Teenage pregnancy is a calamity. On this society seems to be agreed. The Government certainly is. It calls teenage motherhood a “serious social problem” and has set up a task force to deal with it, while the rest of us seem happy to accept the Vicky Pollard stereotype that very young mothers are ill-educated dropouts, abandoned by feckless teenage fathers, who will drain the welfare system and produce children who will soon be collecting Asbos.

But what if we dare to entertain the idea that having a baby at 16 can be a good thing? What if we admit that many babies born to such girls receive a quality upbringing and are supported by the fathers? What if - shock, horror - we suggest that teenagers may even make better parents than many middle-class thirty-somethings who pay others to mind their babies?

During the past few months, documentary-makers for Channel 4's Cutting Edge have been filming at The Liverpool Women's Hospital. They had no particular brief when they started, but were so impressed by some teenagers giving birth there that their film, Pramface Babies, has become a semi-comical celebration of teenage motherhood and challenges the idea that only planned babies are wanted babies.

Ruth Pitt, the executive producer, says that working on it made her reflect that the middle class had hijacked the idea of what constitutes ideal motherhood. “Some of these mothers could teach the middle class quite a bit about having babies,” she says. “These young women, though none planned their babies, are incredibly committed to them: the children are put at the absolute centre of their world and they just get on with it. I have a suspicion that there are a lot of middle-class families whose love for their child is partly conditional. It's related to achieving academically. But a lot of these teenage mums don't expect anything of their children. They love them for what they are, and their overwhelming priority is looking after them themselves.”

Krista Wright, from Bootle, Merseyside, was 16 when she fell pregnant with her first child, Megan. She had been with her boyfriend, David, for just four weeks. She dreaded telling her parents and booked an abortion, but couldn't go through with it. David and her parents supported her decision. Megan is now 4 and Krista and David, a stevedore, are still together and have a new ten-week-old baby, Mary Anne.

Although Krista had to leave school and delay her plans to train as a midwife, she is enraged by the assumptions about girls like her. “Some people think that if you're young and have children you are automatically a slag,” she says at the tenement flat she shares with David. “They turn their noses up at you on the bus. Well, I've been with David for five years and I know he will never walk out on the children. I'm very, very happy with the decision I made.”

She plans to train as a midwife once Mary Anne is at school, and believes fervently that teenagers often make better mothers: “A lot of people expect you to fail as a mother, so you are more determined to prove them wrong,” she says.

This view is borne out by academic research. Simon Duncan, Professor of Social Policy at Bradford University, says that a baby can be a positive turning point for teenagers, making them more determined to gain qualifications, focus on improving their lives and shun some of the “wayward” friends they may have had.

“Recent studies show that the age of pregnancy has little effect on future qualifications, employment or income level,” he says. “Indeed, teenage mothers often do better than their social peers. This appears to be because many young mothers find that motherhood makes them feel stronger, more competent and more connected ... similarly, it seems that teenage fathers often want to be good fathers, to be actively involved in childcare.” A study for the Teenage Pregnancy Unit found that young women's attendance records and ambitions improved after pregnancy.

We musn't be naive about the statistics. They do suggest that a teenage mother is more likely to drop out of school, to have low or no qualifications, to be unemployed or low-paid, to do less well at school, to become involved in crime, and to use drugs and alcohol. But academics make the point that girls who fall pregnant at an early age (and only 7 per cent of teenage mothers in Britain are under 16) are more likely to be from such a background in the first place. It is not the babies that cause the deprivation. On the contrary, parenthood is more likely to motivate a young person to get out of poverty.

The film Juno, a comedy-drama about a 16-year-old dealing with an unplanned pregnancy, has been accused of painting an irresponsibly upbeat picture of teenage pregnancy. But the non-doom-laden side of the story is rarely heard these days.

Sue Thompson, one of two “young women's midwives” at The Liverpool Women's Hospital, says that in her experience teenagers usually make “very capable, loving mothers”. “For []a great many the pregnancy is a turning-point,” she says.

Karen Comber, the deputy head of midwifery, says that of the 8,000 births that take place there each year, 120 are to teenagers, mostly aged between 16 and 18. Per thousand births in this area, 41.6 are to teenagers, compared with a national average of 40. But, in line with Government targets, the hospital has seen a 28 per cent reduction in teenage pregnancies since 1998.

