Media not the only culprit for baby boom (7/2/08)

By: Sarah Zeeck

Posted: 7/2/08

Another baby boom may be upon us: 17 young girls between the ages of 15 and 17 from Gloucester High School in Gloucester, Mass. are expecting babies this summer after agreeing to become pregnant and raise their children together.

And they are not completely alone - according to the Centers for Disease Control, the number of teenage girls - specifically 15 to 19-year-olds - is on the rise. Since 2006, the birthrate for that age category has increased by 3 percent. What seems like a small number is actually large - the CDC estimates that roughly four out of every 100 girls becomes pregnant as a teenager.

Many critics are quick to blame recent box office hits such as "Juno" and "Knocked Up" for the biggest teenage pregnancy spike in recent years, but we must not forget the glamorized pregnancies of Jamie Lynn Spears, her sister Britney, and dozens of other Hollywood stars.

Pregnancy, which was at one time a scary prospect, is no longer a threat to teenage girls. The stigma for conception out of wedlock has faded from existence, leaving girls who want to play doll or play house with a real baby intentionally impregnating themselves at the crossroads into adulthood, at possibly the most fertile times of their lives.

School officials in Gloucester and across the nation are at a loss concerning how to handle the dilemma. Teach abstinence only sex education? Provide teenagers with contraception? A solution for this situation is tricky.

The girls aren't necessarily impregnating themselves because Jamie Lynn and Juno did it. They aren't necessarily doing it because they aren't properly informed with how to handle birth control.

Many of them are doing it to have lasting love.

By having a child, the girls expect to breed a person to love them. At 15 years old, the typical teenager hates their parents, hates their teachers, and is in a flux between loving and hating their girl/boyfriends. Something they yearn for is a constant in their lives. They want someone they can love that will love them back all the time. They don't realize that child rearing is something they cannot go back and take a "do-over" like a recess game.

This makes the solution increasingly more sketchy. "Having a baby changes everything" public service announcements clearly are not getting the point across, so perhaps when being taught sex education, children should be given a dose of reality education.

Young mothers would probably reconsider such early pregnancy if they realized how difficult child rearing is, especially when taking on the endeavor alone.

They probably also do not realize how difficult letting go of a child you've been incubating for 9 months is if considering giving the baby up for adoption, or even how difficult finding an adoptive couple is. Young mothers are unaware of the social, financial, physical, mental and emotional strains they are putting on themselves, their parents and their infants.

Perhaps if we treat our young teenagers like adults by talking and explaining things to them in a rational manner before they feel the need to prove they are adults themselves, issues such as this will decrease in prevalence.