Lifetime is developing the TV movie Pregnancy Pact, which is inspired by the 17 Massachusetts teens said to have conspired to get pregnant together.
You may recall the story: Last year, 17 girls at Gloucester High School apparently agreed to get pregnant at the same time and succeeded. The principal, Joseph Sullivan, exposed the story in June 2008 during an interview with TIME magazine claiming the girls planned the pregnancies and planned to raise the children together within the group.
The film won’t be directly about the pregnant teens, since at least one of the girls has denied the pregnancy pact ever existed, but what isn’t contested is that these 17 girls in the same high school became pregnant in the same year- and that is a definite problem.
For the first time in over 13 years, teenage pregnancy is on the rise. We like to think that our kids are smarter and more worldly than we were at their age, but when it comes to sex education, this is a dangerous assumption.
Kids learn less about safe sex and contraception than their parents did in school. How can that be?
Many place the blame on federal programs that teach abstinence alone, instead of a variety of birth control and safe sex options. These programs have caused an outcry in many states, some of which refuse to accept federal money because they don’t want to be restricted to abstinence-only education.
This reasoning does not sit well with abstinence supporters. They claim teaching children about contraceptives sends a mixed message and that no sex is the only safe sex.
Either way, it doesn’t matter what these children should be taught if they aren’t being taught anything at all. The only way to ensure your children learn what you want them to learn is to teach them yourself. Raising safe and responsible teens is a parents’ job.
Kids are drawn to sex because they have raging hormones, and it feels good- plain and simple. Perhaps instead of focusing so much on how to teach the mechanics of sex, we should focus more on the emotional side, which can be greater deterrent for young kids than the dangers of the “it’s never going to happen to me” mentality of pregnancy and STDs.
Kids don’t have the mental capacity to predict the consequences of their actions, especially if those consequences are not a certainty. Even if kids escape the physical ramifications, most are surprised to find how they feel afterwards: ashamed, alone, or regretful. Their relationship with their partner changes, their reputation changes forever and something is taken from them they can never get back. Why isn’t that a part of sex ed? These are the consequences that will effect most kids and can change who they are forever.
Shows like 16 and Pregnant on MTV, do their best to show all aspects of teen motherhood: financial strain, physical pain, and emotional turmoil, but we can’t leave it to MTV and Lifetime or even the school system to teach our kids about safe sex. It’s up to you.