A recent story to confound the doubters was that of James Sutton, from Manchester, who was 12 when he fathered twin girls with Sarah Drinkwater, then 16. Eight years on the twins are fine, the couple are still together and they have another baby. Now 21, James has spent five years working for a construction company and is studying for a university degree.

All the young mothers featured in the Channel 4 film all being supported by the fathers of their babies, and all these fathers have jobs. This is not to say that there are no moments of pure Vicky Pollard comedy, though. For instance, 18-year-old Laura spends almost her entire labour on her mobile phone, trying to locate the baby's father, who fails to make it to the birth. When she finally speaks to him, her newborn son in her arms, he asks: “Has he got a big chopper?” A few weeks on we see her at home with the baby, declaring him the best thing that has ever happened to her, and pointing out a new gift that her partner has bought her - a Pit Bull puppy named Gucci. But, contrary to stereotype, the couple have set up home and are still together.

Kerrie, 17, says she wanted a baby “for something to love” because her upbringing, largely in foster care, had been so wretched. For those who frown at this reasoning, doesn't a thirtysomething who gets pregnant merely because she wants to tick all the boxes before she is 40 have a less defensible motive? And here is a twist: while we who wait until we have a nice house, a career and a nanny before having our babies may judge the teenage mother, be assured that she judges us.

Lindsey Boyd, who was 18 when she fell pregnant with her first child, is incredulous that any mother would choose not to be with her child permanently for its formative first four years, and employ a nanny or nursery instead. “Motherhood isn't watching someone else bring up your kids,” she says. “Don't get me wrong, I'm going to work when they're at school. But I want them to be able to say ‘our mum brought us up from the day we were born'.”

Lindsey had two babies within a year - Tayla, now 15 months, and three-month-old Andrew. Like Krista's children, they are immaculately turned out and happy. She and the father, Andy, don't live together but he shares the childcare and they are, they say, “taking it slowly”. Lindsey's mother Pat, 45, herself became pregnant at 18 and, although she didn't want her daughter to follow suit, agrees that children have been the making of Lindsey. “I never thought she'd be able to cope with two so young but she has totally proved me wrong,” she says. “They are always clean, always fed and happy. What more can you ask for?”

Germaine Greer is among those who have questioned the Government's preoccupation with teenage pregnancy. She cites the reasons behind its Teenage Pregnancy Strategy's aim to halve “unwanted” pregnancies by 2010 as “truly lame”. “We have 39,000 unwanted births a year - unwanted by the Government, that is. No one is speaking for the mums,” she says. Of Beverley Hughes, the Children's Minister, who said : “Having children at a young age can damage young women's health and wellbeing,” Greer is disparaging. “Childbearing can damage health and wellbeing at any age,” she says. “The associated risks of childbearing are certainly higher for adolescent mums than for mums over 20, but nowhere near as high as for women on IVF - but we haven't decided to halve the number of them by 2010.”

Professor Duncan says that the image of teenage girls having babies to secure a council house and scrounging off the State has been exaggerated. Besides, he adds, teenage birth rates in the UK are no higher now than they were in the 1950s, while in the 1960s it was deemed normal for 18-year-olds to have babies. In some cultures young motherhood is encouraged and, as fertility rates are highest in the teenage years, nature does not seem to deem it a disaster.

Teenage parenthood has become conflated with a wider moral panic about the decline of marriage, single parenting and teenage sexuality. And the “benefits burden” tag doesn't bear scrutiny, he says. In the US, comparative studies have been made between girls who became pregnant as teenagers but miscarried and teenagers who went on to have their babies. By their mid to late twenties the teenage mothers did better than the mothers who had miscarried in terms of employment and income “which, ironically, meant that government spending would have increased if they had not become young mothers”.

Lindsey, who was working as a waitress and attending a bricklaying course at college when she fell pregnant, is looking forward to working, but says: “I wonder whether, if I'd had a big career first, I'd have thought ‘Well, my career's my life' and the kids would have come last in it.”

Doesn't she feel that she is missing out on life? “I have a better life now because every time Tayla smiles I feel proud. I'm happier now than I've ever been. “

Krista, too, seems sincere when she says that she doesn't regret her “lost” teenage years. “I was out clubbing when I was 15. I've done all that: when you've seen one club, you've seen them all,” she says.

