Teenage pregnancy and drop out culture

Hello hello,

How many teenagers that got pregnant and finished their education do you know? One? Zero?

Oh, they dropped out? Want to know a fun fact? We, the society made that happen.

Okay hold, the reasons that lead to a pregnant teenager to drop out are actually multi factorial. Allow me to show them to you.

First, the family. They can affect in two areas: the importance of education and support. If the family understands that education is important they will try their best to avoid a drop out, even if the girl has the baby. If they think that we go to school because it's the law then the teenager is going to follow a way of thinking like "well, to keep going would be hard and it's not like it's important, so.... bye!". Then we have the support, if the family says to teenager that she now is alone, se can't go to school, she needs to go to work to take care of their child. I live in Portugal and in here, you can't work legally of you are under 18, so you might find a job but your boss is going to pay you "under the table" like we say here. That isn't something you want because the amount of time you spend working is going to help you to have a good retirement plan in the future. But, alas, not only you have a child, your parent's tell you "you're on your own kid" and you need to work illegally to fund your new lifestyle with a baby. In this scenario, school it's truly the last of your priorities.

Another factor is the goal that the girl has: if she, before getting pregnant, wanted to go to college or had this very specific dream job, she is more likely to return to school. However her return is gonna be affected by the support I talked previously. And that support is then going to be influenced by the social economic status. Middle to upper class might have a grandma already retired that stays with the child (we love free daycare) or they might just have the money for daycare. Lower class? Not really, the grandma probably is still working the odd job here and there, which leads to the girl to start pulling their own wheigt.

To end, the school. Most schools look at pregnant teenagers like failures. So, when they start to miss classes and, disappear they just accept it like it's the circle of life. There is something called the halo effect. If a teacher decides that a student is a no good and acts with them that way the the student will start acting badly and like a no good. Something like, I have the reputation might as well enjoy it. So, if the teaacher stops believing in them, the classmates also ostracized them (happens most of the time). How are this girls going to have the need to go to school.

If your country follows human rights, they are obliged to find solutions to avoid drop out by pregnant teenagers. But it's easier to just let them be, and say that you tried to prevent it but they were dumb and reckless and now need to deal with the consequences of their actions.

No. They need help. They need just a bit more of support. Free daycare so that they can go to school; teachers that understand that they will have more sick days, not because they are the ones sick but because the baby is sick.

What are you opinions on this matter? Tell me all in the comments.

If you want to read more of my writing check out this:

How to make money the easy way and How a sex cult has formed in a college.

See ya,

JP