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Looking At The Options

50 Lessons Over Easy

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Options for a Pregnant Unmarried Woman

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Marriage

• The mother and father can marry and raise the child together. In some teen couple case, there are many thing to discuss prior to a marriage such as, the stresses of parenthood, care giving of the child, and financial situation.

• A marriage should be a mutual responsibility. A marriage that is joined with out mutual respect and responsibility seldom lasts long. Marriages under the age of 18 are four times more likely to end in divorce than marriages of those over twenty.

• The majority of teen marriage end within a few years.

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Questions to Talk about Before A Teen Marries

1. How will you share in the responsibility of parenthood?

2. How can you both finish high school?

3. Where will money come from while educations are being finished?

4. Does either potential partner have work experience?

5. Where will you live? Cost?

6. How will you provide for furnishings and necessities for the baby?

7. Will the child go to child care? Cost?

8. How do each partner’s parents feel about the marriage?

9. Do you love each other?

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Single Parenting

• Becoming a teenage single parent can be overwhelming. It usually means rearranging one owns life to include the needs of a baby. If a woman decides to be a singe parent it is important to decide what the needs will be and what resources are available for help.

• Counselors in public and private agencies can help identify resources that will be needed such as child care, special courses for teen moms, housing information, and healthcare for the mother and the baby.

• Parents, relatives and other friends often make this option a possibility by offering to assist in the child rearing responsibility.

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Adoption

• Adoptions is giving up a baby for someone else to raise.

• The statistics say that teens are much less likely to choose adoption than people in their twenties.

• It takes great maturity, love, and strength to

place someone else’s needs before one’s own.

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• Adoption means putting the baby’s needs first.

• People who adopt babies are carefully screened when adopting through an approved agency.

• There are long lists of people who are anxiously

waiting to adopt infants.

• One in six couples in the USA cannot have

children.

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Looking at the Options

• Complete the worksheet.

• Due at the end of class.