Going to go against the grain here - I was a teenage mother. I had DD at 19 - she's now almost 8 and I've just had my 27th birthday.
I agree with the link posted earlier to the Labour MP's site. I do think that an awful lot of teenagers become pregnant because of a fundamental lack of self-worth and because they see a baby as giving their lives meaning. I doubt very much that there are many teenages in this country who aren't aware of the need for contraception and who honestly get pregnant completely 'accidentally'.
Speaking from experience, I was a screwed up, middle-class teenager and I wanted a baby from around the age of thirteen. I honestly believed that if I had a child, I would have someone to love, someone that loved me and that my life would have purpose.
Having DD has obviously changed my life beyond all recognition. It made me determined to succeed. I went to university - Oxford - with DD in tow. I took DD backpacking round Vietnam and Thailand when she was four. I moved to London to do my MSc, then I worked for a couple of years, now I'm doing a law conversion course and have a job lined up with a Magic Circle law firm. I'm damned if I'm going to be stereotyped like many lone parents are and I have a very strong drive to succeed and to provide the best for my daughter.
But where I live in North London, I see so many teenage mothers pushing their children round and often pregnant with their next child. Maybe I shouldn't judge them but I do. I know that perhaps I'm fortunate in that I had a good education and a supportive family when I had DD, but there's no way I'm going to sit around on benefits.
I want to be a positive role model to my daughter and to teach her a strong sense of right and wrong.
Sorry that this is turning into an essay, but as a young, lone parent myself, I want to give another opinion as to why so many people do look down on young mothers. I feel that something needs to be done to break the cycle of children having children.