9-year-old girl gives birth in Brazil

I find that curious. Surely, these girls that come from the poorest backgrounds cannot have their circumstances improved my the mere act of having children.

They must either be having relationships with men with good jobs, or as I mentioned, be getting a government handout.

They may initially feel better about themselves, but if you can't properly take care of your family, the cycle starts all over again with a new generation.

Reyn--

I'm most of the way through reading Promises I Can Keep: Why Poor Women Put Motherhood Before Marriage by Kathryn Edin and Maria Kefalas.

The women in this study are from six areas of Philadelphia, but their reasoning and their dead-end lives are very, very similar to their counterparts in Great Britain.



This is what the Cycle of Poverty is all about. These girls see motherhood as their only career choice. Why should they expect the studs to "father" the children they sire? They come from matriarchal homes.

A baby for a girl/woman of limited dreams means adulthood. A baby means someone who will love her without reservations. A baby is someone she can love without reservations.

These girls/women see no stigma to welfare--they may be the third and fourth and fifth generation of their families on welfare.

They don't see their choice of becoming pregnant at an early age (by an inadequate father figure) as limiting the future of their children. They see the limitations coming from the crime-ridden, drug-ridden neighborhood.

There aren't a lot of good boys/men in the inner city for an aspiring mother to choose from. As many as 55% of the males of their generation are in jail. Families that achieve middle-class respectability move away from the crime-ridden, drug-ridden neighborhood leaving less motivated brothers and sisters behind.

The Cycle of Poverty--where the trapped know of no other reality.

Well, at least the study my last quotes were referring at noted that about 3/4 of those babies are born in families = there's a father, at home.

Additionally, I don't think that more than half of males in these parts of the UK, where the survey was taken, are imprisoned. There's no hint for such.

Three cheers for the Old World--and a more sensible view of the small fish in the drug business.

Walter & Noddy,

It seems the answer would lie in some sort of alternative education /job training /community work that's funded by the government - putting some of those 63m pounds to work in a different way.

Perhaps then some of these under-age girls would make wiser choices. Getting pregnant at 13 can't be good for anybody, least of all the country, never mind the individuals.

Reyn--

No one objectively thinks early pregnancy is a "good" idea.

Few have the subjective impression that it is a "good" investment to spend several billion dollars providing irresistable alternatives.