Hidden realities: lived experiences with teenage pregnancy, motherhood, and HIV in Botshabelo, South Africa

This study is based on nineteen months of ethnographic fieldwork in Botshabelo township, South Africa. I relied on narrative inquiry and narrative analysis to explore teenagers’ stories, and make sense of the powerful experiences embodied therein. I worked with 88 young women (pregnant teenagers and young mothers who were HIV-negative or HIV-positive) to explore teenage pregnancy and young motherhood. This dissertation offers three major theoretical contributions. First, pregnant teenagers and young mothers in this study talk about being chastised for becoming pregnant outside marriage, before finishing school, and while being unemployed. Other people reprimand and punish these young women for transgressing a moral order that has eluded most of the people around them, even their own mothers. This punishment is reputational and gives rise to a punishing discourse that is related to the idea that key sources of moral value – marriage, education, employment - are under threat in this community. This sense of ‘morality being under threat’ creates a context of fragility, which in turn exacerbates the punishment and social sanction that these young women carry. This punishment gives way to a multifaceted stigma linked to being a teenager, being a young mother, and (for some teenagers) having HIV. This stigma has an arc-like trajectory. It begins with a positive pregnancy test, and peaks when the baby bump becomes obvious. By the time the baby is born, however, this stigma moderates. Second, this context of fragility begs for repair. As a result, most of these young women perform rituals of repair by hiding in the house, using blankets, and following medical routines. These are ways to protect unborn babies, clear the slate, and offer penance for the sin that is teenage pregnancy. Repair is a major component of the huge responsibility these young women bear for moral salvage. The process of repair - through acts of deference, discretion and redemption - helps these young women suture relationships with their families. Like stigma, repair has an arc-like trajectory. The shock of teenage pregnancy slowly gives way to the incorporation of both mother and baby into the life of the family. When families help with childcare, some teenagers can return to school. Third, most of these pregnant teenagers and young mothers are taught to follow a prevalent and aspirational moral order (what other people say) instead of the prevailing social order (what other people do). I use ‘other people’ to refer to nurses, neighbours, school teachers and/or kin. Most teenagers’ mothers teach their pregnant daughters to hide in the house in order to avoid ‘witches’ who prowl in the community. Moreover, pregnant teenagers are ‘not allowed’ to attend school because school principals and teachers forbid it. Furthermore, other people denounce teenage pregnancy outside the sanctity of marriage. Many of the people who espouse these lessons, however, have not finished high school, were pregnant teenager themselves, and have never been married. The contradictions in the lessons other people give these pregnant teenagers and young mothers expose a gap between how teenagers should live (prevalent moral order) and how teenagers actually live (prevailing social order). It is in this space, this gap, that ‘good’ teenage mothering occurs. This dissertation adds to a growing body of literature exploring what life is like for pregnant teenagers and young mothers (who are HIV-negative or HIV-positive) in South Africa. This study contributes to the fields of public health, childhood and youth studies, and sexual and reproductive health. The stories described herein are not necessarily about pregnant teenagers and young mothers who are heroic. These are stories about pregnant teenagers and young mothers who are incredibly courageous, as they try to make the most of the way things turn out.