The Rise in Teenage Pregnancy

With the rise in teenage pregnancy, more teenagers are dropping out of school to care for their young. This creates an obstacle for teens, often leading to dropping out of school to take care of their child. However, in school daycares allow for the teen to stay in school and finish their education while they have their child cared for during the day. Although many high schools are against providing school daycare assuming it will encourage teens to be more careless in their choices, high schools should provide in school daycare to help teens continue their education.

First of all, provided daycare allows the teens to save money for their necessities. With the supplies the teens will need for their child, they will need to save as much money as they can especially if they are not getting support from their parents, “Most high school programs are completely free for those who qualify”(Hoover). Some high schools will have free daycares knowing that the daycare being free is one more things the teen won't have to worry about. In addition in “Should public schools provide teenage parents with daycare?” By Grace Chen, most teens that become pregnant come from low income families , “ … in areas of lower income and employment rates, teenage pregnancy rates tend to rise”. With daycare being free, it will be able to help those families in taking some weight of their shoulders and provide them with no worry about spending more money. In “Day-care programs allow teen parents to finish school” as Janet Domowitz says,“ The school day-care and parenting programs all strive to enable young parents eventually to support themselves and their children”. Most teens that become pregnant come from areas of low income which causes them to already have little money to care for their child. Their need for provided daycare is tremendous. The day cares are ideal for them in providing them with parenting classes and child care at a price they can afford since they are high school students.

Secondly, teen parents won’t have to skip school days in order to take care of their child.

“ ‘ This is about creating opportunities to graduate… we need to remove the excuses and the obstacles. We need to afford our students opportunities to stay in school,’ ”(Reid). Skipping school to take care of their child is a normal occurrence for the teens, so getting a chance to prevent that with daycare would do wonders for their school and them. In the article by The Washington Post, it states, “For the kids who have kids, such day-care centers offer a chance to stay in school and earn a diploma while getting help with daily responsibilities of parenthood” some schools-along with the chance to help teens stay in school-offer parenting classes and school classes for the children. Other high schools are aware of a “cycle” going on by the teens and their children, thinking that the children will follow their mothers in getting pregnant young as well, “ ‘ most high school programs get a daycare to reduce teen dropouts and a pattern of terminating education,’ ”(“Should High Schools Provide a Daycare for Students with Children?”). Without the daycares, teens would have to dropout of school in order to care for their child. If the daycare is provided, the teens will be able to drop off their child in a safe place and continue their high school education.

Some daycares provide additional parenting classes so the teens don’t depend on the daycare to completely take care of their child. In the article “Teenage pregnancy and Daycare” by Amy Hoover, she states some alternative resources that daycares may provide,“A support group for teenage pregnancy can provide ample resources for a mom-to-be”. Support groups would bring help and security to the teens as they know that they aren't the only ones going through the pregnancy and they aren't going through pregnancy alone.In the article, “In-school day-care programs keep teen parents on track to graduate”, Zachary Reid makes it known that some day care programs “involve classroom instruction, both for parents and for students” which allows teen parents to get to know the people involved in taking care of their child everyday. Reid also states that some daycares even offer teens children with classes while the teens are in school as well as parenting classes for the teen. As daycares offer the teens children with classes, that is one more thing the teens don't have to worry about paying for while they are still in school.

With daycares the worry is that teen will be completely dependent on the daycare to raise their child. However, with the classes some daycares will provide, it allows teens to learn parenting skills so they don't create the idea in their heads that the daycare will do everything for them.

