Cashmore and Paxman (1996) found that nearly one in three of the young women leaving care in New South Wales became pregnant or had a child soon after leaving wardship. This was the case with our sample also (just over one in three of the young women or nine of the 24). Pregnancy for a teenage young woman brings a whole set of everyday life difficulties. While it might be argued that these difficulties beset any young mother without adequate support, young women leaving care who generally have less support available are more vulnerable. Becoming a mother may signify the transition to a more adult role, but achieving the means of independence becomes more difficult for a teenage mother. The second important point is that the available evidence suggests that young women leaving care are more likely to become pregnant than other young women in the same age group. These issues do not allow conclusions to be drawn about pregnancy and the experience of the care system but pregnancy soon after care emerges as an issue in both this study and Cashmore and Paxman’s earlier longi- tudinal research.
The first case study, Rose, is a complex case loaded with a number of entangled issues; however, Rose believed her pregnancy was a significant factor in the difficulties she had in securing her transition to independence.
Rose
Rose is a young Aboriginal woman of 18 who became pregnant after leaving care. At the age of seven she was fostered with an aunt and uncle but “didn’t know them from a bar of soap”. Her mother was alcoholic and depressed and used to bash the children. The foster parents were also alcoholics, their sons and daughters were on drugs and the house was filthy. Rose had to wear the same clothes for several days before washing was done. No lunches were provided to take to school. Children were bashed and the family was more crowded than her natural one.
Rose was visited by her mother every three months or so. She left the placement at 16 and lived with friends and a boyfriend. She is now living with friends. She was given no preparation for independent living:
I wasn’t prepared for nothing. I didn’t know what was outside that front door. I found out the hard way for myself.
Through an employee of her bank, she was put in touch with a care agency which is now helping her to
get housing through the State housing department. Other youth workers have helped and told her about her rights.
Rose worked for a while in an hotel for several months following an eight-week course. She would like to complete her Year 12 and get a really good job, possibly in an hotel or as a flight attendant. She saw her pregnancy as limiting her opportunities in these areas. She had been using drugs but no longer does so.
Rose is very critical of the foster placement and its supervision.
They should know where they are putting these children and know the people and the background of the people. They should keep in contact and make sure these things are happening in the house that they think are happening.
Rose feels that she is coping well with independent living but would like to cope a lot better. “People that have been down the road I have turned out a lot worse than what I am.” With a more suitable placement, she considered that she would not have been on drugs, could have stayed at school and would not have become pregnant. While Rose sees her pregnancy as a setback to her independence, she clearly sees it as a result of her placement experience and the care system. For others, however, having a child can bring meaning to life that otherwise has been lacking.
Sonia
Sonia provides another example of teenage pregnancy following a care placement. She is a young woman of 19 who lives on a sole parent pension in public housing, in a rural and fairly remote region. Sonia is epileptic and dyslexic and left school in Grade 9. She started a forestry course but could not get employment and has worked in takeaway shops and as a topless barmaid.
Sonia was placed in care at 13 as her stepfather hit her and threatened to kill her. She was placed in a girls’ refuge and women’s centre and then with a foster family. This remote region has very few foster families (Sonia tells us only two) and she considered this one “not very nice”. Sonia was subjected to abuse by the foster parents’ natural children and an uncle attempted to rape her. Most of her clothes and possessions were stolen. She ran away and stayed a while with friends and then moved into a caravan. The caravan was lonely but she liked the freedom. The loneliness steered her to drugs and alcohol and she became addicted. She ended up in hospital with alcoholic poisoning.
Sonia tells us that her child has brought stability and meaning into her life. She gave up drugs except for cigarettes. Her goal is to be a good mother; she sews, and has thoughts of later taking a course so that she can make articles to sell in markets. She feels that she is coping well with independent living. Sonia’s view is in contrast to Rose’s in seeing positive outcomes of her pregnancy. Linda, however, regarded pregnancy negatively and resulting from inadequate sex education.
Linda
Linda is 18 and has a son of 12 months. She was critical of the lack of sex education for young women in care and considered that there should be more single-sex units.
Linda: They don’t teach you anything about sex education. (In) the units, most of the girls there don’t use anything.
Interviewer: So they don’t tell you about contraception? Linda: No. That’s why I reckon they should have just girls units so they can teach the girls about these things instead of being with the boys and stuff. That’s where I reckon the stuff-up in the system is. Lots of girls get pregnant.
There is evidence that more advantaged young women also lack knowledge of safe sex practices and that even when young women are well-informed, power relations often negate safe practice (see, for example, Wyn 1991, pp.96–103).
Julie
Julie is a 20-year-old whose life revolves around her two and a half-year-old son. She has no permanent accommodation and is currently living in a youth refuge. She left home at 13 due to violence from her alcoholic father and was placed temporarily in refuges. She was then placed in foster care which did not work as the foster parents were old and restrictive and the placement isolated. She ran away and was placed with her grandmother at 15. Because she was with her grandmother, she was discharged from care but she did not stay there long. She stopped going to school in Year 8 and worked in a restaurant and then had a job in a child minding centre until she was 18. When she became pregnant she returned to her mother who had remarried. After the birth, she rented a house for a while, then moved back to her mother “and we had a big fight” so she returned to the refuge.
Julie would like to find stable accommodation and
eventually to return to work in the hospitality industry. Child-care work is less appealing now that she has her own child. She finds relaxation in smoking dope. At one stage she wanted to do youth work but feels there is too much studying involved. She needs money to provide stable accommodation for her son. She has recently been to Court in connection with writing cheques for food and clothes without funds to back them.
Julie is confident of getting housing at an affordable rent which will make it easier for her to make ends meet. Many other single mothers have public housing which is a significant factor for their independence. Julie has a small and fragile support network, essentially her mother, sister and one friend. She speaks very positively of the social worker who helped her to leave care by moving to her grandmother but that contact was five years ago. As a supporting mother it is likely that she will be successful in getting accommodation which she can afford.
Being a supporting mother can give young women a sense of commitment and purpose, though motherhood responsibilities restrict freedom and increase responsibility and financial commitments. The welfare system tends to be more supportive; benefits and housing are a little easier to come by because of the needs of the child involved. It may not be politically acceptable to some people for young women to use motherhood as a way of achieving social citizenship. However, there is little evidence from these case studies that motherhood is a carefully thought out plan to access support. In all of these cases the issue of pregnancy does not stand alone. While becoming pregnant does attract a certain special consideration of support, including benefits from the welfare system, the difficulties for a young mother should not be underestimated, in particular, by limiting options for entering the labour force. One respondent believed that her pregnancy adversely affected her life after placement. Another suggested that sex education during placement might have helped her avoid pregnancy soon after leaving care. Young women leaving care are generally more vulnerable because their support networks are usually less adequate. Young women leaving care are more likely to become pregnant than other young women of the same age. Pregnancy is thus an outcome, rather than a cause of incomplete transition to independence. It is related to the vulnerability of young women leaving care.