What's Your View On Teenage Pregnancies?

Urban Legend

Urban Legend

Captain
I may sound like a monster with the way I feel about teenage pregnancies, but the whole point of this thread is for all of us to voice our views on the matter.

I literally get sick when I see teenage girls that are pregnant. When I was at work for a couple hours, I saw a girl who couldn't have been any older than 14 about 6-7 months along. I'm not as old school as everyone else who says 'wait until you're married to have sex/have a baby' I just think they should at least wait until they are beyond minor age and or actually use their brain and realize what birth control is designed for.

How exactly are teens going to have the capability and the knowledge for raising a baby if they're still depending on their parents etc to get by? I'm not talking about teens over the age of 17, because to me that's basically when they can move out and be on their own for that's the age that most graduate high school. I'm more worried for those under the age of 16, who most of the time don't have a grasp of the real world.

:shifty: why can't they just wait until their old enough to take such a risk?!

Sorry I just needed to get that off my chest ...
 
IMO, I think it's bit sad to see them. My friend's little sister has a friend who had a kid, she was 16 and there she was 2 weeks after giving birth getting drunk, baby with her parents. But what I had understood, her parents had made decision to take care of the baby.

I've always thought people shouldn't have start to have sex until they are ready to take care of the "accidents" - if it happens. And with today's birthcontrol methods - accidents shouldn't happen. But they do, because people are ignorant
"Oh, it's just one time" etc.

Where I'm from these are not really a proble, doh, that is rural area and not even here where I am now, in a city I haven't see much pregnant teenagers but my sis who lived in south - she said it's just plain horrible and like it would became some kind of "fashion"

IMO, we have pretty good sex education, oh I remember first on 5th grade - of course we were still pre-teens and being silly (age 12-13) but the teacher really couldn't handle it. on grades 8th and 9th sex ed classes were held by school nurse, who was cool and guys and girls had seperate classes for that - made people to listen better.

Here's been some argument about how school nurse can give birthcontrolpills to under 16-year-old without doctor seeing her first. It's kind of tricky... (here 16 is age limit) I mean, of course it can feel that it means we are ok that teens 14-15 have sex but on the other hand...if you know they will anyhow - isn't it better that they protect themselves? Of course only pill is just protecton from pregnancy but still...

Of course there are those who actually are responsible teenmothers and ffathers, but I don't think it's a majority and it's not reason to encourage teens to have kids.
 
I also feel a bit sad when I see them wandering around town, most are pushing a pram and are pregnant again.

Its sad that in todays society there are irresponsible teens who dont use protection, especially considering all the ways of obtaining it nowadays.

Thats my mini rant over.
 
^^ (edit) just read your reply - you think that was a rant?! hah! i need to get out more...

Something_wicked said:
I just think they should at least wait until they are beyond minor age and or actually use their brain and realize what birth control is designed for.

How exactly are teens going to have the capability and the knowledge for raising a baby if they're still depending on their parents etc to get by?
Click to expand...

and, more importantly (imho at least!), how are they going to get by when they haven't the first idea about how these things work? it's all well and good saying teenagers shouldn't have sex until they reach the age of consent but the fact is teenagers *do* - frequently! also, with teenagers as long as you start telling them something is wrong, evil, bad, naughty, etc, that just makes them want to do it - the same applies to drugs, smoking, alcohol etc. there is *no* point telling a teenager not to do something because the instant response is an urge to do it. hell, i'm 33 and i still react that way!:lol:

i think the problem is that governmental types thing it's best to just tell kids to say no, and also there seems to be this bizarre idea that if you don't educate kids about sex, they just won't do it - er, hello! they will do it, and if they are going to anyway wouldn't most parents rather they did it safely and armed with all the relevant info than just blundered into it? again, i think this applies to drugs/smoking/alcohol and so on as well. i think informed choice is the way to go and yes, many kids are too young/immature to take the information seriously but it's better to try to give it to them than to just leave them in the dark. also you have to start teaching sex ed as young as possible - not in an explicit way but in such a way as kids don't grow up thinking that having sex is some huge milestone and if you can do it before you reach the age of consent, then you'll be the coolest kid in school (which is definitely how it was for me and all my friends). making something normal and part of a standard education from a young age stops it having this cachet that it has with teens where people rush into it because they think their friends/boyfriends/girlfriends will think they're weird or whatever if they dont, and where other people feel terribly excluded if they don't do it.

i find it really odd that so many western governments (and particularly the uk and us) are so negative about sex ed - it's been very strongly statistically proven that the countries that have (a) comprehensive sex ed from a very young age (about 5-6) and (b) a very low age of consent (in some places around 12-13) also have by far the lowest rates of teen pregnancies, and the lowest rates of teenage STIs. (and, for a comparison with drugs etc - european countries with much more tolerant attitudes to drugs tend to have far fewer deaths from drugs and a far lower drug related crime rates) it is so patently obvious that sex ed and not stigmatising these things WORKS that it baffles me why so many people just can't see it!

