Many American families display forms of dysfunctionality. In one family the father may
             be a workaholic and the mother an alcoholic. In another, the father maybe an alcoholic
             and the mother an enabling codependent who never touches a drop. Regardless of the
             specific affliction, children being raised within dysfunctional families are deprived of
             what is needed to become happy, healthy, and well-adjusted adults. One of the most
             pervasive effects of this deprivation is teenage pregnancy.
             In the case of a family where one parent, the father, is an alcoholic, the affected parent
             turns to alcohol as a remedy for some personal shortcoming. This parent has little to
             offer a young girl seeking the approval and admiration of her father. More often than
             not, the child is viewed as a nuisance by the parent, and the resultant irritation is hard
             to disguise. The child learns to either accept the irritation as the price for that parents
             affection, or rejects the cost and seeks the attention of the other parent. The other
             parent, if healthy, is carrying the weight of the alcoholic partner's disease and the tasks
             required to make a house a home. At best she has her hands full; at worst she is as
             mentally incapacitated as the father. Consequently, the young girl grows up
             under-nurtured, under-valued and lonely. Similar to craving carrots when the body needs
             vitamin A, the young woman's mind will seek the means to fulfill the void left by the
             When the deprived young woman reaches puberty, she finds a seemingly endless well of
             attention, often mistaken as affection, in the young boys she has grown up with.
             Unbeknownst to her, the young men, dealing with the onslaught of pubescent hormones, are
             trying to fulfill a completely different set of needs. And thus, the groundwork has
             been set for a teenage pregnancy.
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