Ruth Williams was 17 when she became pregnant with the first of her four children.
That year she dropped out of Corcoran High School, began taking Young Mothers Educational Development classes, got married and got her GED. She also began getting help with housing from the federal Section 8 subsidized housing program; supplemental food from the federal Women, Infants, and Children, or WIC; Food Stamps and a monthly income from welfare programs.
“It was hard raising my children but I used government assistance to get by. I had the help of my family and the government,” said Williams, who is now 45, living in Syracuse and working in childcare.
As a teenager, Williams was much like the 52 out of every 1,000 teens who become pregnant yearly in Syracuse, according to the New York State Council on Children and Families, a government agency that coordinates state services. Some of the teenage moms have grown up in pervasive poverty or in troubled homes, say experts on teen pregnancy. Others are in foster care or have been sexually or physically abused. Some lack access to birth control, say teen pregnancy experts, while others decide to have babies because of loneliness and low self-esteem.
And many spend much of their lives in poverty and dependent on government help because they are unable to care for their children alone.
Consider these statistics:
- In Onondaga County, 52 girls out of every 1,000 were pregnant in 2008, according to the New York State Council on Children and Families.
- In some of the poorer areas of Syracuse, as many as 242 teenage girls out of every 1,000 are pregnant, according to the New York State Department of Health.
- Nationally, almost 80 percent of teen mothers rely on public assistance, according to a 2006 report by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy. These are the most recent statistics available.
- Children born to teen mothers are 27 percent more likely to grow up in poverty, according to a 2010 report by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy.
The patterns in teenage pregnancy are stark, says Jutta Dotterweich, training coordinator for ACT Center for Excellence with Cornell University. Teens who are low-income, sexually or physically abused, or lack access to birth control are more at risk than others to become teen parents, she said.
But some consciously decide to become pregnant. “They’re young women who want someone to love and connect with them. There’s a void in their lives. They need someone who will love them unconditionally,” says Dotterweich. Many come from low-income and poor families and becoming parents makes them feel accomplished, she added.
Once their babies are born, experts say, teenage mothers can find themselves caught in a cycle of poverty.
Many teens find themselves pregnant again, soon after the first child is born and after that the possibility of getting a high school or GED diploma is slim, said Elizabeth Crockett, executive director of Reach CNY, an advocacy group with the goal of preventing teen pregnancy.
Reach CNY provides teens with information on sex, abstinence and alternative activities as part of a sex-education curriculum, says Crockett. If teens become pregnant, the next step is to put them in touch with programs that can help them through it. The group stresses getting an education because, said Crockett, without education, poverty is likely.
For Ruth Williams, childcare worker from Syracuse, getting her GED and getting help from public programs made it possible to raise her four sons. Her youngest son is a graduate student and football coach at Syracuse University.
She’s grateful for the help, she said. And she was determined, she recalls, to support herself. “I had to be persistent about it,” Williams said. “I refused to stay on welfare.”
(Celeste Little is a graduate student in magazine, newspaper and online journalism.)
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