Teen Moms have become less common in Ireland in the past decade dropping to between 4-6 for every 1000 women pregnant in Ireland according to the world population review 2021.
The Irish times stated in an article in 2022 that there is a 73% drop in teen pregnancies in the past 20 years.
A teen mother is counted as any woman in their teenage years becoming pregnant. A lot of these teen pregnancies that occurred and still happen today are out of wedlock, which isn’t seen as huge problem now in our current society compared to the standards and beliefs that Irish society had not too long ago.
If a girl was pregnant out of wedlock in Ireland between the years of 1880 up to 1973 many where sent to an unmarried mothers home. Irelands proportion of Irish mothers put into homes was probably the highest in the world as it was seen as shameful to be a young girl pregnant out of wedlock as it was against the rules of the church and Irish people where very strongly religious at the time.
Over time in Ireland it became more expectable to be a teen mother, and although many of these teen pregnancies were not planned the baby was either welcomed into the Irish household or many of the mothers were disregarded from her family as the parents where disgraced, which can still happen to this day.
When a teen girl or any woman gets pregnant they have a big and tough decision to make of whether they are going to keep there child, have an abortion, put the baby up for adoption and the options go on and on.
Luckily women in our contemporary world have these options and more access to contraception as our health faciality’s and medicine are improving. However it is a challenging job to be a mother, especially at such a young age.
In this interview, I spoke to two grown up mothers that have raised their children that they had when they were teenagers and have continued to have more children since.
Here Susan and Hannah May Jane about their experiences of being a Teen mother and what advice do they have for other young women that are in the position now in their lives that they were in back then.
They talk about the struggles of being a teen mother and what impacts it had on there lives. Susan had her first child in the 90’s and Hannah had her first in the 2000’s and although their experiences are very different they shared similar hardships as teen mothers.
Susan and Hannah have both had there lives changed and have no regrets. They both have very successful careers and have and still are raising their children. Susan has 5 children now and Hannah has 3 and they both value their family over their careers but still make time to maintain their careers on the side of being a mother.
