Youngsters Who Become Mothers Join Welfare Cycle : Babies: More than 10% of births in state are to teen-agers--children themselves who must try to cope.

Maria Raudales was 13 when she got pregnant, stunning herself and her girlfriends, who never thought it could happen to one of them.

Life before her pregnancy had not been easy. The youngest of eight children born to a factory worker mother and a father who left to live with and support another family, Maria followed in the footsteps of an older sister and got involved in a girl gang that ran around her Orange barrio. She didn’t make it past the sixth grade.

Since Eddie’s birth, it’s been no easier. She moved out of her mother’s house at 14, had another baby--Audrey, now 18 months--by a different boyfriend and for the past six months has been living in a two-bedroom apartment in Anaheim’s crime-plagued Jeffrey-Lynne neighborhood. She shares the apartment with her latest boyfriend, his mother and her two children, and his stepfather.

She is 17 and on welfare.

“I can’t say I regret having my kids, they are what has gotten me through all of this,” said Maria, sitting in the apartment that is almost too small to contain the rambunctious Eddie, now nearly 3. “But I do regret dropping out of school so young. I think about what I missed.”

Maria and girls like her are the objects of growing attention from social welfare officials and policy-makers who believe that the girls form the vanguard of California’s spiraling welfare caseloads. The numbers would seem to back up their contention.

According to the state Health and Welfare Agency:

* The likelihood that a child born to a teen-age mother will become welfare dependent is more than two times greater than for other children.

* More than 10% of all births in California are to teen-age mothers--the highest rate of births to teen-agers in the nation.

* More than 50% of mothers receiving Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) benefits had their first child as a teen-ager.

* Teen-age mothers make up 11% of current AFDC applicants and cost the state $225 million annually in AFDC grants.

Gov. Pete Wilson has made reduction of teen-agers on welfare and lowering birthrates of teen-agers the centerpiece of his recently announced welfare reforms.

Among the proposals are expansion of family planning programs targeting teen-agers at risk of becoming pregnant; expansion of counseling programs for school-age parents and creation of an educational program aimed at 12- to 14-year-olds emphasizing abstinence and goal-setting.

Economic Disincentives at Heart of the Debate

But it is the so-called “disincentive” parts of the plan that have provoked controversy and debate. One provision would reward teen-age AFDC recipients who remain in school with an additional $50 in cash each month, while dropouts would see their grants lowered by $50. Another provision requires teen-age mothers to remain at home with their parents to qualify for AFDC. The requirement would be exempted where the health or safety of the teen-ager is jeopardized by staying in the home.

The Wilson proposals are the latest in a spate of legislative initiatives across the country that seek to control the lifestyle and personal behavior of welfare recipients. Perhaps the most radical plan is one that would offer a “marriage bonus” of $73 a month to teen-age AFDC recipients in Wisconsin who marry.

Proponents contend that the reforms will encourage family units to remain intact.

“One of the factors in the AFDC caseloads is the disintegration of family values and lack of personal responsibility,” California Health and Welfare Agency spokeswoman Kassy Perry said. “If we can effect a change, get girls to delay pregnancies and stay in school, it will minimize the numbers that end up on welfare.”

Critics of the governor’s proposal applaud the efforts designed to encourage youngsters to stay in school--according to a 1990 Orange County survey of teen-age welfare clients, 45% had only an eighth- or ninth-grade education.

But they contend that the other initiatives are punitive. They charge the incentives have a disproportionate impact on female welfare recipients and immigrants, fall heavily on women of color and improperly condition public assistance on conformity to traditional roles.

Particularly vexing to opponents is Wilson’s plan to require young welfare mothers to remain at home. County welfare officials say that provision could force caseworkers to make possibly life and death judgments about family relations.

“I think many administrators would express the opinion that we don’t believe we are supposed to be policing morals or behavior,” said Angelo R. Doti, director of financial assistance programs for the Orange County Social Services Agency. “These are entitlement programs and we don’t play God and determine who is worthy.”

