Is teen pregnancy wrong?
whose fault is it? The Parents or the Teen?
Should the teen keep the baby?
Do you think that teens get pregnant on purpose most of the time?
what is your opinion?
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It is wrong to bring a child intoi this world if you are not both willing and able to give it the physical and emotional support it needs.
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Each situation is different. The only ti,me that it is not the child’s fault at all is if it was actual rape, or if the child was too immature or too ignorant to understand the consequences of her actions. The parents are only tangentially to blame; teen pregnancy suggests that the parents aren’t giving their children the emotional support and the education they need, but it doesn’t prove for certain that that is the case. Sometimes, no matter what the parents do, their children act irresponsibly. But I think that children’s irresponsibility is reduced (not eliminated) when the parents are responsible.
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Again, depends on the situation. If the teen can take care of the baby, then keeping the baby should be considered. But if the teen can’t take care of the baby, then adoption is the responsible choice.
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No
Well, The Ryan pretty much nailed that one.
IMO, it’s irresponsible, foolish, and usually just plain stupid to bring a child into the world without the means to care for it, regardless of the parent’s age. And yes, I’ll go out on a limb and say: it’s pure-D wrong.
If a woman cannot support and raise a child, she shouldn’t have gotten preggers in the first place. And if she does get pregnant, she needs to consider abortion or plan to have that child go somewhere it WILL be cared for. If that means adoption, so be it. If it means quitting school and working at Taco Bell, so be it. As long at there’s good food on the table for the child, clean clothes for the child, a clean home for the child, and education for the child, the mother’s life is irrelevant.
And yes, it is the mother’s responsibility. She has a responsibility to the child to which she gave birth. And if she wants the father to pay his share (in whatever way), it’s the mother’s responsibility to make sure he does.
Probably not what you wanted to hear, huh?
-andros-
Here’s a better question–why is the teen pregnancy rate so high?
Is it because they honestly don’t know enough about birth control? Because they don’t have access to it? Because they don’t use it right? Because they are having so much sex that the law of large numbers brings the failure rate into reality?
Since I’ll be a doc in eastern KY, where the teen pregnancy rate is abysmally high, I’m curious as to your opinions.
Dr. J
“Seriously, baby, I can prescribe anything I want!” -Dr. Nick Riviera
One opinion piece I heard on NPR said that many girls growing up in poverty-stricken neighborhoods, who don’t have much faith in their ability to make it on their own after they get out of school, will intentionally have unprotected sex with their boyfriends in the hope that they’ll get pregnant and will be able to “force” their boyfriends to commit to them.
I think its more of not having a clue. From most teens to young adults most dont have a clue about the actual facts. Like take for example one guy i knew: He had unprotected sex when he was 16 over 40 times with a older girl and expected her not to get pregnant.
I still make fun of him for that. 
I think all of you are pretty much correct.
I am a teen mother and I am doing a project about what other peoples perspectives are on the topic of teen pregnancy.I believe that ONE of the reasons that young girls have sex is that they have a bad self-image. They might feel that if a boy has sex with them that the boy loves them. and so on and so on until the girl gets pregnant. Whatever the reason being,
I believe that you should do whatever possible to take care of that child.Even if that means adoption.There are millions of people out there that want children so badly.They would probably be very thankful.
I am 16 years old and I have a 7 month old daughter. I live with my mom and daughter.
I go to a teen mom school everyday. I work as a Realtor Assistant and I am a VERY good mother. I believe anybody who trys can be a good mother. No matter if they work at mcdonalds or secretary for the president of the united states. As long as there is love in your heart and you are not abusive in any way and you can provide for your child by any means nessecary you should be considered a good parent, no matter what age.
Bingo, Tracer!
Many of my students are teen mothers, and I believe that this is precisely their motivation. The father may hang around for a couple months, but they’re usually gone by the time the baby turns one. Although, I believe most of the fathers make an initial attempt at doing the “right thing” few go as far as marrying the girl to show their commitment. In the end, the baby is the girl’s (and society’s) “problem”.
I don’t know if I was classified as a teen mom. I was 19 years old when I got pregnant and in my last semester of junior college. I was on the pill and NEVER forgot to take it. In fact, when I went to the doctor, I made him do the test twice, because I did not believe it.
Anyway, I got married. My parents helped us so that I could finish the semester. I was 6 months pregnant when I got my Associates Degree. We both worked and it was hard. My marraige suffered. Basically, I grew up when I had my son and my ex did not.
