Pregnant Girl: A Story of Teen Motherhood, College, and Creating a Better Future for Young Families

Each year, approximately 750,000 girls between the ages of 15 and 19 in the U.S. become pregnant - that's 3 out of 10 girls. Teen pregnancy continues to be one of the most intensely debated issues among policymakers, educators, religious leaders, and families. There is agreement, however, on the negative consequences of a teen pregnancy. Less than 50% of teen mothers graduate from high school and just 2% from college. Thirty percent of teenage girls who drop out of high school do so because of pregnancy or parenthood. Studies confirm that a child whose mother had her as a teenager is set up to have a tough life.

Pregnant Girl provides a narrative we rarely find in popular media: an affirmation and validation of young mothers' experience from a young mother herself. After becoming pregnant during her senior year in high school, Nicole Lynn Lewis put herself through college and earned several advanced degrees before starting her nonprofit, Generation Hope. She tells us her personal story alongside stories from women she's met and worked at Generation Hope. She uses these personal stories to contextualize and humanize the statistics on teen motherhood.

This raw, moving perspective on the national conversation on young motherhood gives us a chance to see what it would look like for the US to provide real support for young mothers.