How do I protray teen pregnancies?

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Like I said, he knows who he married :joy:

Also, something to look into and research is post partum depression- this affects a lot of women in a lot of different ways . I think if you plan to write a story involving a pregnancy that you should definitely look into it. This is one of those things that’s rarely talked about because people believe that all women should be overjoyed and see every single moment as miraculous-- when the fact is, ppd affects a lot of women who hide it for fear of being called ungrateful, or a horrible mother, etc. It needs to be normalized tbh for women to be able to seek help. There’s so much talk about mental health and it’s importance these days --but no one is ready for the conversation about a mom who hates that she hates motherhood because she loves her child, and that makes her feel worse about how she feels but is afraid to say anything because of what people will think.

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Where I use to live had teen parents and I mean barely teen. I was shocked two kids by 16 her first was at 13 honestly she didn’t act like a parent never heard a cheer from her child at all or was happy. I be fair her Dad did care even though he wasn’t that old either. But yeah they both way too immature for a child let alone two so young and at the end the poor child got neglected emotionally.

My own sister was classed as a teen pregnancy she just turned 20 when my nephew was born i remember her being furious with the hospital over her treatment she still complains today and her son is 29 years old. But she a really good mum to her kids at first she was fantastic until her relationship fell apart after her 3rd then went off the rails but honestly at the time she looked bad but admits now herself she was too young when she had kids.
But she very close to her kids especially her son they have a special bond.

With realistic hard to do it depend on how your characters are written and background.
But movies and tv are way off on what pregnancy is like at all. Like I haven’t seen one show at all that gotten it right.

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before i give my inputs i’d like to let you know that i’m south indian and have lived in india for a long time however i have never gone through child marriage or pregnancy.
i’ve seen it happen though.
when poverty rates are high and people around you are desperate for an economic breakthrough your parents are not that opposed to marrying you off to someone who would pay a fair amount to marry you.
societal thinking in a country that has been considering this as a norm also comes into play.
living in india means you’ll come across questions like, “you haven’t gotten married yet? you’re eighteen already.” when you’ve barely come into adulthood.
of course times are changing and people who live in the urban parts of india are altering their beliefs. but the gap between the rich and poor is kind of huge, so that means there is no other real choice to some people.
adding to that, abortion is also not something you can choose and that is mostly controlled by the father of the baby.

using the word “force” depends on their family background, what are their parents like? do they really want this or do they have no other alternative?
i realise i have only given you pointers on your characters background, but i hope it helps nonetheless! :sparkling_heart:

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Glad I could help! I love sharing my knowledge and experiences :blush:

I second this. I had pretty bad ppd, my relationship suffered so much because I didn’t know how to deal with it and my fiancé didn’t understand how I felt. I still struggle with it (even 2.5 years after my youngest has been born), but it’s not as bad as it was a year ago. It’s not talked about enough, for sure. I felt like I was the only one and no one could understand me which just made it so much harder to deal with. And ppd is not something I’ve ever seen in an Episode story.

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Thank you for sharing that! However, I’m a south Indian too, so you’ve told me what I already knew and faced. But nonetheless, I appreciate you for taking the time to write that. The character’s background is kinda complicated.

Before I go on further, I’d like to add a trigger warning. If you’re sensitive to topics involving rape, sexual abuse, or abuse in general, please refrain from reading further.

You see, I have a strong hatred for the people of my country. I know that it’s not fair to say, and I’m sorry if this is offending any Indians reading this, but the repeated negativity that we see all over the place from a young age can really mess with your head. Basically, the story I’m writing is based off of bringing awareness to the chaos in India. It’s not always based on the bad parts, but I’ve come to realize that the majority of people don’t know about the horrid stuff that happens in India every :clap: single :clap: day :clap: . Now, this character’s name is Mallikai. Originally, when I was planning the story, Mallikai was raped at the age of 14. In the village that she lives in, the people and her parents make virginity seem like the only important thing when it comes to marrying a girl off. They also think that girls belong to the man (homosexuality could get you killed by the villagers, so it’s always heterosexual) who takes their virginity. So, since she was raped, the man who raped her had a claim over her. She ended up getting married to her rapist for this very reason, who was 28 while she was 15 (14 when she was raped, 15 when she got married). I’ve seen this happen in real life TO TEENAGERS.

But then, I came to the realization that if I added this to my story, it could get removed, which would ruin the whole purpose of spreading awareness. I’m not only trying to spread awareness about child marriage, rape, abuse, and teen pregnancy, each and every single character is battling something or another that society tends to neglect. The main character is an Albino, the love interest has melasma, her best friend had vitiligo before she was killed, and so on. I need all of these things to be normalized, that’s the whole point of my story. It’ll all go down the drain if it gets removed.

So, I made the character be forced to child marriage due to the financial state of her family. The parents couldn’t afford to fund all their children, especially the females, so they married them off to the first person who came with a marital request. She didn’t get a say in it, and neither did her siblings.

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I’ll be sure to add ppd to mine, thank you. If you ever need to talk, or if you need help in any way, please reach out to me. I’d always be here to help, even if it’s just for you to vent (not only for @KylieJay , but if anyone feels trapped or just needs to talk, please reach out to me, I’m here to help as much as I can).

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writing about r*pe is against the guidelines as far as i know- so as long as you don’t explicitly mention it, it’s all good. you can probably imply it in narrations or dialogs.
to be honest i’ve seen more stories shame girls who have gone through something like this as being “weaklings”. if episode isn’t removing a story like that i’m pretty sure they have no right to remove your story. :zipper_mouth_face:

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I know, that’s why I changed the reason for child marriage to the family’s financial state. I really hope it doesn’t get removed either way, as there are other sensitive topics throughout the story. I do add trigger warnings and ask the reader if they’d like to skip ahead, but I’m worried someone would still report it.

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