BTW, I have heard alot of people talk about girls who get pregnant in a very bad way. These same people do not seem to remember that she did not get pregnant by herself! I have also heard people say that these girls are stupid. That really upsets me. Some may be uneducated.
One experience that I had with a college professor really infuriated me. She came into class one day and said that any girl who gets pregnant and is not married is just stupid and ignorant and on and on. I, not so politely, told her where she could go. I went to college on a full scholarship because of my ACT score. I DO NOT consider myself stupid.
I hope that everything works out for you. I do know how hard it is, but if you really want to raise your daughter, then you can do it!
What matters most is how you see yourself.
personally i don’t think any baby or child should ever be referred to as a “problem”
That’s why I put it in quotes.
Juliettesmommy, best of luck to you. I’m very glad you gave your baby the gift of life and I’m sure you’ll be a good mommy.
(I probably shouldn’t be posting at all because I’m high as a kite - threw my back out this morning and I am on Soma, f-l-o-a-t-i-n-g. JM, it’s heck getting older.)
This topic is of interest to me because I have a 13-year-old daughter. She is not menstruating yet, but I expect that to happen any time now. Of course you can’t wait to talk to your kids about sex. What I’ve told her is this: (1)Nature wants healthy young females pregnant, and (2) your body knows what to do. It doesn’t matter how nice you are, how high your morals are, how often you go to church, how nice your family is, how much money they have, or what part of town you live in: nature wants you pregnant, and your body knows what to do. So the prudent person takes this into account, and does not engage in activities such as parking (is that term still in use?) where the hormones can take over and there is nothing to make you stop. There’s been many a “nice” boy and “nice” girl wind up pregnant because they didn’t take nature into account.
Juliette’s mommy, did anyone discuss this with you? If not, would it have made any difference to your situation if they had? (And let me make it clear, now that the baby is here, IMO there can be no regrets on her account.) Feel free to share only what you feel comfortable with.
Regarding teen fathers: I have a theory that at least part of the reason teen fathers so often wander off is because they feel, with good reason, that that is what they are expected to do. I had several friends get pregnant/impregnate someone in high school, and have observed other situations since, and one thing I have noticed repeatedly is that the father is subtly shut out almost from day one. Teachers in highschools ask teen mothers/ pregnant teens about the baby–they never say anything to the father, assuming he dosen’t know the details or dosen’t care. The most disturbing expression of this that I see is the way that no one will trust the father alone with the baby, especailly in the first three months. When commented on, I hear a lot of “Oh, he’s never spent time around babies, I’m not sure he would go check on her when she started crying” or something like that. This is all well and good, but often the mother also has had no experience with infants, but she is expected to grow up very, very fast and learn to deal with it. For whatever reason, we don’t set the same high standards for boys.
I want to add that I am not defending any boy/man who abandons his children. But I do think that the combination of faith and expectation can help make a very hard thing easier, and we owe it to teen fathers to give them the benefit of the doubt. In the only case I know of where teenage parents forged a sucessful marrige, the parents of the father showed through their actions that they never even considered the possibility that their son would not stick it out–that new grandbaby was integrated into the family from the moment the pregnancy was announced. I know a couple of other families that are deeply misandrist–men stay for a few years at most,father a couple kids, and then leave (In some cases this pattern goes back generations). This is a terrible cycle, because each new generation of girls has been shown through word and example that men don’t stay, can’t be expected to stay, and there is no point in trying to pick a good one because they are all rat bastards. And these girls do seem to pick men that live up to their expectations.
I bring this up mostly for Doctor J–when you go into practice, don’t be angry with the teen fathers until they have actually abandoned the mother. Don’t assume that the teen’s mother is going to be her birthing coach. Do your best to insist that both parents come to check-ups and classes-even if they have already terminated their romantic relationship. Bluntly, people are more eager to pay child support when they feel like they have an emotional inventment, not just a legal responsibility, to the child. Teen fathers won’t live up to their responsibilities if no one makes it clear what those responsibilities–and the associated rewards–are. Ultimitly, if teen fathering were seen as onerous and as taxing and as life-transforming as teen-mothering, it would double the number of people in the relationship who have a real reason to avoid pregnacy, and double the odds that someone would have enough self-control to stop.
