"I gave birth to 15": Women about teenage pregnancy
During the presidency of Ronald Reagan Sex education in the United States was replaced by abstinence propaganda: teenagers were convinced that sex before marriage was a sin. The results were not long in coming, and there was a sharp increase in teenage pregnancies in the country. This difference can be observed even now: in the conservative state of Mississippi, there are 55 teenagers per 1000 pregnancies, whereas in New Hampshire, where sex education is given a lot of attention, only 16 out of 1000.
According to the data for 2013, 46 out of 1000 Russian women aged 15 to 19 years become pregnant - this is the average for the countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia. For comparison, in Nigeria - this is 203 teenage girls out of 1000, and in Switzerland - 8 out of 1000. At the same time, about 30% of teenage pregnancies in Russia end in abortions, which is approximately equal to statistics in the United States and differs from data, for example, in Sweden, where abortions end 70% of teenage pregnancies.
Of course, many teenage parents cope with a sudden maturity in an emergency mode, but the appearance of a child in immature age still remains a test that not everyone overcomes. We talked to girls who became pregnant during adolescence, and found out why contraception is failing, how to end up studying with a newborn, and what people think about teenage mothers.
I became pregnant at the age of 17, when a serious relationship had just started to be laid with my future husband. He was a little older than me - he was 22 years old. I finished school, went to university and learned about pregnancy as early as September. By that time, I had already mentally made plans for life: a university with a red diploma, then work, and a family and a child by the age of 25. At first I was scared and for the first couple of hours I was thinking about having an abortion. Then she called the guy - he reassured me and offered to get married.
At first we were afraid to talk about it to my parents, but in the end everything turned out well. Of course, at first my mother cried a little - she felt sorry for my youth, but quickly gathered her thoughts and said that I would cope with the child, even if the guy decided to act unworthily. But everything went well.
Like everyone, my hormones galloped and toxicosis happened, but the pregnancy was pretty easy for me. All this time I constantly went to the university, and on the day when I started having contractions, I was just about to go for the exam. I gave birth in May, so that in September I was able to return to school: the mother, the husband, constantly called to sit with the child. True, at one point such an opportunity disappeared, and yet I had to take academic leave for a year. Then the child grew to kindergarten, and I received a diploma and went to work.
Now my son is eight years old, and a year ago I had a planned birth of a daughter. Because of the pregnancy, I had to quickly grow up, but I was lucky, because there was always a family around.
When I became pregnant, I was only 17 years old, and my boyfriend was 21. In matters of contraception, I completely relied on him, so everything happened very unexpectedly. At first he didn’t believe and constantly started talking about the fact that I was expecting a child from someone else. Despite this, I didn’t even think about abortion, although I was afraid to tell my mother for a long time - in vain, she supported me very well.
He was decided to sign the guy, because he, because of his legal illiteracy, thought that he could go to prison: I was a minor (The age of sexual consent in Russia begins at the age of 16. - Ed.). Mom signed the permit, and we got married in the twentieth week of pregnancy. I then studied in a technical school for a hairdresser, and all of my classmates were shocked. Before that, they knew me as a responsible, calm and non-conflicting girl, and then - a pregnancy at the age of 17! There were many rumors and unpleasant conversations, but the main thing that I managed to finish my studies did not even have to take a sabbatical.
I transferred the pregnancy easily: the doctors protected me because I was very young. True, in one and a half years of breastfeeding, I gained twenty kilograms - I started dieting all the time, complexes because of my body and stretch marks. At first, my husband and child lived with my mother, but then we managed to move into our own housing. My husband made me leave my favorite job and go to the nursery school where my child was. In the meantime, he switched to another job, stopped earning money normally and bringing money into the house. Very reluctantly spent money on a child and often made claims to me due to the fact that our daughter behaves badly. Relations were spoiled, and we ended up divorcing after five years of marriage.
After the divorce, the first time was hard and financially, and emotionally, because the husband went to another woman, but over time everything worked out: I returned to my favorite job, began to earn money normally and met another man. The former husband pays a paltry alimony of 2,000 rubles, and we have not seen each other for three years. But I realized in time that it was necessary to live for myself and a child, and not men.