“I don't agree with having nannies. I enjoy looking after my kids. You brought them into the world, it's your responsibility to look after them. If you're not prepared to do that, don't have kids. What's the point?” The Government has sold the idea to young people that having babies “ruins lives”. Anyone who has seen older women suffering the trauma of leaving it too late could reply that not having babies ruins lives, too.

Cutting Edge: Pramface Babies,

Channel 4, Thursday, March 13, 9pm.

Young motherhood a blessing? I beg to differ

It's all very well to talk about the benefits of young motherhood when there is a father figure present, as there is in all the case studies here, but this does not correspond with social reality. In most cases, teenage mothers end up alone. And the idea that teenage single pregnancy is a net social benefit is absurd.

Many teenage single mothers may not see childrearing as a way of securing benefits such as housing and child allowance, but the availability of such benefits permits them to imagine that having a baby will be the answer to their problem.

What is their problem, exactly? Most of them grow up in loveless environments in which the membership of the household changes kaleidoscopically, stability is almost unknown and conflict universal. They have often experienced violence and abuse. Neither their families, nor their schools, nor popular culture give them any guidance on how to improve the quality of their lives. It is not surprising, then, that a baby is seen as some kind of solution, irrespective of who the father is or how he can be expected to behave in the future. Indeed, as the father is expected to play little or no role in the future of his child, it does not really matter what he is like. “A baby is someone to love, who will love me back.” This is a statement that I have heard from patients a hundred times, and it is a sad and moving testimony to our intrinsic need to love and be loved. There is no doubt that many single mothers, abused, exploited and abandoned by the fathers as they so often are, lavish immense affection on their child and find in that child the whole purpose of their being, but this is not the same as asserting that such a pattern of childrearing is good for society, or a harbinger of a prosperous and happy future. On the contrary, the evidence suggests that it promotes (though does not, in all cases, lead inevitably to) every possible kind of social pathology, from drunkenness to criminality, from drug-taking to sexual abuse.The connection between this pattern of childrearing and violence does not arise by chance.

Young women who have babies by men who are then absent do not remain celibate, but their future sexual partners often do not care to have other young men's children around them, and make this plain in a variety of ways. Moreover, the presence of another man's child (or, often enough, other men's children) acts as a permanent reminder to a man of the transitoriness of the woman's relations with men. This is a powerful stimulus to jealousy - and jealousy is the most important cause of violence between a man and a woman.

There are few things sadder than to ask young single mothers what they hope for, both for themselves and for their children. Would they, for example, like their children to have the lives that they have had? I have never met one who did.

On the contrary, what they hope is that their child will one day have a good job and settle into a stable relationship, preferably marriage. The problem is, of course, that they have no more idea of how this may be achieved than of how to fly to Mars.

DR THEODORE DALRYMPLE

Pulling no punches:

In Juno, the 16-year-old title character is pregnant. She decides that a childless couple, Mark and Vanessa, will adopt her baby. In this scene Juno is in hospital with her stepmother, Bren, and an ultrasound technician:

Technician: Well, there it is. Would you like to know the sex of your baby?

Juno: No, there will be no sex!

Technician: Plan to be suprised when you deliver?

Juno: Well, no, but I want Mark and Vanessa to be surprised and if you tell me I'll just ruin it.

Technician: Are Mark and Vanessa your friends from school?

Juno: No, they're the adoptive parents.

Technician: Oh, well, thank goodness for that!

Bren: What's that supposed to mean?

Technician: Well I've been doing this for a long time and I've seen a lot of teenagers come through here and it's obviously a very poisonous environment.

Juno: How do you know I'm so poisonous?

Bren: They could be utterly incompetent. There's no guarantee they'll do a better job raising this child than my dumbass stepdaughter will. What is your job title?

Technician: I'm an ultrasound technician.

Bren: Oh yeah? Well I'm a nail technician and I think we both ought to just stick to what we know.

Technician: Excuse me?

Bren: Oh, you think you're hot shit 'cause you get to sit over there and play Pictionary, well guess what? My five-year-old daughter could do that and let me tell you, she's not the brightest bulb in the tanning bed. So until you have your own kid, why don't you just go back to night school in Mankato and get a real job?

Times recommends

• Babyboomers still partying on in their sixties
• Do I have a chance of finding love again?
• Video: How to do party make-up