In addition, providing daycares in school will benefit the US economy. In the article by Tara Culp-Ressler, she states “Thirty four percent of young teen mothers earn neither a college degree nor a high school diploma, and less than two percent of teen mothers earn a degree by the time they turn 30”, because many teen parents didn't graduate they are more likely to depend on the government for support which will cost the government. So if the teens had something to put their child in during school they would be less likely to drop out and more likely to continue school. Ressler also states, “The country’s lost earnings from an increased number of high school and college dropouts are compounded by the estimated billions of dollars that teenage pregnancies cost taxpayers each year.” If the number of these dropout teens increases, taxpayers spending will increase due to the amount of support needed by the teens each year. So if the daycares could decrease the number of high school dropouts by keeping the teens in school, it would decrease the amount of spending by the government in the future. In the article About teen pregnancy by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, it states “On a positive note, between 1991 and 2015, the teen birth rate dropped 64%, which resulted in $4.4 billion in public savings in 2015 alone.” With the birth rates dropping with the help of school daycares they have allowed this big amount of savings since there is little need for help by government taxes. The amount of teens dropping out of school to take care of their child, the US economy suffers the consequences. The economy will pay for the housing, food, clothes, and other necessities the teen need to take care of their child since they can't support themselves and their child alone. However doing something as little as offering daycare in school to keep the teens in school will lead to an increase in education having the teens to likely get a good paying job to support themselves. This is going to decrease the likelihood for the need for social services by these teens which would cost the government.

As shown in the visual below, the areas that are white(on the blue map), which represents the lowest income tend to be areas with high teen pregnancy rastes(on the red map). For example, we can see texas has one of the highest number of parents who don't have a highschool degree. If we look over then at the red map we can see that texas is dark red meaning that Texas also has one of the most teen pregnancies. Since low income can lead to the pregnancys, those teens would already have little support for their new family. If the dayacre was provided near them that was rfree or low priced, it would help the teen in providing help and continuing their education while also helping the economy with more educated workers and less need to spend money on social services.

Another reason is, provided daycares will break “the cycle” of children of teen parents needing services. In the article About teen pregnancy by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, it states, “The children of teenage mothers are more likely to have lower school achievement and to dropout of high school, have more health problems, be incarcerated at some time during adolescence, give birth as a teenager, and face unemployment as a young adult.” It is likley that the teens child will look up tothe mother and think that the teen pregnancy is okay even if they arent prepared, hiowever this will just lead to a drop out and difficuly life. If the teen mom could acsess a daycare provided by shcool she could continue her education to give her children a good life. In anothet article by Kari Huus, she states, “Those struggles are often passed on to the next generation. Daughters of teen mothers are three times more likely to become teen parents themselves than girls born to older moms, says the National Campaign…” The teens children would see how their mother did things and follow her creating a cycle of those decisions.In the article by Tara Culp-Ressler, she states, “if students who dropped out… had graduated from high school, the nation’s economy would likely benefit from nearly $154 billion in additional income over the course of their lifetimes.” Since the children of teen mothers will more likely be following their steps, their children will end up in poverty and likely depending on government support to live. However, with highs schools providing daycares, the teen parent will have a chance to stop that cycle for their children by receiving a diploma and getting a good paying job to support their family.

Although many may say that the daycares are encouraging pregnancy, teen birth rates have gone down significantly at the schools where child day care was provided. In the article High Schools offer day-care services for teen parents to prevent dropouts by the washington post they state, “ The teen birth rate reached a historic low at 34.3 births per 1000 females aged 15 to 19 in 2010”. In areas that provide in shcool daycared for teens, the birthrates go down which may be becuase the students at the svhool have the ability to see their classmates children and how they struggle to stay in school. Again by the washington post, they state, “The birth rates in previous years had a 9 percent decline from 2009”. These decreasing birthreates due to daycares benifit the teen, the child, and their family. A town in massachusetts by the name of gloucester, provided in school daycares that allowed birth rates to decline by 45 percent from 1996 to 2006(NBC News). By offering these in school daycares, the schools have been able to help teens see the work they have to put in for their child and show them how it can limit their options on their future while also displaying it to other students in the school.

High schools should provide teens with in school daycare. Most teens wouldn't be able to afford regular day care and would typically dropout of school to take care of their child.however with the in school daycare, they are able to drop their kid off to trustworthy care takers and continue their education.

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