Despite record low teen pregnancy rates, the NSW Health Minister Brad Hazard has responded to news that young teen parents fled the hospital with their three-day-old baby by pleading parents to stop their teenagers having children of their own.
“Kids having kids when they’re literally kids themselves is just a big challenge for those children and for those children they’re having” he said.
“The problem is not increasing at the moment, but it’s certainly significant and what we need to realise is, having children too young is just not appropriate. It can be very disadvantageous – so think twice, in fact think three times.”
Mr Hazard’s comments come amidst some public backlash at authorities for taking baby Aria from her parents Jayden Lavender, 14, and Jenifer Morrison, 15.
Specific details about situation are scarce, most likely due to the involvement of underage individuals.
The teenage father said that he has been awake “crying all night” after receiving the news his daughter was discharged from hospital without his knowledge.
The couple reportedly haven’t seen their baby since the mass 16-hour search resulted in them being found.
Mr Hazard encouraged parents to do everything in their power to dissuade their children from becoming pregnant at a young age.
“We all have a responsibility, parents but also mates and friends should be telling other people, ‘Don’t have children too young’ because it’s a massive responsibility and many of those children end up in a pretty dysfunctional situation, and it’s very sad,” he said.
“Parents with teenagers should sit down and talk to them. Just tell them that having a child too young is very bad for that baby and very bad for them, because it may make life extremely difficult for both.”
In 2015, a record low 8,574 women under 19 gave birth, which equates to 2.8 per cent of all births in Australia last year.
However, that still equals just over 23 Australian teenage mothers a day, and leading child psychologist Michael Carr-Gregg told The Daily Telegraph that teen parents are generally not equipped for parenting.
“Children having children is never a very good idea,” he said.
“It completely disrupts their normal peer relationships; it disrupts their emancipation from adult carers.
“It really disrupts their education to the point where many of these young women in particular end up dropping out and therefore end up booking themselves on a treadmill of poverty for the foreseeable future,” he told the newspaper.
“And lastly it compromises their capacity to figure out the question to “who am I”, which is the question all teenagers need to be asking.”
