I investigated the meaning of statutory rape among teenage mothers in the context of a larger participant-observation study I was conducting at the Teen Center, a school-based program for pregnant and parenting teenagers. The Teen Center is housed in the basement of "Lakeside" High School and serves pregnant and parenting teens from the school district's junior and senior high schools. Lakeside is located in an affluent, well-educated, predominantly white university town. I had been conducting my research at the Teen Center for over 18 months at the inception of this current research paper, and had worked on maintaining rapport throughout my time there. My relations with the teen mothers were friendly; I was on speaking terms with all of the 55 young women in the program , and was particularly close (i.e.,considered a good friend) with about 15. My role at the center vacillated between volunteer, intern, and nursery staff substitute throughout the course of the research (on an almost daily basis), but I was known first and foremost as someone interested in studying teenage parents. I interacted with the teens in a variety of ways over the course of three school year: during school , we carried on conversations while we watched their children in the nurseries or while I tutored them in their classes; outside of school, I took them grocery shopping , accompanied them to the doctor when their children were ill, and celebrated their children's birthdays with them.