Abstract
Teenage pregnancy has been the subject of recent policy development within the British government. Viewed from an overwhelmingly negative standpoint, young parenthood is recognised as a feature of impoverished communities while policies focus on technical and educational ‘solutions’ to reduce the levels of conceptions to under-18. Narrative research was undertaken to listen to the experiences of a small group of young women within individual interviews, with the aim of understanding the meanings of pregnancy for them. Childhood experiences and individual adversity were found to be the structuring features of most of the narratives obtained from the young women. The narratives also revealed a highly restorative aspect to pregnancy and motherhood, connected to overcoming earlier experiences. This appeared to suggest meanings for early pregnancy and parenthood for young women at odds with governmental policy direction, calling into question the focus on reduction that dominates current policy thinking.
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Acknowledgements
My thanks go to the unnamed young women who so generously gave me their stories for this study. I hope I have listened well. I am indebted to Dr. Helen Cosis Brown and Dr. Linda Bell at Middlesex University, London for their unfailing support and quality of supervision throughout this study and to the Economic and Social Research Council, whose funding made it possible.
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Middleton, S. ‘I Wouldn’t Change Having the Children—Not at All.’ Young Women’s Narratives of Maternal Timing: What the UK’s Teenage Pregnancy Strategy Hasn’t Heard. Sex Res Soc Policy 8, 227–238 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13178-011-0058-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13178-011-0058-x