by Mike A. Males

About the author: Mike A. Males is a reporter on youth issues for In These Times magazine.

Are children of teenage mothers more abused? More likely to be born with low birth weights or other defects? Less likely to do well in school? More likely to be hoodlums. . . .

The Mother’s Age Is Not a Problem

What 99 percent of the comparisons of the children of teenage moms versus the children of adult mothers accomplish is further proof that yes, the progeny of poorer nonwhites indeed do less well in American schools and society than do that of wealthier whites. Yes, kids raised by parents with backgrounds of sexual and violent abuse tend to have more chaotic upbringings than kids whose parents were not abused. In none of this does the age of the...