Social welfare experts say teen-age parents have complex educational, vocational, health and social needs that can’t necessarily be dealt with in one stroke of legislation. And caseworkers say each case brings unique rationales and obstacles.

“Every situation and family setting is different, but there are some common denominators like communication problems with the families, the lack of a father figure and the interruption of schooling,” said Pama Tavernier, a counselor who works with teen-age welfare mothers in the county’s Teen GAIN (Greater Avenues to Independence) program. The program is designed to allow teen-age welfare recipients to complete their educations and provides transportation and child-care expenses.

“What they also have in common is a great sense that ‘I’m going to run my own life’ but they don’t realize the responsibilities that go with it.”

Maria Raudales says she now realizes that she was ill-prepared to be a mother of two children at so young an age. She receives $610 each month in AFDC and food stamps and resents the lack of control she has over her own life.

“I can’t stand being on welfare,” she says. “It’s like they have control over what I do, how I spend my money. I don’t really feel independent.”

She fears that she may be trapped in a familiar cycle.

“I know people who got on welfare at my age, and they are grandparents now and they are still on welfare,” she says. “I would jump at the chance to get a good job. Welfare doesn’t offer my family much.”

But she also believes that some aspects of her life are not hers to control.

One aching memory is of her father, whom she met only once when she was about 4 years old. He had another family by then, and while Maria’s recollection of him is no longer vivid, the pain of his absence endures, she says.

Later, conflicts with her mother caused the departure of a beloved stepfather, along with his encouragement of her studies.

“When I was a little girl I didn’t have any dreams of being anything, I just sort of lived day to day, and that’s how it is now,” said Raudales. “Right now, I’m just trying to do what I can to take care of my kids because I don’t want them growing up like I did.”

Immigrant parents and their children form a growing proportion of AFDC cases--an estimated 27% by next year, according to the California Health and Welfare Agency. Of the 683,000 AFDC clients who are immigrants, 47% are parents or children who are refugees or legal aliens. In Orange County, an estimated 10% of the teen-age parents on welfare are refugees, according to a 1990 Social Services Agency sample survey.

One of them is My Nguyen, 17, a teen-ager of Chinese ancestry whose relationship with a Vietnamese man caused scorn in her family and led them to a desperate act of rebellion. They had a child.

It wasn’t the first time their lives were thrown into turmoil. At age 12, My and her family survived a frightening journey from Southeast Asia and landed in the least inviting spot she could have imagined, a little town outside Pittsburgh, Pa., in the dead of winter.

Her future husband, Tien Nguyen, now 25, had survived an equally tumultuous journey from Laos. After time in refugee camps in Thailand and the Philippines, he and his family landed in Washington, D.C, in 1980.

They met on a summer excursion to the Maryland seashore. My soon fell in love with Tien, the top salesman in the furniture department of a large department store and a biochemistry major at the University of Maryland who hoped to become a doctor.

Her family was not impressed, however, and denounced the relationship. The young couple forced the issue with the birth of their son, Tyson, now 17 months.

Even with a newborn son, things may have worked out if My and Tien had remained back East, but instead they decided to follow Tien’s mother, with whom they had been living, to California, eventually settling in a small apartment in Westminster, on the edge of Little Saigon.

They arrived on the cusp of a recession that has left them jobless after nearly a year. Now, they’re forced to survive on $663 a month in AFDC payments.

Couple’s Optimism Turns to Frustration Over Joblessness

The couple, once full of optimism and energy, now say they feel drained. Tien, says he is continually told that he lacks the experience to qualify for the kind of sales positions he had attained in the East. The minimum wage jobs he could get do not pay enough to support a family of three, he says.

“I don’t like being on welfare,” says My, trying to contain the energetic Tyson. “I think about my friends who would be graduating this year and think that I could have been graduating, too.”

“I regret coming here, I don’t like it,” My added. “It’s very hard to realize that you can’t support your family.”

But she is also indomitable, feisty and stubborn about her choices. She feels her parents were wrong to discriminate against Tien because of his nationality and vows to finish high school. She is enrolled in the Teen GAIN program and is one of the best students in her class, said Tavernier, her counselor.

