thing. For them to be more involved, for everybody.” [22-year-old African American mother of one]

Helping moms and dads parent together • “I have never found a program that would help me and [child’s father], help us parent together. Every program I’ve seen always wants to split us up, always wants him gone, and I don’t think that’s right. And also, like, I don’t think the dads have enough support. Everybody has gotten so set on single moms not being able to take care of their kids that they don’t look at families not being able to take care of their kids, moms and dads, single dads, anything like that. … They just look at the moms and want to take care of the moms. I looked so hard for a program like I’m in that would take me and [child’s father], and there’s none.” [17-year-old multiracial mother of two]

How do you think we can better support parenting teens and their children?

Financial support

Child care

Housing

Transportation

Mental and physical health needs

Meeting other needs

Supporting educational and career success

Other thoughts?

Colorado Teen Parents Talk about the Resources They Have, Want, and Need

Colorado Teen Parents Talk about the Resources They Have, Want, and Need

Presentation Transcript

(and other stuff I want to talk about)

Teen Parents

Teen Parents

T-Bar: What they want What you have.

The film I have Chosen to Talk about is………….

Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day And How They Feel About What They Do

Teen Parents Project

Why parents can’t always get what they (think they) want

Like, Need, Have, Want

WE TALK AND THEY LISTEN

Need, Have, Want

They talk a lot about the history of germany and about the economic.

Family Teen Talk Concept Validation

Schools need to be clear about what interventions they have (and don’t have) in place

Vision Youth workers have the resources and support they need to help all youth thrive Mission

What I want to talk about

They have moses and the prophets

Discrimination by appointment: we have a problem we need to talk about

TEEN PARENTS

Have The Tips About Vitamins And Minerals You Need To Have

Giving Parents What They Want, When They Want It

Oh No!!! They Want ME to Talk!!!!