I knew a couple girls when I was in junior college who had gotten pregnant on purpose to get out of a bad home environment. They knew that if they got pregnant, the state and county would step in with all kinds of money, rent assistance, food stamps, job training (which is how they went to junior college in the first place), child-care assistance while they were in school, you name it. All for the price of spreading their legs and getting knocked up.
Robin
Bull. I grew up in an exceptionally small town. Population 405.
In a high school graduating class of eighteen, out of eleven girls… I was one of four who wasn’t either pregnant, or had given birth by the time we graduated. It was just [seen as] a viable option for girls who had no concept of another path in life than getting pregnant young, getting on welfare, and staying in the same small farming town as their mothers and grandmothers did. In that situation, not only are they proud of being pregnant, but their families are happy and excited for them.
My best friend at the time actually threatened to kill me because I didn’t congradulate her for getting pregnant at sixteen. She was also an extremely heavy user of any narcotic she was able to get her hands on. It didn’t occur to me to be excited for a heavily drug abusing teenager to be pregnant by her twenty four year old “boyfriend”. Go figure.
There was, incidentally, a perfect correlation between girls who avoided pregnancy and college-educated parents.
I am 23.
I think that might have a lot more to do with it than any surge in the popularity of getting knocked up before you’re 20.
I’ve 21 and I know exactly 2 girls who had teen pregnancies… but anecdotal evidence is kind of useless. I suspect the school I went to and the people I associate with have had some effect. And likewise with everyone else.
Oh, and it’s decidedly not cool in my and my friends’ estimates.
Well, I was offering evidence to support at least one reason for teenage pregnancy being popular in certain socio-economic circumstances–it sounded to me like the person was objecting to the concept that anyone would ever find attaining a teenage pregnancy attractive, since there have been zero documented cases of razorblades in halloween candy.
Yeah but she’s talking about a rising trend in the last year of teen pregnancy becoming popular or more accepted. The situation you describe sounds a little more long term than that.
(NOTE – I added the bolding in the above quote.)
More likely, they’ll hook up with a loser and put the resulting kid on welfare; or, if the kid doesn’t end up on welfare (because the girls you mention have jobs), those of us who work in the Courts will be treated to 21 years (or 18, depending on which state you live in) of the lucky “baby mama” pissing and moaning about how come the system can’t turn the burger-slinger or drug dealer they decided to get knocked up by into a reliable cash cow. Here’s a hint for the girlies: 17% of minimum wage is not going to put you into a new house or a new car, even if the jerk actually pays up. (Actually, at that income level, something called the "self support reserve kicks in, and the picture gets even bleaker.) And if the “baby daddy” has other kids before yours, and they already have support orders, the $$ those babies’ mothers are getting comes off the top before the 17% is calculated.
GOD, do I wish they’d institute a “Scared Sterile” program in the schools around here like I keep suggesting. It would teach the girls that they’re not likely to get all that much money, and it would teach the guys that they’re likely to end up with a financial millstone around their necks, particularly if they get sued for support and don’t bother to show up. (Imagine a bill of $446.00 per month for support of one child on welfare for 21 years. It’s 21 in this state, and $446 is the average monthly cash grant for one child on welfare, so that’s what the welfare babies’ dads get charged for support when they don’t bother to show up for the hearing.)
Sorry this is tangential to the subject. I just keep hoping that *somebody, somewhere * will take the time to explain child support to kids in school before they get knocked up.
I don’t know how helpful this is, but I knew a couple girls who got pregnant on purpose their senior year of high school, and this was back in the late 70s. So I don’t think so much that it’s gotten suddenly cool as much as there are certain pockets of folks around who probably always thought it was an OK thing to do. The difference is that now we have the Internet and those people can all find each other and band together.