KIN SUPPORT AND FAMILY STRESS - 2 SIDES TO EARLY CHILDBEARING AND SUPPORT NETWORKS

Family assistance helps many teenage or young unmarried mothers to cop e with poverty and the challenges of childrearing. Kin support to youn g mothers, while beneficial, should not be romanticized. It also often entails conflict, stress, frustration, and disappointment due to inte rpersonal tensions, or conflicting interests, or relatives' limited ab ility to provide support. Nearly always the underlying issue is a disc repancy between the young mother's expectations and her support networ k's performance. We describe three sources of unrealistic expectations : relatives' initial reactions to her pregnancy, a history of early ch ildbearing by relatives, and desires for a relationship with baby's fa ther.