[Sorry if you're seeing this twice. I posted the first time in the wrong place.]

I've never been pregnant so I'm just speculating here. But why aren't more young mothers in desperate straits giving their kids up for adoption? This is not to say that they shouldn't have other options, like abortion. But in thinking of my younger self, I can't imagine choosing to keep my baby had I gotten pregnant by mistake. I'm guessing that the young women who are too embarrassed of being pregnant will have abortions, and the ones who aren't are keeping their babies. I just can't understand why they would choose single motherhood. Not that we shouldn't do everything we can for single mothers. I just can't understand why a woman or girl who still has a lot of financial settling-in to do would want to be a mother.

being young doesn't necessitate having financial difficulties. so you need to pick one argument and stick with it. finance or age.

one answer is because: it's their kid and they WANT it. that's not too hard to understand. many people feel a strange bond with something that shares their DNA and shared their body for 9-10 months. Go figure...

for the record, if i had to suffer through 9 months of torture (pregnancy), i'd want to keep it too. why ruin your body and have nothing to show for it?

I'm not looking for arguments to condemn single motherhood. Just trying to understand a decision that is different than the one (I think) I would make. It strikes me as an excruciatingly hard thing to do and I'm wondering why young and/or poor women are taking on that challenge in such overwhelming numbers.

and obviously neither of us is, how much do you expect to "understand"? have you never seen those pathetic young teen girls on maury et al who say they want a "baby to love" because "nobody never loved me"... what's to understand? it's ignorance, lack of education, lack of self esteem or self worth, etc...

some girls/women think the only thing they have a chance of being good at is being a mother, and they think this not logically but with their feelings: because there is a myth out there that "all you need is love". if you love your kids, that's all that's important. and in some ways it is. it's not the end of the world to be poor, to struggle- although many of us do not seek that as a goal. but in terms of being able to provide for your family without using taxpayer funds and thus giving people an excuse to think they can butt into how you live your life... well, that's another matter entirely.

now this is but one subset of single mothers, but i think it's the one you were addressing. what doesn't make sense is discussing the issue of single mothers as a whole when everyone has completely different situations and not all of them bad. Emily Yoffe and many other posters are making the mistake of trying to make it a blanket issue instead of dealing with specific instances and examples.

For me, just thinking that my child would be raised by a republican would be horror enough.

i feel you, but i know lots of liberal or libertarian kids that have consevative parents and vice versa....

and i don't think that she was suggesting all adoptive parents are good, just that, for some people, she couldn't understand why they wouldn't consider that the child might have a better life with someone else. i, too, have heard that argument before about wondering who will end up raising your child...

personally, if you're going to give it up for adoption, i don't understand why you care what happens after you give it away anyhow. which is why i wouldn't want to get pregnant in the first place.

to sum up: there are plenty of "bad" adoptive parents, i'm sure. but i wonder if it's a much different percentage of those who are "bad" natural parents. i think we should let more people adopt and stop being so picky about trying to determine what will be a "perfect" family for these kids and finally acknowledge that living in most any family is probably better than living in a Juvenile Home of some sort.

Single people, homosexuals, etc... line up and get your kids while they're hot! That's what i say...

it's not the end of the world to be poor, to struggle- although many of us do not seek that as a goal. but in terms of being able to provide for your family without using taxpayer funds and thus giving people an excuse to think they can butt into how you live your life... well, that's another matter entirely.

I absolutely agree that we can't limit motherhood to married college graduates with ample Roth IRAs in place, although sometimes when I see cases of horrifying child abuse or bad parenting I'm tempted to wish for a parenting-license requirement. There's obviously a subset of women who are neither destitute, emotionally-fragile teenagers nor Murphy Brown-type professionals, but somewhere in between, who are choosing single motherhood. I can't judge because I've never been in their position; I'm just trying to understand.

"Not that we shouldn't do everything we can for single mothers."

By "we" I hope you don't mean the general public (ie. Taxpayers) because I do not think ignorance and irresponsiblity should be rewarded via food stamps, welfare checks, tax deductions and directions to the local food bank.

I just can't imagine what sort of upbringing these young women have had themselves that would make them think it would be a good idea to spread their legs and have unprotected sex with the first guy who offers.

Apparently morals, self respect, responsibility and pride were not taught to these young women. The sad thing is that these mothers will not be able to teach these things to their fatherless child either.

sugar_k:

[Sorry if you're seeing this twice. I posted the first time in the wrong place.]

I've never been pregnant so I'm just speculating here. But why aren't more young mothers in desperate straits giving their kids up for adoption? This is not to say that they shouldn't have other options, like abortion. But in thinking of my younger self, I can't imagine choosing to keep my baby had I gotten pregnant by mistake. I'm guessing that the young women who are too embarrassed of being pregnant will have abortions, and the ones who aren't are keeping their babies. I just can't understand why they would choose single motherhood. Not that we shouldn't do everything we can for single mothers. I just can't understand why a woman or girl who still has a lot of financial settling-in to do would want to be a mother.

Well we are not talking about women with a track record of making good decisions and showing self discipline. Giving up a child for adoption would require self sacrifice. Once these women get a look at their child they are going to fall in love with it and keep it whether they can afford to or not.