As much as I love the Beatles, they got it wrong when they said, “All You Need is Love.” Just look what happened to John Lennon.
You also need a stable home environment, parents who are caring and available (some day car and babysitters are OK, but the parents HAVE to be involved and and raise their own children, otherwise there will be emotional prices to pay) enough money to raise a child without becoming impoverished, medical care (you can’t just assume everything will be OK that’s like gambling with your child’s life), a safety net of support (friends, family and neighbors) care-givers who can provide a sense of well being and safety for the child (so that they don’t feel neglected or abandoned or ignorned, things that can damage a person’s psyche) parents or care-givers who know enough about nutrition to raise a healthy child (plenty of children eat, but they eat so poorly that it damages their brains and their bodily health, sometimes to the point that the damage is irreparable) Parents should be old enough and wise enough and mature enough to know how to raise a child in a responsible manner so that the child does not become a burden on society. I doubt that most teenagers have that skill, even though it’s fashionable to think so. And it’s super-exciting for young teenaged girls to think it will be fun to have a baby, and it will be a cool experience because they might get to be a celebrity on that MTV show about teen moms. Or that the teen will think it’s a great idea because she has no one else to love her except her baby. Mature women do not have children for those reasons.
I think it’s incredibly immature and selfish for teenaged girls to have children. Back in the old days, girls that got “knocked up” had no choice but to give birth. Today there are plenty of options: abortion, adoption, or having their own parents or other mature relatives help to raise their children. I understand that birth control is not 100 percent effective. That is why teenagers should not have sex. They should learn about other ways to give and receive pleasure that will not put them at risk of getting pregnant.
When teenage girls choose to get pregnant, or choose to give birth and especially when they choose to keep their kids, they are putting those babies at a great disadvantage on purpose. Just because there is anecdotal evidence about some teenaged girls raising healthy, normal, well adjusted kids, that is not the norm. Most teen mothers and their babies struggle desperately.
It’s hard enough for 2 adults in a married, comitted relationship to raise a child. Teenaged girls raising children is a horror.