SouthernXYL, one thing my mother pointed out to me which helped alot was that the problem is not that boys will lie to you, but that they won’t know their own minds while in the throes of lust. In many cases, girls have been warned away from stereotypical lecherous slimeballs, who will lie and wheedle to get a girl to bed (common, baby, I really do love you. . .) There are a few of these, but they are pretty easy to spot, even for a young girl. The problem is that what girls are more likely to meet is a guy that really thinks he is going to love them forever, and they are his sun and moon and yaddyyaddyya. … since loverboy is not really lying, he dosen’t set off the alarms a girl has set, and she gets in trouble. I think it is great that you are being blunt with your daughter that she will also want to have sex, not just the boys. Many parents do not want to acknowledge the sexuality of their daughters; they say “Boys want sex and girls want love”. Then, when girl wants sex, she thinks it must be love, and when she really, really wants sex she thinks she must really, really be in love and so it’s OK to give him sex–not because she wants to, but just because she loves him, and wants to make him happy.
A few clarifications:
I used the term “actual rape” because I wasn’t seure how to distinguish statuatory rape from from other types of rape. A victim of statuatory rape certainly has been victimized, but that doesn’t mean that she (or even he) isn’t responsible for what happens.
Also, I noticed that I allowed the pronoun “she” to sneak in to my post. Obviously, the father also bears responsibility.
Yeah, I remember I was in a discussion about sexual relationships, and a woman said something along the lines of “Well, often the guy tells the woman that he loves her to get her into bed” and I asked “How can you fall for that?” She thought I was asking how she could believe a guy who says that he loves her, but that wasn’t what I was asking at all. What I was asking was why women fall for this idea that if you are in love, you somehow have an obligation to have sex, and that if you do have sex, it is somehow more noble if you’re “in love”. I mean, if you want to have premarital sex, I guess that’s your choice. But don’t pretend that doing it just because you’re in love. You’re doing it because you want to. Our society seems to have this idea that women should never have sex just because they want to have sex; they should only have sex to express their love towards a guy.
So if you’re a bit confused about what I am and am not saying (which I certainly can understand you being):
I’m not saying that women should have sex with guys they’re not in love with, I’m just saying that they should be honest with themselves about the real reason they’re having sex.
I’m not saying that they definitely aren’t in love, but I am saying that love isn’t the primary motivation here.
I’m not saying that there aren’t benefits to loving the person you’re having sex with over just having sex with anyone, but I am saying that love isn’t the same as a committed relationship, and it definitely isn’t the same as being responsible.
I think the main reasons for teenage pregnancies are:
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ignorance (of sex, of love, of reproduction, of responsibility, of hormones, of emotions, of just about everything connected to the subject)
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an inability to emotionally comprehend consequences more than a few months into the future.
The first gets talked about a lot. I wish we did more than talk. Every child should have a firm understanding of the mechanics of reproduction before they hit puberty. Trying to teach them while they’re in the middle of a hormone-induced emotional storm doesn’t cut it. The knowledge has to be ingrained and ready at hand, so that when sex is an option and a desire, they can make informed decisions regarding it.
On the second part, what I see most often (and granted what I see is not representational of teenagers or even teenage girls) on the boards I post on, is adolescents who are either completely clueless as to the realities of the situation OR who have a thorough grasp of the consequences for about three months into the future.
They can comprehend getting (or getting someone) pregnant, and know that that’s usually a Very Bad Thing. But they don’t come to grips with the fact that they have to make a decision - abortion, adoption, raising - within weeks of finding out about the pregnancy. They, hopefully, face up to the decision, but past three months or so, don’t understand what it’s really going to mean to them. The perspective of parenthood and adulthood is completely unknown to them. Good heavens, it’s still pretty alien to me, and I’m 28!
More than anything, what I’d like to see is children thoroughly educated about sex and then included in discussion about it. I’d like to see that impermiable barrier between the adult world and the adolescent world change so that teenagers have a chance to experience the reality of it before they make irrevocable decisions. I’d especially like the rest of us to do our flat out best to support and encourage children to make responsible choices and, at the same time, make allowances for human failure and keep teenage parents and their children from sinking into poverty and hopelessness.
Right on, Manda! I would add to that–look at the strong message we get from Hollywood, that “it’s OK to have sex if you’re in love”. One word–“Titanic”. Three more words–“Shakespeare in Love”, which even though it was rated R, has still been seen on video by lots of 13 and 14-year-olds. How is a 15-year-old full of raging hormones supposed to handle this? Hey, Leo and Kate are doing it, it must be OK, right?
