"The upshot is that teen motherhood is much more a consequence of intense poverty than its cause. Preaching good behavior won’t do anything to reduce its incidence, and even handing out free birth control won’t contribute meaningfully to solving economic problems. Instead, family life seems to follow real economic opportunities. Where poor people can see that hard work and “playing by the rules” will reward them, they’re pretty likely to do just that. Where the system looks stacked against them, they’re more likely to abandon mainstream norms. Those who do so by becoming single teen moms end up fairing poorly in life, but those bad outcomes seem to be a result of bleak underlying circumstances rather than poor choices."
—
Matt Yglesias at Slate, explaining that getting pregnant doesn’t make teen girls more likely to be poor throughout life. Being poor makes teen girls more likely to get pregnant. Poverty isn’t something inflicted on teen mothers by some vindictive paternalistic cosmos, y’all… (via thepoliticalnotebook)
And also, if you think about it, if the best thing you have to look forward to is flipping burgers at McDonalds, doesn’t motherhood sound at least a bit more meaningful, especially when you’re a teenager and don’t understand what it means to support a child. It did to me when I was younger, and I DID have the prospect of college.
(via mirkwood)
and they also usually are raised in ridiculous bible thumping preachy communities that demonize abortions
why ruin 2 peoples lives for the next 20 years go out and get an abortion
(via relright)
awfulmodifications:
SOURCE
What’s Awful: This girl is clearly unlicensed, and working in very unsanitary conditions, without proper equipment.
How It Can Be Fixed: Don’t get tattoos from people who are underage, unlicensed!
if she did verify proper licensing and had sanitary conditions i would definitely get a tat from her just to say i did
(via caterinrios)
