ABSTRACT
A round of media attention focused on the “tragedy” of teenage pregnancy, casting the unmarried teenage mother as the source of virtually all of society’s ills. After becoming mothers, young women are confronted with a lack of affordable child care and a job market that pays women inadequate, disproportionately low wages. Many women’s and welfare rights advocates also believe the “children having children” label infantilizes adolescent mothers, helping to justify policies that treat them as incapable of making decisions. Teen mothers are often treated as scapegoats in the media, but Jonathan Alter’s December 12, 1994, Newsweek column set some kind of record for sweeping generalizations: “Every threat to the fabric of this country—from poverty to crime to homelessness—is connected to out-of-wedlock teen pregnancy.” The headline chosen by the Boston Globe for Goodman’s column, “Welfare Mothers with an Attitude,” played up the worst aspects of the piece.
