Learning to be loved. Teenage motherhood as a meaningful strategy in social risk contexts

Abstract

The following article presents an analytical approach to the subject of teenage motherhood based on the willingness to break with the dominant social assumptions, focussing only on the risks, with the aim of exposing an essential viewpoint for being able to understand the full complexity of the situation, which is the emotional dimension and the fact that it can be «attractive» to young women. Based on an intense ethnological and qualitative field study, mainly using biographical methods, the meanings and experiences of the social agents involved are interpreted in the light of sociological concepts that are key to demonstrate that, beyond the hegemonic idea of risk and social reproduction, motherhood of teenagers, in their own reality and in the context of social vulnerability, can be understood as a meaningful —and contradictory— «social strategy» in the search for an adult status and an opportunity to integrate into society.