Why do teen women risk pregnancy in a social context calling for deferred parenthood? A postmodern perspective makes sense of this behavior in a way that conventional policy analysis does not. Interviews with 63 adolescent women (Black and White, ever-pregnant, and never-pregnant) and focus group sessions with 225 teens are used to construct four discourse schemas: Accidental, Pair Bond, Developmental, and Protective. Teens use discourse from “the modern family,” psychotherapy, and other cultural resources to give meaning to their everyday life experiences of sex, pregnancy, and parenthood. Contradictions abound. Implications for the study of the family are briefly addressed.
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