Parenting

By David M. Haugen

Editor David M. Haugen has compiled several essays that debate the real and perceived teen rights related to becoming parents at a young age. Issues such as the options for continuing education during pregnancy and afterwards and the rights of teen fathers are discussed. Financial support and responsibilities for teen parents are also explored. Material is drawn from a diverse selection of primary and secondary sources with particular emphasis on Supreme Court and other court decisions.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rosen Publishing
• Release date: May 13, 2014
• ISBN: 9780737770759

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contemporary.

Introduction

Bearing and raising a child requires a commitment that should not be taken lightly. Many couples plan for the birth of a child—stabilizing finances, establishing housing, and otherwise preparing for the difficulties and sacrifices that such a major decision entails. While adults are often responsible enough to enter into that commitment with some degree of security, teenagers typically encounter more challenges when faced with pregnancy and parenting. Like their peers, childbearing teens are coping with the demands of education, work, and social activities, but their foremost duty is to care and provide for their unborn child or newborn infant. Striking a balance is a day-to-day struggle. Unfortunately, according to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, the statistics relating to teen parents and their children do not reflect optimistic outcomes. In its 2012 Why It Matters? Teen Childbearing, Education, and Economic Wellbeing factsheet, the National Campaign reports that only 38 percent of girls who give birth before they are eighteen years old acquire a high school diploma by age twenty-two. In addition, 67 percent of teen mothers who leave their families’ households end up living below the poverty level. Such hardships seem to persist across successive generations, according to the organization.

Such disheartening claims are commonplace among authorities cautioning against childbirth during teen years. In 2013 the New York City Human Resources Administration (HRA) utilized similar statistics on public service posters plastered on bus stops and subway station walls, as well as on its civic social media websites. One poster displays a crying infant next to the prediction, I’m twice as likely not to graduate high school because you had me as a teen. Another places a scowling toddler next to the warning, Dad, you’ll be paying to support me for the next 20 years. On its website, the HRA makes its intentions clear. It bluntly states, The campaign features ads with hard-hitting facts about the money and time costs of parenting, and the negative consequences of having a child before you are ready. Some New Yorkers praise the government’s strategy to make teens aware of the consequences of pregnancy. In a March 21, 2013, opinion piece for the Daily News, political columnist John McWhorter attests, Shame, in reasonable dosages, can be useful.... We can all agree that there should be as few teenage parents as possible. All evidence is that children are better off with two parents, especially poor children. Rates of teen pregnancy have dipped since the 1990s, due to a variety of public health efforts; we should try to get them even lower. To McWhorter, teen pregnancy is a negative behavior that society irresponsibly accepts as normal; he maintains that the posters reflect obvious truths that most of us believe, regardless of race, class or even childbearing experience.

However, not everyone believes shaming teen parents—or prospective parents—is the proper course a government should take to curb behavior. In a March 28, 2013, article for Time.com, neuroscience journalist Maia Szalavitz states that studies of the effectiveness of shaming techniques used against addicts such as alcoholics or other substance abusers have proved inconclusive. She also claims the posters put forth simple cause-and-effect relationships that in reality are much more convoluted. The message that teen pregnancy can lead to economic hardship and a greater chance of living below the poverty level is... more complex than the campaign implies, Szalavitz writes. She believes the cause and effect are most likely reversed, with greater economic hardship leading to more teen pregnancies. In a March 6, 2013, press release, Haydee Morales, the vice president of education and training at New York City’s Planned Parenthood, carried the argument further, blasting the government for invoking stigma, hostility and negative public opinions about teen pregnancy and parenthood rather than offering alternative aspirations for young people. Morales argued, The city’s money would be better spent helping teens access health care, birth control and high-quality sexual and reproductive health education, not on an ad campaign intended to create shock value.

In response to a vocal public outcry, the city did make small changes to the campaign. For example, the HRA inaugurated a choose-your-own-adventure-style texting game to show interested parties the fates of two teen sweethearts who accidentally get pregnant. The HRA originally emended one text in which the young girl gets called a fat loser by her best friend at prom— the text now simply reads loser. Most critics insist these minor changes do nothing to undo the kind of hurt leveled at young mothers who are already coping with stress and ostracization. One March 18, 2013, letter to the editor at the New York Times even chides the campaign for burdening teen mothers with the fate of their children while failing to spread the blame to young fathers adequately.

The debate over how to discourage teen pregnancy and support mothers and their children at the same time is nestled in many of the viewpoints contained in Teen Rights and Freedoms: Parenting. Some of the US court cases sampled herein have upheld the notion that all parents have a responsibility to raise children they have conceived; other cases included in this anthology condemn discrimination toward young parents who are trying to better their education to help provide for their children. School accommodations, welfare assistance, and other public policies aimed at helping young mothers and fathers attempt to strike that balance between achievement and sacrifice. Moreover, many of the authors make it clear that despite any public criticism of teen pregnancy, young parents have both rights and access to services that can help them move forward with their lives.

Chronology

1

A State Must Produce Sufficient Evidence to Prove Parental Neglect Before Revoking Custody

The US Supreme Court’s Decision

Harry Blackmun

Following evidence of parental neglect, New York State’s Ulster County Department of Social Services removed John and Annie Santosky’s three children from their home. The parents sued the state, arguing that the preponderance of evidence standard used to justify their children’s removal was not sufficient to show the children’s lives were at risk in their parents’ home. When the case was finally heard by the US Supreme Court, Justice Harry Blackmun argued that when a state seeks to separate children from their biological parents permanently, the evidence against the parents must meet a higher level of scrutiny than that which was employed by the New York State Social Services. The court determined that a state must produce clear and convincing evidence, before irrevocably severing the relationship between a child from his or her biological parents. Blackmun served as an associate justice for the US Supreme Court from 1970 until 1994.

Under New York law, the State may terminate, over parental objection, the rights of parents in their natural child upon a finding that the child is permanently neglected. The New York Family Court Act § 622 requires that only a fair preponderance of the evidence support that finding. Thus, in New York, the factual certainty required to extinguish the parent-child relationship is no greater than that necessary to award money damages in an ordinary civil action.

Today we hold that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment demands more than this. Before a State may sever completely and irrevocably the rights of parents in their natural child, due process requires that the State support its allegations by at least clear and convincing evidence.

Little Proof Determines Neglect in New York

New York authorizes its officials to remove a child temporarily from his or her home if the child appears neglected, within the meaning of Art. 10 of the Family Court Act. Once removed, a child under the age of 18 customarily is placed in the care of an authorized agency, usually a state institution or a foster home. At that point, the state’s first obligation is to help the family with services to... reunite it.... But if convinced that positive, nurturing parent-child relationships no longer exist, the State may initiate permanent neglect proceedings to free the child for adoption. The State bifurcates its permanent neglect proceeding into factfinding and dispositional hearings. At the factfinding stage, the State must prove that the child has been permanently neglected," as defined by Fam.Ct.Act §§ 614.1.(a)-(d) and Soc.Serv. Law § 384-b.7.(a). The Family Court judge then determines at a subsequent dispositional hearing what placement would serve the child’s best interests.

The US Supreme Court ruled in Santosky v. Kramer (1982) that the state must produce clear and convincing evidence of child neglect or endangerment before severing parental custody. © Tina Stallard/Getty Images.

At the factfinding hearing, the State must establish, among other things, that, for more than a year after the child entered state custody, the agency made diligent efforts to encourage and strengthen the parental relationship. The State must further prove that, during that same period, the child’s natural parents failed Should the State support its allegations by a fair preponderance of the evidence, the child may be declared permanently neglected. That declaration empowers the Family Court judge