Barbara Kingsolver's The Bean Trees

“Three in ten American teen girls will be pregnant before the age of twenty which averages to around 750,000 teen pregnancies every year.” Out of those teen mothers only around half of those women graduate high school ("11 Facts About Teen Pregnancy") McKenzie. Throughout The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver, Taylor or Missy, is faced with becoming a statistic, even after she fought so hard not to be, and the reader sees the highs and lows of being a single mother. Teen pregnancy rates have changed since the 1980’s-when the book was based-to current day, but teen girls are still faced with common problems such as starting a new life, unmarried life, young and inexperienced mothers, contraception, no prenatal care, high school dropouts, and the outcome of their children.

“In the United States, the pregnancy rate of teens between the ages of fifteen and nineteen was twenty-six births for every one thousand girls” ("Teenage Pregnancy: Medical Risks and Realities") McKenzie. In The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver, one theme that was predominant in the novel, was teen pregnancy. The main character, Missy, wishes to escape the curse of her Kentucky hometown. The curse spreads like a disease and Missy, who renames herself as Taylor, decides to escape her

“Fifty-nine percent of sexually active high schoolers aren’t using condoms to prevent pregnancy” ("The Office of Adolescent Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services") Janae. In the 1980s, when The Bean Trees takes place, many sexually active people did not use forms of contraceptives. This led to an increase of children born unwanted and unplanned. Unplanned babies lead to financial stress and Taylor feels this stress when trying to raise Turtle. She relieves some of this stress of how to take care of Turtle when she talks to other single, young mothers in Tuscan dealing with the same