Teenage Parents

The UK has the biggest number of teenage pregnancies in Europe. More than 40,000 teenagers become pregnant every year, this means 1 in 10 pregnant women is a teenager (8,111 of these are under the age of 16).

There is a common stigma of being a teenage parent. The tabloid press often depicts the teenage parents as naïve, irresponsible and belong to the lower socio-economic groups. They are often accused of having children to receive more benefit or to enable them to jump up the housing list.

I wanted with this series of images and interview to look at teenage parenthood from a teenager's point of view. I wanted to look at the causes and effects for the teenagers and the joys and complications that come with having a child at a young age.

The images you see here are a small part of the series and are of teenagers from different socio-economic backgrounds and from different parts of the UK.