[/ranty politics student]

there are lots of young mums around where i live - i don't know what i think about it, i think it's probably getting to be pretty normal. i think it's a shame that kids would end their childhood so young - kids always want to be more grown up but once you get grown up you realise that after you hit about 13 it's downhill all the way so you should've made the most of it!

also it's not that different from in the old days - right up til the late 19th century it was perfectly normal to have marriage and kids in your early teens, and even in the 20th cent, perfectly normal to be married and having babies by 18 or so. it's just as society in the west has become more uptight (blame victorian christians!) there've been far more restrictive attitudes in place.

[/history student]

so yeah, i think it's kind of sad that kids grow up too fast, i think the overt sexualisation of modern society is highly exploitative and damages people's view on the world, especially where kids are involved; but i also think that burying your head in the sand and pretending that if you tell a teen not to do something they won't do it is naive in the extreme and just leads to much bigger problems. kids drink, smoke, do drugs and have sex - wow, shocking revelation of the week:guffaw::guffaw::guffaw:
 
Last edited:
Well I don't think age of consent should be lower, I think 15 or 16 is juts fine, but yeah I am also aware that sex ed in some countries is poor

I think sex ed should also contain serious talk, what it is like to take care of the baby. Now it's all about protection and diseases (both serious and have to be talked about)

About gettin married in age of 18-19 - please remember that back in the old days, women weren't much of value, had to find a man who supports them so family kind of gets 'rid of' one expence. And kids come with poor protection ;)

Today...youngsters want to see and experience and they should be know that with a baby - it's pretty hard just to go wherever you want or to do whatever you want. Of course there is adoption but it's not excuse not to protect yourself.
 
DaWacko said:
I think sex ed should also contain serious talk, what it is like to take care of the baby. Now it's all about protection and diseases (both serious and have to be talked about)
Click to expand...

yeah, i definitely agree - it should be about the long term view as well as the immediate.

About gettin married in age of 18-19 - please remember that back in the old days, women weren't much of value, had to find a man who supports them so family kind of gets 'rid of' one expence.
Click to expand...

yeah, true, i at least sort of agree with that! i'm a feminist so i have to, but i also think it wasn't so much that way before the 19th century - i blame the victorians for everything which is a shame because i think they were incredible. also it's not the case that all women now are equal by a long shot - many societies aren't as progressive as ours but even ours is far less forward than it likes to think!
 
Tbh where I am in the UK its pretty common to see teenage mothers which is also very freaky. I will go into town and see so many girls walking around with prams, my old school has set up classes for the pregnant girls. Tho what furstrates me is my taxes have to pay for all the crap cos most of them will go straight to the benefits and claim all the money they get and won't work just sit and smoke wit there kids in a pram in the park... its frustrating.

But then a girl at work who is 17 is pregnant and due in next few weeks and she didnt know she was pregnant till 3 months along and by then has dumped the bf and is keeping it though i can't judge but it wasnt exactly planned. Tho she actually just quit work so i'm guessing she's goin straight to the benefits.

I'm 22 and i know a fair few of people who left school at 16 with me and have kids now its freaky i even see myself as to young to even think about it.
 
I think it is pretty disgusting to see teenage pregnancies. I just hate those girls who think it will be easy and fun and then when they have the baby they whine about how hard it is well HAHA thats your fault and now you have to deal with it. But the people I feel most sorry for is the babies that are born to the mothers, who are normally without fathers and not really given the love and care they deserve. It is not every teenage mother but certainly a lot of them. They shouldn't just get benefits because they have children.
 
One interesting statistic I would like to see is how many teens that are getting pregnant did in fact have a teenage mother. My oldest sister was 17 when she got pregnant, and 18 when she got married to the father. She had another baby 2 and a half years later. My niece, the second child, was herself a teenage mother and she did this twice.

