Why do teenagers in the United States get pregnant so often? Drawing on two decades of social science re search, sociologist Kristin Luker(1996:11) observes: The short answer to why teenagers get pregnant and especially to why they continue those pregnancies is that a fairly substantial number of them just don't believe what adults tell them, be it about sex, contraception, marriage, or babies. They don't believe in adult conventional wisdom. Why might low-income teenage women wish to have chil- dren and face the obvious financial difficulties of mother- hood? Viewed from an interactionist perspective, these women tend to have low self-esteem and limited options; u child may provide a sense of motivation and purpose for a teenager whose economic worth in our society is limited at best. Given the barriers that many young women face