Risking the Future Adolescent Sexuality, Pregnancy, and Childbearing, Volume II: Working Papers and Statistical Appendices (1987) / Chapter Skim
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8 The Children of Teen Childbearers
8 The Children of Teen Childbearers
Pages 174-206
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From page 174... ...
The fourth section focuses on intervening factors: e.g., family structure, socioeconomic status, and maternal education. It also looks at the part parenting behaviors play in distinguishing adolescent from older parents and the influence of such behaviors in mediating child outcomes.
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From page 175... ...
That is, it is high at very young ages, declining to a low point in the mid-twenties, and then climbing again among older mothers. The evidence is consistent that perinatal problems increase among mothers above age 30; however, recent evidence from the Danish Perinatal Study and from the Collaborative Perinatal Project in the U.S.
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From page 176... ...
Neonatal Health Vital statistics data (NCHS, 1984) show that children of teen mothers are more likely to be below 2500 grams at birth than children of mothers 20 to 39, and the younger the age of the mother the higher the proportion of infants of low birth weight.
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From page 177... ...
Two studies have addressed maternal age differences and infant health status (Hardy, 1978; and Mednick and Baker, 1980~. Hardy presents one figure which shows that the risk of infant death after the neonatal period is higher for the infants of black teen mothers than for the infants of black older mothers.
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From page 178... ...
They found that infants living with their grandmothers had the best mean health score; infants living with both biological parents a mid-range score, while infants who lived with their unmarried mother or in an institution or foster home showed the worst scores at one year. In one analysis, after controlling for birthweight and pregnancy complications, number of nurturing adults was strongly related to a positive one year health status among children of teen mothers.
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From page 179... ...
Background factors (spacing, mother's age, previous health, data on previous pregnancy, wontedness, use of institutional day care, SES, mother's employment and family size) were assumed to predict one year infant outcome through the following health and medical variables: complications of pregnancy and delivery, multiple births, birth weight, and neonatal physical and neurological status.
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From page 180... ...
Although none of the expected background factors has an impact at age one, environmental influence on physical status can be seen through the direct (negative) impact of institutional day care, and the indirect (and also negative)
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From page 181... ...
or age of mother at birth of index child (Broman and Hardy et al.~. COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT AND SCHOOL ACHIEVEMENT The major source of data on infants and young children is the Collaborative Perinatal Project (CPP)
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From page 182... ...
The Infant Behavior Profile was designed to evaluate qualitative aspects of children's behavior. Finally, the 8 month exam includes summary ratings of general development based on evaluations of the examiners Marecek found that, among blacks, first born children of mothers under 20, as a group, scored lower on the average than first born children of older mothers on the Bayley mental scale.
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From page 183... ...
Furstenberg (1976) also found a difference in cognitive performance between black children of adolescent parents and black children of classmates who delayed childbearing until age 18, even when differential school attendance was controlled.
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From page 184... ...
Marecek (1979) estimated path models of the direct and indirect effects of adolescent childbearing on WISC scores.
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From page 185... ...
SES effects were very large, in contrast. The second major national study which collected data on children is the Health Examination Survey (HES)
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From page 186... ...
~ . The major indirect effects operated through family size, in particular the number of births subsequent to the study child (since birth order is also controlled)
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From page 187... ...
He found significant effects of mother's age at birth of the study child on WISC vocabulary and block design scores, as well as the two subtests together, controlling for sex and age of child. These relationships did not disappear when controls were introduced for race, birth order, income, education, household structure, household size and ecological factors.
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From page 188... ...
The measure of intelligence used in this data set is the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, a test that measures both innate ability as well as stimulation in the home environment. The results show that children of teen mothers are less likely than children of older mothers to do well on this test, a result which is statistically significant for whites but not for blacks (Moore et al., 1985~.
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From page 189... ...
Vincenzi and Brewer (1982) used two samples of children, one in grade 4 and one in grade 6, from a primarily black low income area, to look at the school achievement of children of teen mothers.
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From page 190... ...
Again, the percent of variance explained is very small. Marecek found that, among whites, mother's age at first birth is unrelated to grade repetition.
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From page 191... ...
Besides the small direct effect of having an adolescent parent on academic aptitude, there was a substantial indirect effect through family structure. Children of adolescent parents were much more likely to be living with only one parent than children of older parents, and children in one-parent families had significantly lower aptitude scores, grades and aspirations.
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From page 192... ...
For males there was no direct or indirect impact of mother's age on either mother's or teacher's judgments of child's academic performance. Among females, mother's age had no direct effect but did have one indirect effect through mother's contentment.
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From page 193... ...
Both girls and boys of black adolescent mothers tended to show more problems controlling their behavior than children of black older mothers. Among 7 year olds, girls of adolescent mothers exhibited more bedwetting and phobias, while boys exhibited more thumbsucking.
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From page 194... ...
Controlling for maternal education, there was a direct effect of maternal age on third grade teachers' ratings of withdrawn behavior. Children of early adolescent mothers tended to have the fewest problems while children of late adolescent mothers tended to have the most.
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From page 195... ...
In the path model, controlling for mother's education, family size, family socioeconomic status, and birthweight, Mednick and Baker found that mother's age no longer has direct effects; however it has some indirect effects on children's socioemotional development. In particular, a younger mother's age is associated with family instability among both males and females.
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From page 196... ...
There were a number of indirect effects of adolescent parentage on later childbearing history, educational attainment, occupation and income. These operated through family structure, family SES in 1960 and academic aptitude.
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From page 197... ...
Controlling for education of the mother, socioeconomic status of the family, family size, and birth weight, they found, as for cognitive development, that mother's age did not directly affect the behavior of boys or girls; however, it did have indirect effects. For boys and girls the strongest effects operated through family stability.
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From page 198... ...
Besides the Card and Cohen et al. analyses, several other studies have examined selected parts of the model and have found family structure to be an important intervening factor.
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From page 199... ...
In conclusion, having a young parent, on average, is harmful to children; there is a small direct effect, but there is an even larger indirect effect which is due to-differential characteristics of the mother (such as orderliness) , to her lesser schooling, to less stable family structure, to lower family socioeconomic status, and to larger family size.
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From page 200... ...
Most of the differences we observed were due to indirect effects through other factors. Thus, for example, it may be more relevant to compare the childrearing practices of mothers living with a husband or another relative compared with living alone, or of mothers with low versus high levels of schooling and so on.
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From page 201... ...
There is very little agreement in the child development literature on the impact of maternal behavior, if any, on child development, since the interplay between various factors is quite complex, including the influence of the child on the parent. Strong conclusions from the research on parenting among teen mothers (and fathers)
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From page 202... ...
Thus birth order and family size are important variables confounded with age of mother at first birth. A second issue is the categorization of age groups in comparing teenage and older mothers.
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From page 203... ...
The few studies that have looked at the health of infants of adolescent and older mothers find few direct effects of age on infant health. One study, however, did find the death rate from accidents within the first year of life was much higher for infants of teenage than older mothers, even controlling for maternal education and family size.
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From page 204... ...
Differential school completion may simply reflect differential motivation or capabilities, for example. An important issue is that of identifying the age of the mother at which effects on the child are most severe, for example, among younger teen or older teen mothers.
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From page 205... ...
2 The U.S. Collaborative Perinatal Project consisted of the complete population or random samples of all patients qualifying for prenatal care in the 12 participating centers during 6 years of intake, 19661972.
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From page 206... ...
home furnishings. 9 Stability of family is representated by the total number of family constellations since birth of index child, recoded on a five point scale, with a score of 5 including all cases with 5 or more constellations.
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