If something terrible has happened in one's life and one needs the parachute of welfare and community hospitalization - that's one thing.
But this isn't that sort of thing. The daughter's situation was COMPLETELY preventable.
She is just displaying the irresponsibility, selfishness and complete lack of ability to learn anything from experience - my friend was widowed young. Her daughter certainly remembers how hard it was trying to live on a single woman's salary.
And what does she do? Get herself knocked up when she has no job, no money, no stable relationship with the father, has not finished her degree, has no real job skills, no means by which to raise a child properly much less pay for the pre-natal care required for a healthy baby. She has shown none of the foresight, planning and maturity that raising a child is going to demand.
I've no idea why her mother is optimistic about her daughter's ability to raise a child and make her relationship with her boyfriend 'work'.