Meningen med livet - Om hur unga mödrar i London bemästrar det mångkulturella storstadssamhället

Abstract

The rates for teenage conception and motherhood in the UK are according to recent research, the highest in Wester Europe. The ongoing debate concerning these teenage pregnancies and teenage motherhood has therefore become political in a wide range. The government’s goal is to reduce the number of teenage pregnancies until the end of 2010 to prevent social exclusion among vulnerable young women. However, there is controversy in other research that describes teenage pregnancies more likely to be a result of social exclusion than its cause.

The purpose of this study is to examine how young mothers in a borough of London, from their own point of view, experience their situation, their difficulties and possibilities in present and in future. The aim is also to describe how the young women relate to the support they receive from the organization YWCA, which works with the most disadvantaged young women in England and Wales. A qualitative method of inquiry is used, with participating observations and six interviews with young mothers aged 17-19 at the time for their first pregnancy. The study is based on Salutogenic theory and the conception of respectability.

The main results and conclusions of the study concerns how young mothers, depending on cultural and individual diversity, construct respectability and create meaningfulness into their lives in different ways. It shows how they struggle between youth freedom and being a responsible parent and between being respectable within the family and within the society. It also shows how young mothers seem to chose their children before a relationship with a possible partner and how for some, being a young mother is a rational choice. The organization YWCA is a valuable resource for the young women in these processes since it offers individual designed support.