Teenage pregnancies: too much too young

The tragedy that struck Cospicua earlier this month, where a nine-month baby died drowning in a bath when her young mother left her unattended, has rekindled questions about the fate of teenage mums and their children's 'unknown fathers'.

Baby Roselana died after drowning in her bath after, prosecutors are claiming, her 17-year-old mother sat at a computer chatting with a friend. The mother, whose name cannot be published due to a court ban, is now being charged with involuntary manslaughter.

Reports claiming that the 23-year-old father who appeared in the press publicly expressing his grief, was listed as 'unknown father' on the girl's birth certificate, bring to mind the kind of responsibility these men are taking for unplanned or unwanted pregnancies.

In 2011, 32 babies were born to mothers aged 16 or under, the highest rates registered in the southern harbour (14), followed by six births in the northern harbour area.

While teenage pregnancies went down to 21% in 2010 from 24% in 2008, in 2010 a total of 624 women of all ages gave birth outside marriage. 156 of these - nothing short of 25% of these children - were born to so-called 'unknown fathers'.

Of these babies, one-third had mothers aged under 20. Is this the tell-tale sign that teenage fathers and young men are too happy to alleviate themselves of their legal responsibilities?

Baby Roselana's father, Josef Grech, lives with the 19-year-old mother of his other son, aged 3. Both mothers appear to have been 16 when they got pregnant with Grech's children.

Whether such fathers should be obliged to take responsibility for their families on notions - as anthropology Mark Anthony Falzon puts it - "of bourgeois nuclear tidiness" is not easy to answer.

"Teenage mothers are often embedded in kinship networks of solidarity mostly but not exclusively, based on senior women relatives - grandmothers can be and often are crucial for example."

Falzon argues that society has yet to determine where teenage fathers fit in tidy family models based on "mature and informed choices and careers".

"I profoundly disliked the way the father was named and portrayed - appropriately of course - as grief-stricken and the mother as some sort of pathological specimen whose identity was withheld and who needed police supervision even at her daughter's funeral.

"These are hangovers from the days when a family's honour was thought to hinge on its women's sexual morality."

Falzon gives short shrift to the temptation to conjure up the Cospicua tragedy as some general illustration of the materially impoverished south. "Teenage pregnancies are no more a phenomenon than married people are. Increasing rates of teenage pregnancy may indicate important changes in sexual morality - a more tolerant society that doesn't hive off pregnant teenagers to Timbuktu or force them to have backstreet abortions to preserve the family honour, or a combination of both. Increasing rates [of young mothers] are actually a good sign, certainly for the girls and eventually their children." But is there a case to be made about the concern for teenage mothers who are only inexperienced children forced into the role of mothers? How do teenagers cope with parenthood in a society that has extended childhood and propelled a model of womanhood which - Falzon says - "doesn't assume that women are life-supporting machines for wombs"?

As clinical psychologist Angela Abela puts it, "adolescence is not a time for having children".

"It is a time when adolescents strive to build their own identity in life, a time for investing in their future." Abela says single and teenage parenthood is still under-researched in Malta, and the 21% rate is very high, leading to concerns about the risk that these mothers fall under the poverty line. The National Statistics Office's survey on income and living conditions found the at-risk poverty rate for single parents was 56%.

"Research carried out by Charles Tabone and myself shows a strong relationship between economic poverty, a low level of education, limited employability, ill-health and poor integration in social life," Abela says.

Additionally, teenagers can be pushed towards parenthood in a bid to garner a sense of fulfilment in life, especially where they encounter school alienation and a lack of career prospects. "It makes teenagers view early parenthood as less problematic," Abela says.

As a social worker, Agenzija Appogg service manager Catherine Fleri Soler has worked close to teenage mums. But what has mostly impressed her was the vulnerability of these young mothers both before and after their pregnancy.

"They are vulnerable when they get pregnant and they are vulnerable when they become mothers. If before they thought they had poor opportunity chances, they would now start seeing that window closing even faster," she said. And it's at this point, Fleri Soler says, that these women realise they are losing part of their youth. "Suddenly, they want to go out and have fun with their friends, be part of that circle just as the were before, and so not implementing any changes to their lifestyle. So the grandmother ends up taking care of the child while the young mum is out.

"Others, on the other hand, may take motherhood more seriously but may also end up closing themselves off from others because of the need of the child." Like Abela, Fleri Soler argues that it's the risk of poverty that is of major concern for teenage mothers. "Pregnancy is not the end of the world and they learn how to bring up their baby. They'd love their baby just like any other mother loves her child. But the risks they face would be falling into the line of poverty."

Fleri Soler also argues that at times, having an unknown father could prove better for both mother and child: "It reduces the control the father might have on the mother, particularly where the relationship might have been turbulent or abusive, whether physical or emotional."

Agenzija Appogg provides Community Services through various preventive programmes held within the community itself, including those aimed at young people, to enhance the quality of life of the community, including adolescents. Services like Benniena offer support to mothers-to-be if they experience a crisis due to their pregnancy while the Youth in Focus service also targets youths with various needs, including teenage pregnancy, with the aim to assist them throughout their teenage years. Contact Appogg on 29 590000 or Supportline 179.