-
Unwed Motherhood—Could It Happen to Me?Awake!—1985 | July 22
-
-
In his landmark study of over 400 pregnant teenagers, Frank Furstenberg, Jr., observed that “most remarked repeatedly in the interviews, ‘I never thought it would happen to me.’” Why? They were often filled with erroneous ideas. Because many of them knew friends who seemed to get away with having sexual relations, they figured they could too. Furstenberg also states: “A number mentioned that they did not think it was possible to become pregnant ‘right away.’ Others thought that if they had sexual relations only ‘every once in a while’ they would not become pregnant . . . The longer they went without conceiving, the more likely they were to assume greater risks.”b
-
-
Unwed Motherhood—Could It Happen to Me?Awake!—1985 | July 22
-
-
b Of a group of 544 girls, “nearly one-fifth become pregnant within six months after beginning sexual intercourse.”
-
-
Unwed Motherhood—Could It Happen to Me?Awake!—1985 | July 22
-
-
In Furstenberg’s aforementioned study, “nearly half of the teenagers stated that it was very important for a woman to wait until marriage to begin to have sex . . . Undeniably, there was an obvious discrepancy between the words and the deeds . . . They had acquired one set of standards and had learned to live by another.” This emotional conflict “made it especially difficult for these women to deal realistically with the consequences of their sexual behavior.”
-