We talk about better sex education being the answer and when I see 'education' I think of schools. Why should schools be the focus of teaching teens about sex education. Back when my sister got pregnant there wasn't any real 'sex education'. It fell to the parents and in this case my parents didn't 'educate' my sister. I think the onus has to be put on the parents for teaching their own children about safe sex. Or even better yet get these pregnant girls to go into schools to talk about their life. Maybe even get the ones that have got little ones at home to do a year long course in how, whether for good or bad, having a baby has changed their lives. I'm sure this isn't always practical but it might make for an interesting class.

One interesting fact that comes across when you talk to people that have been through the catholic school system where I live is teen pregnancy is much high in their school system than in the non catholic system. So if the schools here isn't teaching safe sex why aren't the parents talking to their children. I think what I'm saying here is parents need to have better communication with their children and take a more active roll in their children's lives.
 
My take on teenage pregnancies is that they are somewhat sad and disturbing. It's sad that lives are altered forever, both the teenage parents, the child, and any other relatives involved in their lives.

It's somewhat disturbing that it's looked upon as not that big of a deal, unless some conservative religio-political pundit. Almost like "Yeah, I had a baby, isn't he cute."

Especially since I worked for public schools in an economically disadvantaged Urban area, and in some of the first grade classes, the average age of the mothers were 21-23 years of age. It seemed that almost all of the kids had some sort of social difficulties.

I also know some people who do home counseling/therapy and they work with a lot of single mothers in the child welfare system. There are a lot of women who have 4+ children by just as many men, and they continue to be intimate without protection.

Honestly, I think that a lot of this stems from very puritanical attitudes about sex and sexuality in the United States. Any debate about sex positive sex education is shot down in flames by conservative people. They say that if you include sex positive education, then you are encouraging teens to have sex. If you pass out condoms, you're flat out giving them carte blanche to do whatever. Therefore, they say that sex education is the job of the parents, and the schools should stay out of it, save to push abstinence only education.

The problem with that is simple, Teenagers are going to have sex regardless. They had sex in the 1940's and 1950's, and they're going to have sex today. It's just that back then, we didn't talk about those kind of things. If a girl happened to wind up with child, she took a long vacation to "Aunt Sally's" in "Minnesota" or wherever.

That's why I think that there needs to be some very realistic education, not just about sex, but about life skills and proper decision making. I've seen many teenage pregnancies, some involving girls who are freshmen/sophomores in high school. One girl I knew that was pregnant was in 8th grade. I've also heard some fairly sick and disturbing stories about the sexual exploits of children in 6-7th grade. :eek:

I don't want any kind of scarlet letter or anything, but there does need to be some sort of solution to the problem, because when there's a young pregnancy, everyone concerned loses out.
 
Dawni said:
But then a girl at work who is 17 is pregnant and due in next few weeks and she didnt know she was pregnant till 3 months along and by then has dumped the bf and is keeping it though i can't judge but it wasnt exactly planned. Tho she actually just quit work so i'm guessing she's goin straight to the benefits.
Click to expand...

Okay... I've always wondered how on EARTH someone "doesn't know" that they are pregnant. Hello? There are obvious symptoms... doh :rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:
Or of course you can be in denial and make excuses to ignore those

"oh my tummy is bigger, my boobs get bigger and they hurt and I feel sick in the morning and I have mood swings and.... oh it's probably stress"
 
DaWacko said:
Dawni said:
But then a girl at work who is 17 is pregnant and due in next few weeks and she didnt know she was pregnant till 3 months along and by then has dumped the bf and is keeping it though i can't judge but it wasnt exactly planned. Tho she actually just quit work so i'm guessing she's goin straight to the benefits.
Click to expand...

Okay... I've always wondered how on EARTH someone "doesn't know" that they are pregnant. Hello? There are obvious symptoms... doh :rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:
Or of course you can be in denial and make excuses to ignore those

"oh my tummy is bigger, my boobs get bigger and they hurt and I feel sick in the morning and I have mood swings and.... oh it's probably stress"
Click to expand...

Some people don't have any of the usual signs, apparently. Especially if they have an irregular period, or the other signs are not as strong. One person I knew, her only symptom was that she had a mirgrane that would not go away. Other people I've know, they just felt out of sorts. Then, they went to the doctor and realized that they had a bun in the oven.

IIRC, that lady Michelle Duggar from that 18 Kids and Counting show on TLC just found out she was pregnant, and didn't for a while. She was having these weird food cravings, and didn't know why til she went to the doctor.

They actually have a show on one of the discovery channels called "I Didn't Know I was Pregnant," So it's a lot common than one might think...
 
Yeah i guessed she just didn't show symptoms but then my friend saw her in town and she was still smoking away. Lovely person to her unborn child.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top