Abstract
American culture is greatly influenced by conservative and religious views that construct adolescent sexuality as problematic. Consequently, American teenagers are often informed that abstinence is the right moral choice and will allow them to lead a successful adult life. The ultimate punishment for engaging in pre-marital sex is deemed to be teenage pregnancy. This is evident in the way that the adolescent mother is constructed as a deviant citizen who drains the government of welfare payments, rejects family values, and defies the rigid path to economic success advocated by capitalist ideology. Young Adult literature reflects and communicates such dominant societal attitudes to young readers. In this article, four Young Adult novels were selected to see whether negative attitudes towards teenage sexuality and pregnancy were replicated in the narratives. The two novels from the mid-twentieth century, Two and the Town (Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1952) and My Darling, My Hamburger (HarperCollins Publishers, New York, 1969), reinforced contemporaneous attitudes by presenting adolescent sexuality as wayward and thus punishable with the shame of enforced marriage or illegal abortion. To examine whether such conservatism still exists in the twenty-first century, two contemporary novels, Jumping Off Swings (Candlewick Press, Somerville, MA, 2011) and Me, Him, Them and It (Bloomsbury, New York, NY, 2013), were selected for comparison. These novels contain similar messages since casual sex only led to shame for the female protagonists and the penalty for their recklessness was pregnancy. The novels, regardless of period, reinforce conservative messages that tell adolescents to be wary of their sexual urges, to abstain from sex, and to view teenage motherhood as deviant.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Biederman, Lynn. (2009). From Blume to Block and Beyond: Sex in Young Adult Literature, ALA 2009 Annual Conference Materials. Accessed July 28, 2013 from http://presentations.ala.org/images/f/f6/Sex_in_Young_Adult_Literature_ALA_Conference_Final.pdf.
Bonell, Chris. (2004). Why is Teenage Pregnancy Conceptualized as a Social Problem? A Review of Quantitative Research from the USA and UK. Culture, Health and Sexuality, 6(3), 255–272.
Cadden, Mike. (2000). The Irony of Narration in the Young Adult Novel. Children’s Literature Association Quarterly, 25(3), 146–154.
Caponegro, Ramona. (2009). Where the "Bad" Girls Are (Contained): Representations of the 1950s Female Juvenile Delinquent in Children’s Literature and Ladies’ Home Journal. Children’s Literature Association Quarterly, 34(4), 312–329.
Callister, Mark, Coyne, Sarah M., Stern, Lesa A., Stockdale, Laura, Miller, Malinda J. and Wells, Brian M. (2012). A Content Analysis of the Prevalence and Portrayal of Sexual Activity in Adolescent Literature. Journal of Sex Research, 49(5), 477–486.
Carr, Michael. (1996). From Romance to Realism: 50 Years of Growth and Change in Young Adult Literature. New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers.
Carter, Caela. (2013). Me, Him, Them and It. New York, NY: Bloomsbury.
Christian-Smith, Linda K. (1987). Gender, Popular Culture, and Curriculum: Adolescent Romance Novels as Gender Text. Curriculum Inquiry, 17(4), 365–406.
Coats, Karen and Fraustino, Lisa Rowe. (2015). Performing Motherhood: Introduction to a Special Issue on Mothering in Children’s and Young Adult Literature. Children’s Literature in Education, 46(2), 107–109.
Cocca, Carolyn E. (2002). From “Welfare Queen” to “Exploited Teen”: Welfare Dependency, Statutory Rape and Moral Panic. NWSA Journal, 14(2), 56–79.
Cockett, Lynn S. and Knetzer, Sarah. (1998). Teenage Pregnancy as Moral Panic: Reflections on the Marginalization of Girls’ Feelings. Knowledge Quest, 26(4), 50–54.
Coffel, Cynthia Miller. (2002). Strong Portraits and Stereotypes: Pregnant and Mothering Teens in YA Fiction. The ALAN Review, 30(1), 15–21.
Coffel, Cynthia Miller. (2008). Stories of Teen Mothers: Fiction and Nonfiction. The ALAN Review, 35(3), 45–54.
Coontz, Stephanie. (1995). The American Family and the Nostalgia Trap. Phi Delta Kappan, 76(7), K1–K20.
Crew, Hilary S. (2000). Is It Really Mommie Dearest? Daughter-Mother Narratives in Young Adult Fiction. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press.
Davis, Joy B. and MacGillivray, Laurie. (2001). Books about Teen Parents: Messages and Omissions. English Journal, 90(3), 90–96.
