According to this article, the rates for teen pregnancy are up for the first time in fifteen years.
But according to another, teen pregnancy is at its lowest in 30 years.
Without considering the different sampling techniques of these two studies, it's interesting how teenage pregnancy has been, well, popular this past year. Juno, about the wise-cracking pregnant teen looking to give her baby up for adoption, was one of the most buzzed about movies last year. Gilmore Girls, the television show about a teenage mother who had successfully raised a brilliant daughter on her own, finally ended after seven seasons of acclaim. A group of 17 Massachusetts teens may or may not have made a pregnancy pact. And Jamie Lynn Spears, Britney's seemingly innocent kid sister, announced on OK! magazine that she was pregnant at sixteen.
Teen sex and pregnancy is a touchy subject. And with good reason-adolescence is a heady time, where you can lapse between adulthood and childhood depending on the mood or situation. The media is rampant about lurid stories of teenagers who grow up too fast, like giving each other oral sex at thirteenth birthday parties. But then there are teenagers like the one I was, a naive innocent who scribbled about her crushes in her notes to friends and was confused by the mechanics of the Bill and Monica Scandal (my fourteen-year-old self couldn't understand why a white stain on Monica's dress was such a big deal.) Parents and schools struggle to find a balance between educating their teenagers and telling them too much.
My high school helmed abstinence-only education.
Now, disclaimer-I think abstinence is a great concept to be teaching to
teenagers. Obviously, it is the only method that is 100% effective
against both teenage pregnancy and STDs. However, not every teenager is
going to chose to be abstinent. They should learn how to protect
themselves if they do decide to engage in sex. Here's where it gets
tricky. Opponents of sex education say that teaching teens about birth
control will make them to want to have sex. Really? There are
going to be teenagers out there who will be having sex regardless of
whether or not they "learn" what a condom is in class (and my county, ironically, had one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the country). Teens should know that how to protect themselves if they choose not to be abstinent. They should also be encouraged to keep the channel of communication between themselves and their parents open regarding their choices. Whether abstinence-only education is detrimental remains to be seen. Again, studies are conflicting. This much is certain: if teenagers are going to be trusted with making informed choices, they should know both sides.
Educating teenagers is even more important given what they see on TV or read online. How many teen soaps have you watched where teenagers engaged in consequence-free sex? And the rare "pregnancy" scare lasts one episode. Some argue that the recent glut of positive teenage motherhood stories in the media are responsible for the alleged rise in teenage pregnancy. Yes, correlation does not imply causation, but at the same time, having Jamie Lynn Spears appear on the cover of OK! magazine with her newborn daughter and lying how perfect motherhood is not exactly the best role model we need for the Nickelodeon crowd who grew up watching her television show. It sickens me that the media is just feeding into this frenzy. How terribly irresponsible they are to print an article about "how much fun" teenage motherhood is.
I'm not going to get too moralistic about this-Ms. Spears had the right to choose whether or not she wanted to keep her baby, and her youth does not mean that she will not be a good mother. But printing articles like this does a disservice to those kids who have a Gilmore Girls view of teenage motherhood. I'm not a mother, but I've been around enough newborns and new parents to know that sleepless nights and poopy diapers are not a whole lot of fun. Even my own parents don't lie about how hard parenthood is. Apparently I was some sort of devil baby who cried non-stop for three months with colic and never let my parents sleep. I don't think any seventeen-year-old would file that in the "fun" file.
Even when the media does decide to send a "positive" message about waiting to have sex, the message is skewed. An ad showed on the Disney Channel featured a teenage girl making out with her boyfriend. As the situation was escalating, she opens her phone, supposedly because her dad has called her. She angrily tells her dad that she thought that she could spend the night out at her friend's house. Cut to a scene where she is in the car, grinning happily at her dad. She had pretended that he had called her in order to get out of the situation with her boyfriend. "Thanks, Dad," she said. "I really needed to get out of there." What exactly are we teaching girls here? Instead of telling your boyfriend to back off because you're not ready, you have to lie and use excuses about why you don't want to have sex?
However, I can't blame all the problems on the media or education in schools. One of the most effective solutions to this situation comes from home. Parents need to talk with their teens, keep an open channel of communication, and educate them. It's as simple as that.
No matter what politicians or optimists may promise, teenage pregnancy is a problem that will not easily be solved. But glorifying it or completely ignoring the problem does nothing to alleviate the issue. Teens should be made aware of the adult decisions they must face if they choose to have sex. Hollywood and the media need to stop making teenage motherhood look like something that's easy and enjoyable. At the same time, teens, especially girls, need to learn that it's okay to say no if they're not ready, and to be assertive. Finally, parents need to talk to their children and not make sex a taboo subject. Maybe then we will finally get a consensus on these conflicting studies.
Read and post comments |
Send to a friend
]]>