ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a descriptive statement of current changes in adolescence and motherhood and a critique of the way girls have been socialized for motherhood in the past. The chapter deals with the critical turning point in the lives of adolescents that occurs with sexual initiation. The young people themselves were talking a great deal about the pros and cons of intercourse outside of marriage, the nature of sexual relations, of marriage, of virginity, and a host of other interpersonal relationships. Sexual initiation, at whatever age, is such an expectable "crisis" that lends itself to the turning-point approach. The significance for motherhood of a growing spread between age of menarche and age of marriage cannot be ignored in our thinking about socialization for motherhood in adolescence. In addition to the concept of tipping points the author found it useful to use the concept of turning points. A turning point is countertrend, a tipping point is trend-conforming and trend-confirming.
