What do we do about teenage mothers?
Meet Jazza. He runs an extremely popular YouTube channel called 'Rhyming with Oranges' which has nearly 13,000 subscribers and almost 200,000 channel views. He's also supporting The Teens' Speech.
In his video introduction to this weeks theme, family, Jazza suggests that instead of marginalising and demonising teenage mothers, we - as a society - should be offering them unconditional support.
Funnily enough that's what we used to do.
In stark contrast with current attitudes to young motherhood, a teenager's decision to raise her child used to be considered as something overwhelmingly positive. The sacrifice and altruism of being a mum was seen as the reverse of the selfish pursuit of pleasure that led to the pregnancy in the first place.
Maybe there's still something to be said for this?
According to respected academic, Ofra Koffman, many pregnant girls feel morally unable to terminate a pregnancy, and believe that by becoming mothers they are "taking responsibility" for their actions.
If that's the case, then maybe we should stop treating teenage mothers as a marginalised and shameful group and start thinking about what we can do to support them.
I don't think that means we accept teenage pregnancy and motherhood as a good thing - it clearly isn't and more needs to be done to educate young people about the consequences of unprotected sex.
But, why are we pushing young women to the margins of society irrevocably because of the poor choices they've made? Shouldn't we throw a collective arm around them, support them, guide them and help them become better parents?
Isn't helping to create a generation of happy families actually in the country's best interest?
