Dealing with child marriage, mentioned earlier in blog HERE, is not simple or straightforward when it comes down to the practice. We can all agree that we want to prevent it, but when it has already happened, it can be complicated to know what the best course of action is. This also goes for teenage motherhood, whether this is caused by child marriage, rape, or other causes. It is simple to say that it should not happen and that teenagers are better off not being mothers. That is all quite true. But when you come to the practice of a pregnant teenager, or a teenager with a baby it is not so simple.
The prevailing thought in many places is that everyone will be best off if the teenage mother just gives up her baby for adoption at birth. That way the baby can start a new life being part of a permanent family from a very young age. And the teenager can go home, go back to school and pick up her life as if nothing has happened. This is an understandable train of thought and girls are persuaded to give up their babies with the best of intentions.
Unfortunately, the situation is not as simple as that. A baby is better off with an adoptive family than in other alternative options if there is really no way he or she can grow up with their own family. However, not growing up with your own parents, not knowing who they are and therefore who you are and feeling you have been rejected in some way will have a lifelong effect on the baby and leave a scar, no matter how loving the adoptive family is.
For a mother who has completely freely – without anyone applying pressure or trying to persuade her – decided that she does not want to raise her baby, there will be a lifelong combination of reassuring herself that she made the right decision and sadness over the baby that she did not get to watch grow up. For a mother who was pushed into giving up her baby, even though she did not really want to, it can destroy and even end her life. Even if her family accept her back and she is sent to school again and encouraged to live the life of a normal teenager, the grief and devastating loss of having had to give up the baby she carried with her for nine months can lead to severe depression, a complete lack of interest in life and ability to function, and even to suicide.
Creating a situation like that is not in the best interest of the child. Over time these practices and attitudes will change. They will have to. This will not go fast, but it will happen. The way I know this, is that attitudes towards single motherhood and teenage parenthood were the same in Europe within my lifetime and now they are not. The girls should have the option to choose not to raise their baby and to put them up for adoption, but they should not be pressured into it. It has to be their own decision, otherwise, we may end up destroying a life and making a second one more difficult.
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