Now that I'm pregnant, I've suddenly succumbed to all things to do with pregnancy including those supposedly hot button issues such as teenage pregnancy. For all of those really fantastic shows out there (not kidding at all folks), just to name "16 and Pregnant" for one, none of them really digs into the boring reality of it. Sex education or the lack thereof is not an issue with the vast array of material on the web out there - no the real reason women have babies while they're still just babies is economic.
Women who are poor or also from a visible minority in the states have more reasons to have a baby at 16. Most stay at home and receive help from extended families, and by 21 their child is old enough that they can go to work and will make more money than those women who chose to have a baby young but for many reasons had to wait until their twenties. Often women from the economically disadvantaged will not be fixated on finishing college or university like women from the middle or upper classes, instead they will think of working as soon as possible after high school. And the majority of them do finish high school. For these women, it makes more economic sense to have the stability and joy of a child as soon as possible.
Even if they do wait, it still makes more sense for the economically disadvantaged to have more children. A baby does not cost a lot, if you don't buy all those lovely accessories decorating high income level homes. The more babies you have the more to help around the home and with the younger ones. Just a generation before me in Saskatchewan, farmers had great broods of children who all helped out on the farm. My father was one of those children. For that reason alone, my father didn't particularlly care for eating chickens. As a young boy, it was his job to clean out the kitchen coop. For my struggling grandparents, having children made sense from 18 until 40. Teenagers are just like adults.
Teenage pregnancy - doesn't that become just plain old boring - maybe even rational. God forbid that teenagers could be any of those things. Looking for a reality drama and funding, we perpetuate lies, instead of fixing the problem - growing disparity in wages and the increasing numbers of poverty in the States and also here in Canada. The lies proclaimed on either side of the debate polarize the situation so that the abstinence only program will bring about more pregnancies and STIs or sex education will increase the rate of pregnancies by virtue of putting sex into teenagers' heads.
The name teenage pregnancy is misleading - often teenage girls have babies with men over the age of twenty. Sex is not just a matter between boys and girls, but also between adult men and teenage girls. This is nothing new. Teenage girls have long been attractive for the more established crowd and it is only recently that sex between teenage girls and men has been pushed into the taboo area. Not that sex between teenage girls and men should be necessarily condoned, but it does happen. Teenage pregnancy means really teenage girl pregnancy - why aren't the men involved also being condemned? Isn't easier to blame young people as a group that can't collectively fight back?
Teenage girls are being targeted because they are young - they are the scapegoats for the insecurities of an older generation, who are afraid of them. These girls are achieving higher levels of education and often outperforming their male counterparts. Increasingly, they are forthright about their sexuality and the associated pleasure. No longer, do these women lie down to be trod on, instead they stand up for themselves and are often as aggressive as men. These teenage girls have at their fingertips a wealth and variety of information about sex and sexuality and are empowered to use it.
It's not they we should be worried about, it's the people of all ages who live in abject poverty while we wallow in wealth.
For a full account with statistics to back it up, take a look at Teenage Sex and Pregnancy by Mike Males.
Women who are poor or also from a visible minority in the states have more reasons to have a baby at 16. Most stay at home and receive help from extended families, and by 21 their child is old enough that they can go to work and will make more money than those women who chose to have a baby young but for many reasons had to wait until their twenties. Often women from the economically disadvantaged will not be fixated on finishing college or university like women from the middle or upper classes, instead they will think of working as soon as possible after high school. And the majority of them do finish high school. For these women, it makes more economic sense to have the stability and joy of a child as soon as possible.
Even if they do wait, it still makes more sense for the economically disadvantaged to have more children. A baby does not cost a lot, if you don't buy all those lovely accessories decorating high income level homes. The more babies you have the more to help around the home and with the younger ones. Just a generation before me in Saskatchewan, farmers had great broods of children who all helped out on the farm. My father was one of those children. For that reason alone, my father didn't particularlly care for eating chickens. As a young boy, it was his job to clean out the kitchen coop. For my struggling grandparents, having children made sense from 18 until 40. Teenagers are just like adults.
Teenage pregnancy - doesn't that become just plain old boring - maybe even rational. God forbid that teenagers could be any of those things. Looking for a reality drama and funding, we perpetuate lies, instead of fixing the problem - growing disparity in wages and the increasing numbers of poverty in the States and also here in Canada. The lies proclaimed on either side of the debate polarize the situation so that the abstinence only program will bring about more pregnancies and STIs or sex education will increase the rate of pregnancies by virtue of putting sex into teenagers' heads.
The name teenage pregnancy is misleading - often teenage girls have babies with men over the age of twenty. Sex is not just a matter between boys and girls, but also between adult men and teenage girls. This is nothing new. Teenage girls have long been attractive for the more established crowd and it is only recently that sex between teenage girls and men has been pushed into the taboo area. Not that sex between teenage girls and men should be necessarily condoned, but it does happen. Teenage pregnancy means really teenage girl pregnancy - why aren't the men involved also being condemned? Isn't easier to blame young people as a group that can't collectively fight back?
Teenage girls are being targeted because they are young - they are the scapegoats for the insecurities of an older generation, who are afraid of them. These girls are achieving higher levels of education and often outperforming their male counterparts. Increasingly, they are forthright about their sexuality and the associated pleasure. No longer, do these women lie down to be trod on, instead they stand up for themselves and are often as aggressive as men. These teenage girls have at their fingertips a wealth and variety of information about sex and sexuality and are empowered to use it.
It's not they we should be worried about, it's the people of all ages who live in abject poverty while we wallow in wealth.
For a full account with statistics to back it up, take a look at Teenage Sex and Pregnancy by Mike Males.
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