This is the population I work with. Add to the above depressing picture that a large number of them are Catholic, so they don’t believe in birth control. The girls get pregnant at an early age ON PURPOSE. They cannot control their children and frankly, they don’t particularly try. They come in sometimes when we call them about Junior vandalizing the school or beating up another kid, and they kind of sit there and look at us (while three younger children run amok through the office) as if to say “Yes? And?” If there’s a daughter, she’s in charge of the other children even if she’s only 5 herself. As far as I can tell, the minute a Hispanic woman has a little girl, she considers her responsibilities over and the daughter is responsible for the younger siblings. So the kids raise themselves and the mother simply produces them. And there’s more all the time, and it’s getting worse, not better.
A friend of mine is a teacher at a high school in a border town. She says that to these girls getting pregnant it’s like earning a medal, a contest, something they’re really proud of.