America's Youth | Unwed Motherhood Is a More Serious Problem than Teenage Pregnancy

Here is the paradox. As a society, we aim a fair amount of public money and many strong words at the problem of “teen pregnancy,” that is, at the 376,000 births in one recent year to single teen mothers under the age of 20. Yet we pay comparatively little attention—indeed, it often seems that as a society we are stone-cold silent—regarding the 439,000 births that same year to single mothers in their early 20s. Are we against the former but indifferent to the latter? If so, what is our reasoning? Consider the prospects for a typical 20- or 22-year-old single mother and her baby....

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