ABSTRACT

In the preceding chapters we examined, from a quantitative perspective, the lives of adolescent mothers and their children, as well as how mothers influence their children’s development. The data revealed problematic development, especially among the children, but considerable variability as well. Whereas some adolescent mothers were resilient and able to meet the challenges presented to them, others continued to have difficulties during the first 8 years of parenthood, depending greatly on the assistance of others to meet their day-to-day needs. Some children were greatly affected by the turmoil in their mother’s lives, whereas others appeared less impacted. In this chapter, we use a qualitative approach to examine more closely the lives of selected mother-child dyads. The reason for this qualitatively driven search is that the quantitative approach is limited by the scope of our measurement scheme, especially by the type of assessments employed and the timing of those assessments, both of which restrict the set of questions that can be asked.