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This article doesn't mention the religious communities where young people commonly marry and start having children before age 20. A friend of mine grew up in o

This article doesn't mention the religious communities where young people commonly marry and start having children before age 20. A friend of mine grew up in one such fundamentalist community in rural Iowa; she married at 20, but some of her peers were already moms by that age. I wonder whether they include this type of parent in the statistics, or are they only talking about unwed mothers here? There seem to be a lot of rural counties in the first quintile of teenage pregnancy, and I venture to guess that some of them, the ones not in large cities or general urban areas, are traditional or fundamentalist communities where teenage girls often marry. Unfortunately, our socio-economic system (outside these specialized communities) is just not set up to accommodate pregnancy at the age when we are most fertile. It's too bad, given how many of us are delaying having children until our 30s, even 40s, and running into all sorts of issues for both the mom and the child; I have personal experience in this. Anyway, this looks like a good trend, that kids are either finally "getting it" or else they're simply too distracted by technological toys to be fooling around like they used to!

renox 11y ago
> Unfortunately, our socio-economic system (outside these specialized communities) is just not set up to accommodate pregnancy at the age when we are most fertile. It's too bad[cut] I'm not so sure: I feel like I wouldn't have been mature enough to raise children correctly in my twenties.. IMHO the ideal age for raising children is your 30s: not only you're mature and young enough but if your parents had you in their 30s, they can also help raising the children especially if they just retired: win-win.
- blisterpeanuts 11y ago
  The ideal age for raising children probably is the 30s. In traditional societies, the grandparents had a large role in child rearing. It makes sense; the young'uns are fertile, strong and energetic; perfect age to bear children. The oldsters are well qualified to teach and provide guidance. I think we've lost something, a certain quality of life, as a result of the dispersal of families. 100 years ago, it was common in both rural and urban America for extended families to be under the same roof or at least nearby. Now, kids move away, sometimes very far away, wait until their 30s to have kids, when the grandparents are getting too old and tired to help (except maybe financially) and the kids miss out on the rich multigenerational experience that was how people transmitted their wisdom, experience, and traditions.

renox 11y ago

> Unfortunately, our socio-economic system (outside these specialized communities) is just not set up to accommodate pregnancy at the age when we are most fertile. It's too bad[cut] I'm not so sure: I feel like I wouldn't have been mature enough to raise children correctly in my twenties.. IMHO the ideal age for raising children is your 30s: not only you're mature and young enough but if your parents had you in their 30s, they can also help raising the children especially if they just retired: win-win.

blisterpeanuts 11y ago
The ideal age for raising children probably is the 30s. In traditional societies, the grandparents had a large role in child rearing. It makes sense; the young'uns are fertile, strong and energetic; perfect age to bear children. The oldsters are well qualified to teach and provide guidance. I think we've lost something, a certain quality of life, as a result of the dispersal of families. 100 years ago, it was common in both rural and urban America for extended families to be under the same roof or at least nearby. Now, kids move away, sometimes very far away, wait until their 30s to have kids, when the grandparents are getting too old and tired to help (except maybe financially) and the kids miss out on the rich multigenerational experience that was how people transmitted their wisdom, experience, and traditions.