The youngest parents

Prominent child psychiatrist and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Robert Coles asks us to shed our preconceptions and listen to the compelling voices of young women and men who are soon to become parents, though barely out of childhood themselves.

These teenage parents are black, white, and Hispanic; city dwellers and residents of small towns; rich and poor. From conversations with them, Dr. Coles weaves a subtle yet dramatic narrative that reveals the aspirations and apprehensions of these "youngest parents," whose prospects aren't very promising and whose assumptions aren't always ones that he, or we, share.

Dr. Coles's text is accompanied by photographic essays by two outstanding American photographers. Jocelyn Lee, professor of photography at the Maine College of Art, lived alongside young mothers in Maine, Massachusetts, New York, Nova Scotia, and Texas, exploring their daily lives. John Moses, a pediatrician and photographer, worked for several years with teenage parents in North Carolina, and his pictures show the pride and tenderness they've found in family life.