I got into a political discussion with my mother when I was visiting for vacation. Somehow she managed to turn it toward high teen pregnancy rates. She said something about God removing his blessing on America. However I couldn't really respond because I don't know why teen pregnancy rates went so high after the 1950s. It seems from her perspective and my ignorance that kids took a leap from worrying about chewing gum in school to getting pregnant. I know this is probably not accurate, but finding a historical perspective has proven difficult. Thanks
Actually teen pregnancy rates haven't grown in the United States after the 1950s. They've actually been falling since the late 1950s.
The first page on following article from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has a nice graph which shows it:
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db89.pdf
You do see a noticeable rise in birth rates somewhere around the mid 1940s, I dont think it is a coincidence that this was the end of the second world war.
Its worth noting that at the same time overall birth rates grew as well, as you can see in this article here: http://statchatva.org/2016/07/06/the-u-s-birth-rate-is-near-an-all-time-low-and-that-may-not-be-a-bad-thing/
So it looks as though when it has grown it has grown unsurprisingly similarly to the overall pregnancy rate.