Teen Pregnancy

Re “Contrary Message on Teenage Pregnancy,” May 24: Professor V. Joseph Hotz’s research on teen pregnancy presents a sobering and penetrating perspective on the meaning of teen pregnancy in our society. Politicians and citizens of all political stripes cannot hope to understand, let alone solve, such an intractable social ill without attempting to grasp its multiple developmental, familial and cultural roots. Sex education or simply writing these teens off as immoral will not do.

A child who grows up in a chaotic, disordered family with unreliable caregivers tends to develop a sense of self that is insecure, itself chaotic and thereby unable to marshal the personal resources needed to make age-appropriate, adaptive decisions when she hits the hormone-raging teen years.

As so frequently happens, policymakers look for cursory solutions for these complex problems, which only wastes money and exacerbates this personal and social quagmire.

RICHARD LETTIERI PhD

Los Angeles Psychoanalytic

Society and Institute