Day, Sara K. (2013). Reading Like a Girl: Narrative Intimacy in Contemporary American Young Adult Literature. Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi.
Delaney, Cassandra Halleh. (1995). Rites of Passage in Adolescence. Adolescence, 30(120), 891–897.
East, Patricia L. and Barber, Jennifer S. (2014). High Educational Aspirations Among Pregnant Adolescents Are Related to Pregnancy Unwantedness and Subsequent Parenting Stress and Inadequacy. Journal of Marriage and Family, 76, 652–664.
Emge, Diane. (2006). I’m Pregnant! Fear and Conception in Four Decades of Young Adult Literature. Young Adult Library Services, 4(2), 22–27.
Felsen, Henry Gregor. (1952). Two and the Town. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.
Furstenberg, Frank F. Jr. (1991). As the Pendulum Swings: Teenage Childbearing and Social Concern. Family Relations, 40(2), 127–138.
Furstenberg, Frank F. Jr. (2003). Teenage Childbearing as a Public Issue and Private Concern. Annual Review of Sociology, 29, 23–39.
Gillis, Bryan and Simpson, Joanna. (2015). Sexual Content in Young Adult Literature. London: Rowman & Littlefield.
Henke, James T. (1976). Six Characters in Search of the Family. Children’s Literature, 5(1), 130–140.
Hoffman, Stanley. (1978). Winning, Losing, But Above All Taking Risks: A Look at the Novels of Paul Zindel. The Lion and the Unicorn, 2(2), 78–88.
Jerome, Kelly and Sweeney, Kathryn A. (2014). Birth Parents’ Portrayals in Children’s Adoption Literature. Journal of Family Issues, 35(5), 677–704.
Kaplan, Jeffrey S. (2007). Recent Research in Young Adult Literature: Three Predominant Strands of Study. ALAN Review, 34(3), 53–59.
Kelly, Deirdre M. (1997). Warning Labels: Stigma and the Popularizing of Teen Mothers’ Stories. Curriculum Inquiry, 27(2), 165–186.
Klein, Norma. (1977). Growing Up Human: The Case for Sexuality in Children’s Books. Children’s Literature in Education, 8(2), 80–84.
Knowles, Jo. (2011). Jumping Off Swings. Somerville, MA: Candlewick Press.
Kokkola, Lydia, Valovirta, Elina and Korkka, Janne. (2013). “Who Does What to Whom and How”: “Knowing Children” and Depictions of Prostitution in Anglophone Young Adult Literature. Children’s Literature Association Quarterly, 38(1), 66–83.
Kokkola, Lydia. (2013). Fictions of Adolescent Carnality: Sexy Sinners and Delinquent Deviants. Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Koss, Melanie D. (2009). Young Adult Novels with Multiple Narrative Perspectives: The Changing Nature of Young Adult Literature. The ALAN Review, 36(3), 73–80.
Kraus, Keith W. (1975). Cinderella in Trouble: Still Dreaming and Losing. School Library Journal, 21(5), 18–22.
Leavitt, Sarah A. (2006). “A Private Little Revolution”: The Home Pregnancy Test in American Culture. Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 80(2), 317–345.
Lesko, Nancy. (2001). Act Your Age! A Cultural Construction of Adolescence. London: RoutledgeFalmer.
Lewis, Mark A. and Durand, Sybil E. (2014). Sexuality as Risk and Resistance in Young Adult Literature. In Crag Hill (Ed.), The Critical Merits of Young Adult Literature: Coming of Age (pp. 38–54). New York: Routledge.
MacLeod, Anne Scott. (1994). American Childhood: Essays on Children’s Literature of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press.
Martinec, Barbara. (1971). Popular—But Not Just a Part of the Crowd: Implications of Formula Fiction for Teenagers. The English Journal, 60(3), 339–344.
Marx, Jerry D. and Hopper, Fleur. (2005). Faith-Based versus Fact-Based Social Policy: The Case of Teenage Pregnancy Prevention. Social Work, 50(3), 280–283.
McKinley, Caroline. (2011). Beyond Forever: The Next Generation of Young Women Protagonists’ Sexual Motivations in Contemporary Young Adult Novels. Young Adult Library Services, 9(4), 38–46.
McRobbie, Angela. (2013). Feminism, the Family and the New "Mediated" Maternalism. New Formations, 80, 119–137.
Meyer, Michael J. (1992). Problems and Prescriptions: Child Abuse in the Novels of Paul Zindel. Children’s Literature Association Quarterly, 317(3), 11–14.
