The Psychological Effects of Teenage and Single Parenting

1. The Psychological Effects of Teenage and Single Parenting By Emily Holmes Honors 160

2. Random Statistics • 9.5 million American families are headed by single mothers(U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2000) • 1 in 3 girls will get pregnant before the age of 20-years-old. (4parents.gov) • In 2002 there were over 750,000 teen pregnancies. (4parents.gov)

3. What the Researchers Looked At • Marital status • Education • Age of pregnancy • Exposure to stressors • Living situation/family structure

4. Marital Status What the researchers found: • Married Mothers have more education, more income, and better mental health (Afifi et al., 2006).They also have the least amount of depressive symptoms (DeKlyen et al., 2006). • Separated/divorced mothers have the worst mental health (Afifi et al., 2006). • Non romantic single mothers have the most depressive symptoms (DeKlyen et al., 2006). • Single parents have better parent-child relationship quality than married parents but single parents don’t deal as well with their adult children’s psychological problems (Greenfield & Marks, 2006). • Married teens have less depressive symptoms (Kalil & Kunz, 2002) whereas not married teen mothers have lower education, are younger, have fewer kids, less income and benefit from family support (Turner,1992).

5. Education What the researchers found: • Single mother have low education which adds to their stress (Afifi et al., 2006; Turner, 2006). • Low income due to lack of education and experience (DeKlyen et al., 2006). • Lower GPAs and more likely to fail classes (Holden et al., 1993).

6. Age of Pregnancy What the researchers looked at: • Psychological status, social relationships, home stress and satisfaction, job stress and satisfaction, and parenting satisfaction and efficacy (Vicary & Corneal, 2001). What the researchers found: • Middle aged mothers are the most lonely but teen mothers are the most likely to lack personality dynamics as well as have lower parent satisfaction (Vicary & Corneal, 2001).

7. Exposure to Stressors What the researchers looked at: • Prevalence of psychiatric disorders (Mitsuhiro et al., 2009). • Social stressors and mental health risks (Turner et al., 2000). What the researchers found: • Pregnant teens have a high rate of psychiatric disorders due to the high exposure to stressors that can cause psychiatric disorders (Mitsuhiro et al., 2009). • Teen mothers were affected by how resourceful they were and the parenting/warmth from their own mother (Turner et al., 2000).

8. Living Situation/Family Structure What the researchers looked at: • Psychological distress, maternal and paternal history of psychopathology, financial strain, caregiver strain, work home strain, and life events (Avison et al., 2007). • Nuclear family structure versus multi-adult family structure (Henly, 1997). What the researchers found: • Single mothers have high psychological stress, maternal and paternal history of psychopathology, and financial strain due to exposure to these stressors (Avison et al., 2007). • No difference was found in living within a nuclear family versus living in a multi adult families. Teen mothers living on their own were found to be healthier than being married (Henly, 1997). • Living with an adult helped with school attendance if the adult was responsible but the teens didn’t necessarily want to live with them which made the results mixed. ½ of pregnant teens tested were at risk for depression and 1/3 were in poor or fair health (Kalil & Danziger, 2000).

9. Not Pregnant teens vs. Pregnant teens What the researchers looked at: • Self-esteem and self-worth (Holden et al., 1993). • Ego development, maturity, family relations and how the different groups dealt with their issues/problems (Oz et al., 1992). • Depressive symptoms in later life (Kalil & Kunz, 2002). What the researchers found: • Pregnant teens thought raising a child would be easy when asked than their nonpregnant peers and the scored lower on self-worth (Holden et al., 1993). • Teen mothers have higher ego development and maturity than nonpregnant teens as well as they are more apt to look outside of themselves, rise to challenges, and be happy. But they also have a tendency to be more cynical about their own mother daughter relationship (Oz et al., 1992). • Teen mothers are more likely to be stressed or distressed by family relations and deal with their issues and problems outside of their family (Oz et al., 1992).

10. “Once you have a baby, you have a whole lot of responsibilities. It’s not really what I thought it would be; it’s hard” (Spear, 2004). “I’ll tell any teen to wait. I heard two girls talkin’ in the mall the other day about how they couldn’t wait to have babies and stuff. I had to stop and say what are you saying. I couldn’t believe it. Me and my friend couldn’t believe it ‘cause we had these hollerin’ screamin’ babies there” (Spear, 2004).

11. Conclusion Becoming pregnant during adolescence, and being a single mom does indeed affect mental health in the short and long run.