Posted on 01/08/2009 8:10:37 AM PST by dbz77
When the data showed a decline in teen pregnancies, teen abortions, and teen sexual activity, the mainstream media barely noticed. Almost nobody heralded that landmark accomplishment which coincided with more widespread abstinence programs in schools and community programs. However, now that the National Center for Health Statistics of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has reported a slight increase in teen births, it is making headlines.
Let’s get one thing straight at the outset: the increase in teen births was primarily in the 18- to 19- year-old group — in other words, primarily college students who have entered an alcohol-and-hook-up saturated environment where only the strong can stand up against the peer pressure, rampant promiscuity, co-ed dorms, and anything-goes culture. It brings me no satisfaction to make that point; these 18- to 19-year-old young women are still teens, and their well-being is just as threatened by pregnancy and STDs from promiscuous, too-early sexual activity as it is with the younger teens. Nonetheless, the images most formed in people’s minds when they think of teen pregnancy are of 14- to 16-year-old high school girls.
Is the rising popularity of teen pregnancy any wonder? The media is trumpeting the notion that out-of-wedlock births are all the rage these days. The stories and images targeted to impressionable teens that are being broadcast through various mass media are shaped in ways that glorify the idea and simplify the issues surrounding the pregnancy of a young teenaged girl.
A new family-time show on ABC promises to depict “a new kind of family.” The soap opera-type show called “The Secret Life of the American Teenager” averages an astounding 3.5 million viewers. The program features a 15-year-old high school student who discovers that she is pregnant. Supposedly, the drama gives the audience an opportunity to glimpse the trauma as a young, middle-class girl deals with her surprise pregnancy. A California media professor praised the show for breaking stereotypes and claimed, “It can happen to anyone.” Oh? Not exactly. Only a girl who has engaged in sex can get pregnant.
A major goal, said one critic, is to show that pregnancy does not just happen to the “slutty girls,” though it is hard to say in today’s world of rampant casual sex what is considered “slutty.” Media programmers cited Bristol Palin and Jamie Lynn Spears as examples of the range of socio-economic backgrounds of teenaged girls who become pregnant.
The ABC show actual traffics in its own set of stereotypes. The fairy tale pregnancy is depicted through predictably rose-colored glasses by glossing over the realities of teen pregnancy. And the glamour treatment of teen pregnancy in the media fails to address the complexity of handling the details of school, pregnancy, finances, and paperwork. If you believe the media depiction, pregnancy consists of cute little outfits, adolescent figures still intact with nothing more than an adorable “baby bump,” all the details fall into place magically, and the result is a blissful little mother whose lifestyle isn’t marred by 3 a.m. feedings or colic. No, all her friends look on her experience with envy and wide-eyed awe at her sudden emergence into adulthood; the teen continues on with her life the same in all respects, except for the added joy in the end of a beautiful, gurgling baby that she adores and everyone else admires.
The reality is that unmarried teen pregnancy is a sad event. Sarah Palin poignantly wrote of her daughter’s situation: Pregnancy makes a teen grow up too fast; the road ahead for a pregnant teen is a very difficult and hard path. Parents today face enough obstacles in trying to teach their kids about consequences without television presenting a mythical, sugar-coated treatment of a serious subject like teenage sex. One could be excused for thinking that the media is pruriently pushing teen sex; after all, we rarely see positive treatments of families, of people who have deep faith that affects their behavior, or of adults who live out the traditional Judeo-Christian values.
We need to face some negative facts: One widely publicized study reported that girls, on average, lose their virginity at age 15, and over half of them use no contraception. They left the impression that “everyone is doing it, so all teens should join right in.” Another study reported that virginity pledges don’t work. That study actually compared religious teenagers who took the pledge with religious teens who didn’t, rather than comparing religious teens who took the pledge with non-religious teens who didn’t — quite a distortion! So the media went crazy over a finding based on an erroneous comparison.
Little attention has been paid to an analysis of the study by Dr. Bernadine Healy, health editor of U.S. News and World Report, who was formerly head of the National Institutes of Health and the American Red Cross. Dr. Healy accurately pointed out that it was the religious commitment of a teen, rather than the abstinence pledge alone, that made the difference in teen sexual behavior.
One can only wonder why so many adults seem determined to undermine abstinence efforts and are unwilling to help our teenagers find a path toward a healthy and promising future. You have to wonder why a respected, peer-reviewed journal chose to published an article based on such an obviously flawed methodology.
But there are also some positive facts that the media has no interest in publicizing: Highly religious teens engage in sex at an older age than their peers; in fact, they generally wait until after the teen years to begin sexual activity — studies indicate that religious teens begin sex at 21 years of age and non-religious ones at 17. A girl with a positive relationship with her father is less likely to engage in teen sex. In other words, family structure, family interaction, and a family’s faith have dramatic influence on a teen’s behavior.
Why do we not have popular programs geared toward impressionable teens that portray authentic religious faith and strong families in a positive light?
How sad that American pop culture — television, movies, and the Internet — actively undermine those influences that would encourage teens to greater well-being. How sad that in the media innocence is scorned and our teens are engulfed in a polluted culture that encourages them to question traditional values, kick aside Judeo-Christian beliefs, and lose their virginity as soon as possible.
