On Becoming a Teen Mom

“An illuminating, inspiring, often heartbreaking investigation into the lifeworlds of teenage moms. The authors bypass stale moral panic agendas, instead creating space for the young women to speak their own truths, in their own words, while skillfully answering the forgotten question, who are these kids?”—Donna Gaines, author of Teenage Wasteland and A Misfit’s Manifesto

“A revealing exploration of the complex reality and surprising diversity behind the stereotypes of teen motherhood. Mary Patrice Erdmans and Timothy Black combine personal life histories with rigorous argument to show how teen pregnancy in America is the outcome rather than the cause of impoverished neighborhoods, stressed families, and educational inequities.”—Stephanie Coontz, author of The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap

“On Becoming a Teen Mom is a welcome counterweight to reductionist and pathologizing accounts of adolescent mothers. This book is a must-read for anyone who wants to get beyond pearl-clutching and move toward supporting pregnant and parenting teenagers.”—Jeanne Flavin, author of Our Bodies, Our Crimes: The Policing of Women’s Reproduction in America

“On Becoming a Teen Mom offers one of the deepest investigations into teen pregnancy that I have seen. Until we begin to address issues systemically, the ‘problem’ of teen pregnancy and the real problems young mothers face will not go away. This book is a significant and important contribution toward that effort.”—Wanda S. Pillow, author of Unfit Subjects: Education Policy and the Teen Mother, 1972–2002

“By interpreting common themes in the life histories of the many teen mothers they interviewed, these authors question the assumption that their futures were completely promising before they became young mothers, or that their early motherhood compromised their futures any further. We need to listen to these young women, and policy targets need to be earlier, broader, and deeper than individual sexual, contraceptive, or pregnancy behavior alone.”—Arline T. Geronimus, Fellow, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University

“On Becoming a Teen Mom powerfully reminds us that any serious discussion of the causes and consequences of teen motherhood is incomplete if it fails to account for the larger social forces at play in girls’ lives.”—Lorena Garcia, Associate Professor of Sociology and Latin American and Latino Studies, University of Illinois at Chicago

“The writing pulled me in—accessible, serious, straightforward. Once I started reading, I couldn’t put down this compelling and disturbing book on the tragedy that is structural inequality.”—Alisse Waterston, author of My Father’s Wars: Migration, Memory, and the Violence of a Century

“While the statistics about teen pregnancy tell one story, this book tells compelling stories about the multi-challenged lives of teen mothers. Mary Patrice Erdmans and Timothy Black have made a major contribution to the understanding of the intersection of teen pregnancy, family and community violence, and poverty in the United States. The voices of these teen mothers need to be heard.”—John M. Leventhal, MD, Professor of Pediatrics, Yale School of Medicine