I don’t want to hijack this thread onto the subject of “child care” or “grandparents raising grandchildren”, but I’m just curious. Juliettesmommy, who’s watching your baby while you’re at work?
I’m also curious about where your baby’s father and other set of grandparents are in all this. (I know this is supposed to be a Great Debate on the subject of teen pregnancy, and not “Juliettesmommy’s Support Group”, but the father’s role has already been mentioned by other people, so…)
“Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast!” - the White Queen
I often want to agree and say that teenage sex and pregnancy are directly resultant from our oversexed culture and the exposure of young children to all kinds of raunchy material in the media and society. But sometimes I really don’t know if that has anything to do with it - as best I can tell teenagers have been having sex for a very long time - it just wasn’t as openly discussed. My grandfather shocked the hell out of me one time when he started talking about how he too knew girls in high school who would “put out” and that teenage sex isn’t as much of a new issue as people want to believe.
I think that many of the problems discussed in this thread are resultant from other aspects of our society - specifically, in earlier days, most people got married as teenagers and therefore most girls got pregnant as teenagers. Andhey were expected to be stay at home mothers, so there wasn’t much question about how to support the baby - the wife stayed at home and the husband went to work.
The difference today is that couples aren’t expected to get married as early, but their bodies and their desires are still coming into maturity at the same age as they always have. In today’s “progressive” culture two parents aren’t required to get married (via “shotgun” iykwim) and as a society, we have no ways of forcing anyone to do anything. In the past, if a boy got a girls pregnant, they got married and they stayed that way in a very large number of cases. Society made sure of it.
My WAG:
We live in a society that really confuses young people.
I think they have resorted to piercing themselves in a desperate attempt to do what we all took for granted; separation from previous generation. It’s a different world today. When I was a kid I could wear any outrageous outfit confident that my parents would not adopt it in a twisted attempt to remain youthful. Our culture worships youth as an ideal. At a time when it has never been more painful to be a teenager. Worse still, we have extended the period of adolescence from what it was say, 100yrs ago. This is directly opposed to what we really know is going on. Children become adults much more quickly in this world. They menustrate earlier etc. Yet we keep telling them they are not yet adults. At the same time they ARE making adult decisions every day. By 14 they have made decisions about smoking, drugs, sexual preferences, unprotected sex, getting into a car with someone who has been drinking, lying to authority figures, etc. Yet where, at school or at home or in the media, are they given their due? We want them to make the RIGHT choices, the mature choices, but we won’t/can’t give them the respect that should rightly accompany the exercising of such choices.
It really chafes my cheeks to here people say, “kids today”…grrr…
Just my opinion.
Wisdom is the boobie prize,they give you when you’ve been --unwise!
It looks like this isn’t the case for juliettesmommy, but another reason I have come across for teen pregnancy is that the girls grow up in an environment where they don’t feel loved, valued, or needed. They intentionally become pregnant to create a person who is guaranteed to fill that emotional vacuum-- a baby will love them, value them and need them.
In most cases, the girls aren’t prepared for the incredible stress of parenthood, and if they don’t have resources to help them out, their child can also grow up feeling unloved. This can make for a cycle of teen pregnancy, each mother trying to fill an emotional void, or maybe thinking, “My mom did fine with me, so I’ll do fine with my baby.”
Along with sex education, I think it’s important to educate teens about how very demanding parenthood is. It would be great if both boys and girls had to take care of those dolls that cry automatically. I have only seen them a few times on various news programs, but five minutes was enough to exhaust me! Looks like good birth control to me.
I don’t think we should downplay the role stupidity plays in teenage pregnancy. In a small town not far from where my inlaws live, there was a huge rise in teenage pregnancy. When the matter was looked into it was discovered that many of the teenage girls made a bet amongst themselves about who would get pregnant and give birth first. It was a game. In fact it was such a good game that in spread to a few nearby towns as well. The end result is quite obvious to me every time I visit my inlaws. Babies carrying babies through the streets of the town.
Perhaps MTV is to blame… perhaps the schools… perhaps the parents… perhaps the kids are simply idiots.
Disclaimer: I don’t for a second suggest that this is typical behaviour in the majority of the cases of teen pregnancy. I just think it’s more prevalent than we sometimes care to admit.