Little wonder the streams of American life are turning bitter, when the wells from which they originate are poisoned.
Should not pregnancy be encouraged among Christian teenage girls in Europe?
Only if they’re married.
BTW I watched a gazillion Christmas movies over the holidays (ok, it’s a weakness of mine) and it was interesting how many of them involved single mothers. In fact, almost ALL of them centered around a single mom who was wonderful. Now, it’s not to say that I don’t think there are wonderful single moms, but aren’t at least a few of them not wonderful? The media loves single mom’s for some reason. Maybe because they don’t like men very much.
Only if they're married to a man with a job.
One can only wonder why so many adults seem determined to undermine abstinence efforts and are unwilling to help our teenagers find a path toward a healthy and promising future. You have to wonder why a respected, peer-reviewed journal chose to published an article based on such an obviously flawed methodology.
It's simple - they don't want there to be any suggestion that sex outside marriage is morally wrong or socially damaging. Married vs. unmarried, rather than under-20 vs. over-20, is the significant distinction.
I think the poplular part preceeds the pregnancy.
Yes, it’s not a particularly new trend, but it seems to have gained steam, or maybe that’s just some warm fuzzy left over from all the Christmas movies!
True.
Oh yeah, better until one of them gets the green eyed monster! It’s abnormal for humans to want to share their partner with someone else.
We HAVE become a feral culture.
The media loves single mom’s for some reason.It has a lot to do with the drama.
It's simple - they don't want there to be any suggestion that sex outside marriage is morally wrong or socially damaging.How socially damaging?
Married vs. unmarried, rather than under-20 vs. over-20, is the significant distinction.Under-20 v. over-20 is the more significant distinction.
Watched a movie the other day in which one of the main characters was living in an "open marriage." It was portrayed as a "wonderful, freeing experience" which made both parties' lives better...right.What movie was that?
Perhaps, but in those cases non traditional household was not held in high esteem. (at least not in my recollections—I’m not a fairy tail expert).
Whoaaaa! He's making a huge leap there with ZERO evidence to back it up. College students are presumably the *least* likely subset of 18-19 year olds to have a babies. They are much more likely to be using contraceptives than non-college students of the same age, due to the widespread availability of contraceptives and "morning after" pills on most campuses (both at the college health centers, and condom dispensers in dorm bathrooms), and due their enrollment in college being a sign of at least somewhat above average planning-ahead habits. They are also much more likely to have abortions if they get pregnant, since if they've started college they're very unlikely to have planned to have a baby before graduating, and very likely to have other plans that are not consistent with having a baby (even to give up for adoption).
I'm sure a significant number of these 18-19 year olds giving birth are inner city welfare types and "trailer trash" types, many of whom are already on their second or third baby at that point, having dropped out of high school before the first one arrived. A smaller, but significant percentage are probably girls who have married young, but not gone to college (since it's extremely unusual for young women who are planning to go to college right out of high school to get married before they either graduate from or drop out of high school). There are probably quite a few young military wives represented.
BTW I watched a gazillion Christmas movies over the holidays (ok, it’s a weakness of mine) and it was interesting how many of them involved single mothers. In fact, almost ALL of them centered around a single mom who was wonderful.
I grit my teeth when I see these movies-—I has the SINGLE father who worked two jobs to provide for us kids while “the stuck in 60’s” wife was out boozing,doing drugs and sleeping around......people are absolutely bewildered when I tell them I never send a mothers day card......sorry—just a little bitter
I’m sorry to hear that. I grew up in a great family, both parents worked, but they loved us and spent time with us. I tried to give my kids the same (altho I didn’t work—mainly because I remembered how alone I felt without my Mom).
But, at least you grew up to be a FReeper! :)
Oh? All happy, satisfied with their lives? No STD's, abortions, drinking problems, drug use, depression? How many voted for Big Daddy Obama?
As you pointed out in the post regarding birthrates in Europe, the failure to form families is in itself a social problem, very closely related to the spread of liberalism.
The media has removed the stigma against teen pregnancy by making television shows and movies glorifying it. Since most of the pinheads of this nation get everything they know from television, they now think it is acceptable behavior. It is quickly becoming the norm.
I am not teenager but I can remember when, in college, the whole idea of inhibitions was square. Only squares stopped and asked themselves what they were getting into.
However, what is life without inhibitions? You will look back at your life and it will be a blur…one long, unending episode of undifferentiated mindless sameness. No stand-out people, experiences, memories, etc.
People with this approach to life are hopelessly jaded at 26. Nothing new under the sun for them... but, and here’s the real pathology… they spend the rest of their lives trying to find that something ‘new’, ‘exciting’ and ‘authentic’ that they blew off at 15 and would not at this point, recognize or appreciate if it fell on them from the 10th story.
The sensitivity to feelings, circumstances and individuals to which our inhibitions introduce us, was squandered and these people who become the shamefully crass and vulgar losers we all see running around trying to look and act 17 when they’re 40+. I am speaking from personal and direct observation.
A couple family members, who were real libertines in their youth, are themselves these pathetic relics… shallow, coarse, worn out and superficial….I am sorry for them.
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