Moore, Susan and Rosenthal, Doreen. (2006). Sexuality in Adolescence: Current Trends. Hove: Routledge.
Morton, Jim. (2010). Cars and Death: The Novels of Henry Gregor Felsen. Pop Void [blog]. Accessed July 21, 2013 from http://popvoid.blogspot.co.uk/2010/02/cars-and-death-novels-of-henry-gregor.html.
Murray, Gail S. (1998). American Children’s Literature and the Construction of Childhood. New York, NY: Twayne Publishers.
Musick, Judith S. (1993). Young, Poor, and Pregnant: The Psychology of Teenage Motherhood. London: Yale University Press.
Nichols, Kristen. (2007). Facts and Fictions: Teenage Pregnancy in Young Adult Literature. The ALAN Review, 34(3), 30–38.
Nilsen, Alleen Pace and Donelson, Kenneth L. (2001). Literature for Today’s Young Adults, 6th ed. New York, NY: Longman.
Pattee, Amy. (2006). The Secret Source: Sexually Explicit Young Adult Literature as an Information Source. Young Adult Library Services, 4(2), 30–38.
Reynolds, Kimberley. (2007). Radical Children’s Literature: Future Visions and Aesthetic Transformations in Juvenile Fiction. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Ritchie, Susan, Shuman, Amy and Meckling, Sally. (1992). Inappropriate Fertility: Feminism, Poststructuralism, and the Teen Parent. The Bucknell Review, 36(2), 151–163.
Ross, Catherine Sheldrick. (1985). Young Adult Realism: Conventions, Narrators, and Readers. The Library Quarterly, 55(2), 174–191.
Seifert, Christine. (2015). Virginity in Young Adult Literature after Twilight. London: Rowman & Littlefield.
Sturm, Brian W. and Michel, Karin. (2009). The Structure of Power in Young Adult Problem Novels. Young Adult Library Services, 7(2), 39–47.
Tamney, Joseph B., Johnson, Stephen D. and Burton, Ronald. (1992). The Abortion Controversy: Conflicting Beliefs and Values in American Society. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 31(1), 32–46.
Tucker, Nicholas. (1993). Children’s Books and Unwanted Pregnancies. Books for Keeps, 78(2). Accessed July 8, 2013 from http://booksforkeeps.co.uk/issue/78/childrens-books/articles/other-articles/childrens-books-and-unwanted-pregnancies.
Watson, Victor. (2003). Introduction. In Margaret Meek, and Victor Watson (Eds.), Coming of Age in Children’s Literature (pp. 1–44). London: Continuum.
Wegar, Katrina. (1997). In Search of Bad Mothers: Social Constructions of Birth and Adoptive Motherhood. Women’s Studies International Forum, 20(1), 77–86.
Weitz, Tracy A. (2010). Rethinking the Mantra that Abortion Should be “Safe, Legal, and Rare”. Journal of Women’s History, 22(3), 161–172.
Whitehead, Barbara Dafoe. (2008). And Baby Makes Two: Why Teen Pregnancy is on the Rise. Commonweal, 135(17), 8.
Wilson, Helen and Huntingdon, Annette. (2006). Deviant (M)others: The Construction of Teenage Motherhood in Contemporary Discourse. Journal of Social Policy, 35(1), 59–70.
World Bank. (2017). Adolescent Fertility Rate (Births per 1,000 Women Ages 15-19). The World Bank. Accessed April 11, 2017 from http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.ADO.TFRT/countries/1W-GB-US-FR-DE?display=default.
Younger, Beth. (2003). Pleasure, Pain, and the Power of Being Thin: Female Sexuality in Young Adult Literature. NWSA Journal, 15(2), 45–56.
Zindel, Paul. (2005/1969). My Darling, My Hamburger. New York: HarperCollins Publishers.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Professor David Rudd for sharing his expertise with me and for the support and guidance he has given so generously during the writing of my dissertation and this article.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Louisa Smith recently graduated from the University of Bolton with a distinction in her MA in Children’s Literature and Culture. Louisa’s dissertation focused on the representation of teenage pregnancy from the advent of the Young Adult “problem” novel to the present day. Prior to undertaking her MA, Louisa’s interest in Young Adult literature began at the University of Bedfordshire when she undertook a Children’s Literature module and completed her undergraduate dissertation on the portrayal of disability in Young Adult novels.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Smith, LJ. “No Strings Attached?” Sex and the Teenage Mother in American Young Adult Novels. Child Lit Educ 50, 381–399 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10583-017-9332-8
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10583-017-9332-8