Wee Care: reaching teenage mothers and changing their lives - outreach program offered by Jewish Family and Children's Service of Philadelphia

Children Today, May-June, 1989 by Priscilla R. Rosenwald, Gwen Porter

Program Content

Wee Care weekly group sessions include drug and alcohol information, information on sexuality and sexually transmitted disease, stress management, development of parenting skills, self care and child care responsibilities, setting goals for oneself, and developing healthy relationships. Teens also had the opportunity to share common concerns with their peers.

But it became apparent that our young clients needed much more than a 2-hour weekly group seminar. The individual problems of each participant were overwhelming. Staff counselors found that they were spending enormous amounts of time doing necessary social work--visiting homes to talk to the new grandparents about the infant and teen mother, chasing down teenage fathers and getting them involved, teaching clients how to stretch money and how to prepare nutritious food.

Community resources were tapped, and counselors, on their own time, talked area merchants into supporting the program by providing gift certificates to the young women. The counselors used the gift certificates as a way of teaching the girls to shop wisely for food and clothing and to resist impulse buying. One counselor got gift certificates for free diapers and formula; another took her group to a book store.

Prediction for Success

We cannot predict, based on our observations and information about the teenage mother and her family and community support system, which ones will be permanent members of the underclass and which will be among the 25 percent who take the giant and permanet step up. Yet we see a common thread among those whom we think will, indeed, make it. The young woman who can become a self-supporting, self-loving person, who can parent well and continue growing toward maturity, must:

Recognize and accept the fact that her adolescence is over. In practical terms, this means that she will, for many years, juggle the demands of school, jobs, and her child or children and take responsibility for her life.

Most teenage mothers expected their mothers and/or grandmothers to take care of their babies. The mothers and grandmothers were often too willing to fill that role; it had been done for them--the pregnant 15-year-old couldn't even take care of herself, and certainly could not take care of an infant.

When the teenage mother was able to abdicate responsibility for the child and continue her adolescent life, she often continued drug and alcohol use, got pregnant again, and/or abused her child. The mother who could be encouraged to mourn her childhood and take on the responsibilities of parenthood was more likely to develop long-range goals.

This does not negate the importance of emotional support and acceptance. While the teenage mother needs the loving support of her family, she must take on the responsibility of parenthood, and grow up quickly when she becomes a mother.

Take responsibility for her own life. In many families, older women (mothers, grandmothers, aunts) continued to treat the pregnant teenager as a child. In other cases (and this was common in our population), an older man entered the picture. There were many cases in which the client became pregnant by a teenage boy, who then disappeared from her life. But she then became involved with a man 20 to 30 years older, who, with the tacit or open approval of her family, paid the bills, moved in with her, and took over as a parent/lover.