Teen Pregnancy

Several excellent social histories detail the gendered and raced ideological framework of the U.S. welfare state, provide insight into the processes by which unwed motherhood in the United States has been socially constructed, and make linkages to resulting social policy responses. These works clearly link the problem of early parenting to the status of unwed motherhood and also begin to link differences in treatment options available to the unwed mother to the race of the unwed mother. For example, several works point to the construction of white unwed motherhood in the early 1900s as a psychological problem and thus treatable, while black women's illegitimate pregnancies were viewed as a morality problem innate to their race, and thus untreatable.

Key to analyzing the problem of unwed motherhood is to consider the role of homes for unwed mothers, the most influential and prevalent being the Florence Crittenton Homes for Unwed Mothers (F.C.). The F.C. homes and association, established in 1883, not only participated in defining and locating the problem of unwed motherhood, but also influenced public opinion and established treatment patterns for unwed mothers. From the late 1800s to the 1940s, unwed mothers were recharacterized from wanton vixen to "fallen women," females who found themselve in dire circumstances, often for reasons beyond their control or due to their own mistaken judgment of a male.

It is important to recognize that despite being a proto-feminist foundation the F.C. Homes' philosophy was based upon Christian ethics of caring for all, especially those beneath you. A basic ideology of the homes was one of rescue-rescue from one's situation, which for the suitable unwed mother was one of hardship and squalor, and rescue from the unsuitable persons of one's situation, in this case from males who were lazy and unscrupulous and took advantage of young women, and from females who had given into vice. Unwed mothers who were victims were a social responsibility and deserved the "full benefit of enlightened handling." The unwed mothers accepted into F.C. Homes were seen as demonstrating the beginnings of recognition that they needed to change their life circumstances. From these beginnings, the F.C. Homes would instill a different set of values in the unwed mother that would in turn benefit society.

The "new" values-including an emphasis upon Christian ethics, hard work, responsibility, wholesomeness, simple living, cleanliness, and economic independence by learning a vocation suitable to the unwed mother's status-would ensure that the woman could redeem herself and make the best of her life situation for herself and her child. This retraining in values began with creating a world of cleanliness and order for the unwed pregnant female-household order, personal order, moral order, and spiritual order. This ideology viewed many unwed mothers as being victims of their circumstances, they were referred to as "inmates," and assumed not to have had the benefits of exposure to moral and decent living. The homes ran according to a strict schedule and systemized routines for everything from the running of the home, to personal hygiene and health, to prayerful reflection. Thus F.C. Homes were not only a place to be while the woman was pregnant, but a place to be exposed to clean living.

The immorality and incapacity for morality situated within the construction of black womanhood also continued and reinforced ideologies of idolization and protection of "white womanhood" which were particularly prevalent in the South. If black women were constructed as immoral, as untreatable, then contact between black women and white women could lead to the contamination and moral decline of white women. Recognition and acknowledgment of how racial segregation of services for unwed mothers continued to "protect" white women is necessary to understand the power of racialization in the diagnosis and provision of services to unwed mothers not only in the past, but how the vestiges of such ideologies impact present-day policies and practices.

The differential definition of, characterization of, and location of the problem of unwed motherhood by race remained prevalent in social science research, treatment options, and political discourse. That the problem of unwed motherhood was different for white women than for black women was so ingrained it was never questioned. This differential definition affected the unwed mother's access to treatment options, including counseling, placement in a home facility, health care, contraceptive information and availability, abortion, and adoption.