“I would be embarrassed to go back (home) now,” My said. “I’ll go back when I’m rich. A lot of young married couples start out poor and build themselves up. I’m going to stick with (Tien) and prove a lot of people wrong.”

Eighteen-year-old Coree Beaver has lived a life of upheaval almost since birth. Her parents divorced when she was 6 months old, and Coree shuttled for a while between her mother, who lived in Los Angeles, and her father in San Diego. At 14, her father agreed to allow her to move in with neighbors down the block. She became a live-in au pair, caring for the couple’s children.

When the couple decided to return to their native Michigan, Coree went along, but the cold weather and squabbles with the couple made her homesick. Her mother sent her a plane ticket and she flew back to California.

Since then, her life has been no less turbulent. Pregnant at 16, Coree and her 7-month-old daughter Melody are on welfare. She receives $530 a month in AFDC and $130 in food stamps.

“We’re just getting by,” Coree says. “But there are really few things I regret, especially Melody. There’s really nothing I do that I don’t do without her.”

Coree admits that she didn’t make it easy on anybody while growing up. Her goal was to have as much fun as possible, and if that meant playing her “very lenient” parents against each other, so be it. She says her parents didn’t mind when she started smoking at 14.

“When I would go out and drink with my girlfriends, I would tell my dad and he would say ‘just don’t drink and drive,’ ” she said, sitting in a pleasant Anaheim apartment that she shares with a roommate. A smile creased a face still plump with baby fat.

Coree got pregnant while attending a Job Corps program in San Diego. She and her boyfriend, a fellow student, left the program and moved in with his family in Los Angeles. But she did not get along with his relatives.

At the time she was a ward of the court and was placed in a San Diego home for pregnant girls but left after two months, before the birth of her daughter, Melody.

“I left ‘cause I wanted to stay in bed and be lazy, and they didn’t like that,” she said.

She decided to move back in with her boyfriend, and the couple found an apartment in Hollywood. But Coree says her boyfriend began antagonizing her, pulling her hair and finally punching her in the face. She called the police, and her boyfriend was jailed for three days, but she decided not to press charges.

After that incident, Coree decided to move back to Orange County and got on AFDC.

Coree remains optimistic, however. She is enrolled in a state-funded Teen Parenting Program, where she is working on earning the few credits she needs to earn her high school degree.

“I realize it’s pretty unstable time for me, but I don’t regret anything I’ve done,” Coree said. “I’ve learned from everything I’ve done--I’m the type that has to learn something the hard way.”

Dealing with Adolescent Pregnancy

Gov. Wilson’s welfare reform program aims several proposals at the teen-age pregnancy problem. They include:

* A $50-per-month cash incentive to teens who remain in school; a $50 reduction in benefits for those who drop out.

* Minors eligible for Aid to Families With Dependent Children (AFDC) would receive aid only if they remain at home with parents or guardians. The grant would be made directly to the parent on behalf of the minor.

* Expansion of family planning services for teens at risk of becoming pregnant.

* Education Now and Babies Later--a new program emphasizing abstinence and goal-setting for 12- to 14-year-olds.

* Expansion of the Adolescent Family Life Program, which provides counseling and other services to school-age teen parents.

Source: California Health and Welfare Agency

Births to Teen-agers on Rise

The number of births to teen-age mothers in Orange County increased steadily between 1986 and 1990, the most recent year for which information is available. Overall, births increased 54% during the period, with the largest jump--88%--occurring in the youngest age group. At the same time, the birthrate for women 15 to 19 years old jumped from 37.2 to 58.3 per thousand, a 57% increase.

Total Births, ‘90: 4,745

Under 15 15-17 18-19 1986 40 976 2,073 1987 47 1,048 2,134 1988 49 1,195 2,345 1989 68 1,300 2,784 1990 75 1,555 3,115

15- to 19-year-old birthrate (per 1,000), 1990*: 58.3

* Most recent information available

Source: Orange County Health Care Agency