I am a Muslim from those parts of Russia where the bride theft is considered a normal thing. When I was 12 years old, I met my future husband: we talked for two years, and then we agreed that he would steal me from my parents' house. A month after the start of sexual activity, I became pregnant - I was 15 years old, and my boyfriend was 16. All the people in the village where we lived were shocked and began to spread rumors. But all this is not important - we were husband and wife before God.
My parents were against my pregnancy, so I specifically bought birth control pills when I started a relationship with a man. But I did not drink them and decided to rely on fate. Moreover, five years before that, I had a little sister - I often babysit with her and realized that I love children and become a good mother.
I had a good pregnancy, and the child was born healthy and calm. I graduated from school in my homeland, and then entered the technical school in Ulyanovsk. True, after the first semester, I had to take academic leave for a year: the guy went to work in Moscow and there was no one to sit with the child. I returned to the village, and this year was hard for me. All my friends condemned me behind my back, spread rumors that I was nursing a child - it was very disappointing, sometimes I even cried because of such hostility. Then my mother went to meet me and took a vacation at her own expense, so that I could go back to the city to finish my studies while she was studying the child. After that I graduated from university in absentia.
Now I am waiting for the fourth child and am on maternity leave. It’s probably a bit early to give birth to a child at the age of 15, but this is my destiny, and I don’t regret my decision at all. Now my first son is 11 years old, and he is just wonderful - very smart and responsive.
I got pregnant at the age of 17, when I just met my first love and started having sex. Of course, this was due to absolute sexual illiteracy. In the early 90s there was no sex education, and condoms, it seemed, were not so easy to get. In general, the information was not really. But I heard about oral contraceptives, so I asked my mother to help me buy them. At that time we were at the dacha and together went to some strange local pharmacy - such a full trip for contraceptives. But for some reason they did not work!
At that time I studied at the evening department at Moscow State University, and during the day I worked in the kitchen in the kindergarten. The first symptom of pregnancy was that I just physically could not be at work: too many smells. I told my mother about it - she reacted normally, but said that she would not be able to help especially, because she herself had a small child: my brother was born five years before.
At that moment, an abortion was somehow dumb - it seemed to me a completely incomprehensible topic. In addition, my future husband and his parents advised to leave the child. The guy and I decided to wait until I turned 18, and get married, so as not to suffer with additional formalities. So I came to the registry office with a noticeable belly.
After the birth of the child, I left work and took a sabbatical leave at the university - for three years I worked only as a child. My husband and I were practically of the same age, so there wasn’t much money: because of his age, he couldn’t earn much, and there was no place to expect financial assistance. They lived now with my parents, then with him, sometimes the mother-in-law brought some vegetables from the dacha. Life was very modest, but at the same time I can not say that it was hard. I liked to sit with the child, walk a lot and read. It was much more difficult when we divorced, I was left without money and housing, and my son and I moved from one apartment of my friends to another, not having my own home for a while.
At the age of three, the child went to kindergarten, and I returned to the university and to my normal life. In general, I do not think that the birth of children can radically ruin someone's life or put a choice: family or career. Decree or academic does not mean the end of life, and the birth of two children did not prevent me from doing both work and study.
I became pregnant at the age of 16, at that time we met with my future husband for four months. The guy was four years older than me and advised me to leave the child, I even took it on my own to inform my mother. She reacted knowingly, and the rest of the family and my friends tried not to comment that I was going to have a child too soon. And I myself was scared not so much because of the appearance of a child, but because of possible problems with my studies: at that moment I was studying at an art school.
Of course, pregnancy in a certain sense violated my plans. The day before I was preparing for an operation on the endocrine system, and it had to be canceled. I also went on academic leave almost as soon as I got pregnant. I had to finish my studies already at the correspondence department. And yet they helped me quite a lot with the child: my mother went to meet and took him to her, and her husband had many weekends. Even in school, they tried to close their eyes to my absenteeism, because they knew about the child. Thanks to my mother, I did not feel that I was missing my youth: I had the opportunity to visit or take a walk with my husband. In addition, fears about lack of sleep due to a child were not justified - my daughter slept until 11 o'clock in the morning almost every day.
I began to work part time almost immediately after the birth of the child. I am a graphic designer by profession, so I had the opportunity to work at home. And when the child was two years old, we gave him to the nursery - because my husband was a military man and he was given such a benefit. Soon I went to the second job. I have never regretted my decision: I really like being a young mother, and now my husband and I are planning a second child.
Photo: 20th Century Fox, Columbia Pictures