Historical Changes in the Transition to Parenthood

The following information is going to discuss the family structure, the prevalence of teenage pregnancy and parenthood education throughout history and recognize the differences between three time periods.  The three time periods are:

• Pre-industrial time period being from 1850 and before 
• Industrial time period being from 1850-1950 
• Modern time period being from 1950 to the present. 

Family Structure
In the pre-industrial time period, the family was thought of as a unit.  Their sizes were large because children were thought of as an “economic asset”(1).  The children helped to build the house, run the farm and learn the family trade.  The structure of the child rearing practices was influenced mainly by the Puritan society’s view(1).  The father had complete control over his children and made all the decisions for them, for the children had no legal rights at all.  When it was time for a girl to get married, the father arranged that also.  Marriage was not based on love but primarily on the financial ability of the man to support his wife

In the industrial period, there was a division of labor among all family members.  The father worked hard on the farm while the mother worked hard at the house.  The children were expected to help their parents out as much as they possibly could.  These adult roles helped the adolescents to prepare for adulthood and for when they would have families of their own.  The child rearing practices evolved during this time period.  For the first time, children were not thought of as miniature adults and the concept of adolescence began to emerge during this period(1). 

In the modern period and today, the family structure has changed once again but in some ways, has just added on to previous ideas.  Child rearing practices generally stayed the same with a few additions.  Social scientists have fostered society’s current beliefs and perceptions concerning children’s roles and functions in the family(1).  There has been increasing stress in the past 25 years as a result of the structural changes within the family.  Some of these stresses include: 

•  Disintegration of extended kinship
•  Increasing number of working mothers 
•  Rising divorce rates  
•  Loss of parental power(1).    

Prevalence of Teenage Pregnancy
Teenage pregnancy is more common then most people think.  Premarital childbearing has increased among teenage women in the past two decades, with a leveling off in the mid-1990s(2).  Because of this increase, being young and having a baby has gone through changing levels of acceptance by families, social institutions and private/public organizations.  Recent statistics show that almost one-fourth of American young women experience pregnancy before they are 18 years old and about 45 percent before they turn 21(3). 

There is not much data on the pre-industrial and industrial time periods on the issue of teenage pregnancy.  This may be because it was not a major crisis back then as it is in the present time.  Back in the 17 and 1800s, having a baby when you were 15, 16, and 17 years old was the norm.  The reason why they started so early was to have as many children as they possibly could before they got to the age where they could not produce anymore.  Adolescents’ back then did not have to worry so much about food and money and having someone there to support them through their pregnancy.  They had everyone and everything they needed right around them – the farm they lived on provided food, large families provided support and their parents were there to support them financially. 

On the other hand, the modern time period is much different.  In the early 1930s to the 1990s, the total proportion of first births which were either premaritally born or premaritally conceived to women 15-19 increased from 29 percent to 89 percent(2).  And by 1990-1994, only 16 percent of premaritally pregnant teen women were married before their first birth(2).  Teenagers today have those worries previously mentioned plus many more.  Some of the major problems occur even before the baby is born.  Adolescent mothers are at an increased risk for anemia, prolonged labor and difficult labor(4).  Their babies are at a higher risk for prematurity, low birth weight, neurological difficulties, respiratory difficulties and infant death(4).  Teenage mothers in today’s society are also more likely to have dropped out of high school and suffer disruptions in their occupational careers.  They are more likely to stay in a low-income job therefore increasing their chances of being on welfare(3). 

Parenthood Education
In essence there are two types of parenthood education.  The first type is the information that you receive from your parents, family and friends, which is an informal way of educating.  The second type of parenthood education is the information that you receive from parenthood training classes given by certified teachers and doctors. 

The first type of parenthood education comes to mind when thinking about the pre-industrial and industrial periods.  Young children and adolescents gained all their knowledge mainly from their parents and quite possibly picked up the things their parents did not tell them from their friends.  That was all the adolescents in that time period had to count on plus the real life situations they experienced with their mothers, sisters, aunts and other family members. 

The second type of parenthood education definitely encompasses the modern time period.  There has been “research on the consequences of adolescent childbearing also suggests that many of the negative effects of having children early could be prevented or at least minimized by lessening the disruptive economic impact of teenage parenthood on young women’s lives” (3).  There have been few strategies though that have been effective on a large scale.  One approach involves school-based sex education and school-based health clinics where adolescents can gain information about sex and pregnancy and evaluations have proven that these programs actually reduce the rate of teen pregnancy(3).  But, the only downfall is that many parents do not approve of these types of programs in their community.  Many policymakers have called for changes in the ways that schools treat pregnant students.  Often the pregnant teens are treated as misfits and thought of as “bad girls”.  They are not given the same respect that other students receive.  Some of the most important changes are adaptations in the school schedules and the development of school-based child-care centers(3).  This way, the teen mothers are able to stay in school after their child is born and they are given the same opportunity to get an education.

One other program that has been implemented in high schools that started out in Syracuse, New York, is the Young Mothers Educational Development (YMED) Program.  This program provides an alternative high school for pregnant and parenting teenagers(4).  The classes are taught so that students can continue to earn academic credit and help is provided with daycare for their babies as well as medical services(4).  There are many different programs like this one all across America and it is shown that the outcomes for the teenagers who attend these alternative schools appear to be highly favorable.
 

References

1  Habenstein, Robert & Olson, Roberta Ann.  (1992).  Families and children in history.  In Clarence Eugene Walker & Michael C. Roberts (Eds.), Handbook of clinical child psychology (pp. 3-17).  New York: John Wiley & Sons.

2  Bachu, Amara.  (1999).  Trends in Premarital Childbearing: 1934 to 1994.  Current  Population Reports, U.S. Census Bureau, 23-197

3  Steinberg, Laurence.  (1993).  Adolescence.  New York : McGraw-Hill Inc

4  Michaels, Gerald Y. & Goldberg, Wendy A.  (1988).  The transition to parenthood:  Current theory and research. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.