Kin Support and Family Stress: Two Sides to Early Childbearing and Support Networks

Family assistance helps many teenage or young unmarried mothers to cope with poverty and the challenges of childbearing. Kin support to young mothers, while beneficial, should not be romanticized. It also often entails conflict, stress, frustration, and disappointment due to interpersonal tensions, or conflicting interests, or relatives' limited ability to provide support. Nearly always the underlying issue is a discrepancy between the young mother's expectations and her support network's performance. We describe three sources of unrealistic expectations: relatives' initial reactions to her pregnancy, a history of early childbearing by relatives, and desires for a relationship with baby's father.