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.
Comments
Rick Machado
September 29th, 2009 - 8:40:02 AM
Ms. Turner writes a better than average article about teen pregnancy, especially the part about the emotional side of early sex. However, there are some points that are misleading, although unintentional, and need clarification. There is no reliable data to support a pregnancy pact in Gloucester that I know of. The principal was fired and isn't talking. And everyone seems to focus on 17 girls getting pregnant and not on why they choose pregnancy over a different life. Second, kids learn less about sex today because of the rise of the "teen mom" . She bacame a figurehead of all that was evil about women, sexuality, loose morals, lack of virtue and so on. Starting in the late 70's, into Reagan, but really Bill Clinton was the one who held the teen mom up to be crucified. AFLA passed in 1981, designed not to reduce pregnancy or disease, but to keep young people from having sex. Thus was born abstinence education. Third, abstinence education is not designed to reduce pregnancy. It's designed to keep teens from having sex . It will never work to reduce pregnancy because teen pregnancy isn't about sex. Fourth, most parents do a very poor job teaching their kids about sex. Relying on them is a very unsound strategy. Mostly, it's because they say one thing and do another. We need more experienced teachers, as well as a shift in thinking that somehow sex is "bad", or "dangerous". Driving kills more teens than anything- more than the next 9 things combined. But you don't see us teaching teens to abstain from driving. Fifth, teen pregnancy has nothing to do with raging hormones. It has nothing to do with sex. Lastly, the idea that a teen may feel shame after sex has nothing to do with reducing the teen birth rate (TBR). Sure, it may be true in some cases. And Ms. Turner's point about including it in sex ed is smart. But the sex has nothing to do with a teen choosing pregnancy and giving birth. The TBR is a complex mix of dynamics that include poverty, sex abuse, early sexualization, the adult birth rate, violent and chaotic households, economic attraction to older males, lack of repreductive health care, educational failure, lack of competing choices, male abandonment, and the uncomfortable truth that having a child as a teen is often a good choice. In other words, teen pregnancy is an adult created, adult perpetuated problem. No teen can solve it, only adults. It never was a teen problem, ever. Teens are forced into social corners, and pregnancy is often times one of their responses. Thanks for chance to speak Rick Machado Machado Farms Public Speaker on Teen Pregnancy
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