Nearly half a million teenagers deliver babies each year in United States, and many of the fathers of these babies are also teenagers. Yet most parenting books are written as if all parents were adults.

A parent who is still an adolescent is part of two worlds, and these two worlds may be in conflict. A teenage parent’s life is quite different from the lives of her/his non-parent’s life is quite different from the lives of her/his non-parent peers. It may also be quite different from the young families who delay childbearing until both parents have completed their education and are not able to form their new own household.

I have worked with hundreds of pregnant and parenting teenagers during the past thirty years. Because our school district provides an infant center to care for their babies, many of these young mothers continue attending school on campus after they deliver. Many have fallen into parenthood accidentally, but it is no accident that many are good parents. They’ve had help along the way from their families and their community, and, most important, they work hard at their parenting job.

This book is a parenting guide especially designed for teenage parents. A major part of it are the comments and parenting suggestions from young people who are "practicing" parents, teenagers who have children of their own. Some are married, some are single. Whatever their marital status, they are more likely to have money problems than are older parents. Many live with their own parents because of their age and/or lack of money.
Names of parents, their children, and a few personal details have been changed in the quotes in order to protect confidentiality. Parents' and children's ages have not been changed. Their comments are real, and quotes are almost always in the exact words used by the young parent.

Your Baby's First Year is part of a six-book series for pregnant and parenting teens. Other titles are Your Pregnancy and Newborn Journey and Nurturing Your Newborn, both co-authored by Jean Brunelli, PHN; Discipline from Birth to Three, co-authored by Sally McCullough; The Challenge of Toddlers and Teen Dads by Lindsay.
Chapter 5 of Your Baby's First Year is written directly to teen fathers while chapter 6 focuses on the special needs of mothers who parent alone. The rest of the book applies both to single parents and to couples who are parenting together.

Parenting at 15, or even 17, is an extremely difficult task. In fact, parenting at any age is quite a challenge for most of us. I hope this book will help young parents understand a little better the world of babies during that all-important first year of parenting.