Glorifying teen pregnancy

[Greenday]

Oh, well then all these women should just stop having sex, those hussies! What percentage of the women in the shelters came from controlling or abusive relationships in which their choice was have sex or "run into a door"?

Oh, come on. You can't say they are all the result of abusive or controlling relationships. Most of these "accidents" are from two people wanting to get it on and not using birth control.

My rule of thumb: If you can't afford birth control, you obviously can't afford a kid, so you better not be having sex because you knew what you were getting yourself into so I shouldn't have to pay for it.

[AFPheonix]

No, I also noted that there are abusers. I'm objecting to people who seize on a fairly small percentage (a number no one can seem to enumerate for me for the US) of girls who may be abusing the system, and are happy to paint any and all mothers on state aid with it. It's misogynist.

Like I said before, I can't speak to the UK system. I'm not familiar with it. I CAN speak to the US system.

I will say that I am willing to put up with a few system abusers if that means that more girls who need the help get it instead of falling through the cracks, continuing the cycle they come from. I've seen plenty of those, too.

[AFPheonix]

Oh, come on. You can't say they are all the result of abusive or controlling relationships. Most of these "accidents" are from two people wanting to get it on and not using birth control.

My rule of thumb: If you can't afford birth control, you obviously can't afford a kid, so you better not be having sex because you knew what you were getting yourself into so I shouldn't have to pay for it.

Do show me where I said all of them? I asked what percentage?
I suspect it's higher than you think. Keep in mind these are women in a shelter.

[Seshat]

I believe that people (NOT women, both sexes) who cannot afford a child should be taking precautions.

Not that they can't have sex, but that those who are need to be using contraception & willing to give the child up for adoption; have an abortion (ie, both partners need to have discussed it & have the money); &/or avoid seminal fluid in proximity with the female groin.

Note: this is my opinion. Your (plural) life is not my life.

However, life causes unexpected things to happen. In the eighteen-to-twenty-plus years a parent is responsible for his/her child, a lot can change. Disability & illness within the family (child, parent, grandparent, aunt, uncle) can put a huge strain on a family's finances & ability to cope. Downturns in the economy can make jobs difficult to get. Perfectly willing and productive citizens can need help for reasons beyond their control.
For this reason, I support the welfare system.

Are there people who abuse it? Of course. Is this reason to dismantle it? Not in my opinion.

And even if there are people who have children for the specific purpose of ripping off the welfare system - what are you going to do with the children, if you don't pay their families enough money to support them? Should the child starve because their parent is a greedy lazy <insert epithet here>?

[Lace Neil Singer]

Maybe instead of money being given to these people, they could be given vouchers for baby items. For example, here you can get milk tokens, which can also be used to buy formula, fruit and vegetables; and also nappy vouchers, which give mothers £1 or £2 off nappies. That would ensure that the aid given to parents who claim the benefit is solely going to be spent on things for the children, not instead on cigarettes, alcohol, designer clothes etc.

[AFPheonix]

Maybe instead of money being given to these people, they could be given vouchers for baby items. For example, here you can get milk tokens, which can also be used to buy formula, fruit and vegetables; and also nappy vouchers, which give mothers £1 or £2 off nappies. That would ensure that the aid given to parents who claim the benefit is solely going to be spent on things for the children, not instead on cigarettes, alcohol, designer clothes etc.

Behold! (I have no idea if UK has anything like this or not)

[Lace Neil Singer]

Nope; what we have, I already listed. The benefits given out are mostly in the form of government handouts which means that the percentage of the population who chose not to spawn, miss out.

[Ree]

As the mother of a young girl who got "knocked up", I want to say that she does not accept government assistance of any kind, other than the Child Tax Credit given to all parents.
In fact, she didn't even collect her full maternity benefits, returning to work after only 2 months off. Right now, she is working 2 jobs.

As much as I love my daughter, I can safely say that, if she didn't live with me and have all the emotional and physical support that I give her, there is no way that she could do it, though.

If she was to decide to go back to school and finish her college courses, going on public assistance to do so, I would still support her 100%.

Her father paid into the system all his working life and never collected. I have paid in all my working life and I have never collected.

She contributes through her payroll deductions as well.

The government has these programs, so she might as well use them. She is as entitled to them as the next person.

That's not exactly the topic here, though.

I realize she is the exception rather than the rule, but I use her case to point out that there are some girls out there who are young/teen moms, but are not just out to scam from society and sit on their ass.

Not all of them set out to get pregnant. Sometimes it does happen despite best efforts to prevent it.

While I see nothing wrong with giving a pat on the back to a young mom who manages to balance it out and get an education while continuing to properly care for her child, I do think teen pregnancy is glorified. Everywhere one looks in movies and sitcoms, as well as dramas, we see young girls pregnant or having babies, and every second celebrity is sporting a "baby bump" and raising kids as a single mom.

All of my daughter's friends are either pregnant or have had children in the past 2 years.
Last night, I think she got a bit ticked with me, because there was a phone message from a girl, and when I relayed it to her, she described the girl as the girlfriend of her friend's stepbrother, "She's 18 and pregnant."
I said, "Well, that's a given, now isn't it?"

The father of my granddaughter currently has 2 other children. Actually, only one of them is his biological child, as DNA testing pointed out. His current girlfriend just had a baby, and it is not his either, but there was another DNA test done to prove that.

She has another friend who has fathered 3 children with different girls.
Another friend has 2 children by different fathers.

It boggles my mind.

I told my daughter that, by the time my granddaughter gets to high school, she won't be able to date anyone, because they will all be related.

Blaming all this teen pregnancy on values in the home isn't exactly the answer, either. The thing is, my daughter also had to have DNA testing done to find out who the father was. That floored me. That is not the way she was raised.

I think society in general has just developed a much more casual attitude about sex. It has now become acceptable that people are usually sleeping together either by the end of the evening on a first date, or within the first couple of dates.

Young girls see having a baby as a novelty and having something to love. They don't see the hard work that comes with it.

This was a message my 19 year old nephew left me on Facebook regarding a message that one of my daughter's friends left on her page. (She was another single mom who said, "hey how r u i have a baby now 2 lol she is 4 months old it is lees lol i am single again i named her destini but ya how r things goin with u?")

Did you see that message? I blame the schools :-)

Not to sound insensitive but I think we need to find this prophylactic company have them do a runthrough of the factory or something. They all using the same brand or something? Kay .. I'm done.

Maybe.... Maybe clip a coupon next time ... Spring for the name brand quality.

To be fair I joke because I only hope these babies get the love and care they need. And its maddening to see when they don't. But that girl didn't even try to have a story just very translucent very blunt "oh ya I have one too... Oh ya I bought the same sweater with the matching F@¿¡£..."

Anyway, I don't really know what the answer is. I do know it's wrong to just generalize about teen moms, though, and assume they are only in it for the government handouts and benefits they can get. Some may be, but not all are.

I think I had a point in there somewhere....

[Boozy]

Blaming all this teen pregnancy on values in the home isn't exactly the answer, either. The thing is, my daughter also had to have DNA testing done to find out who the father was. That floored me. That is not the way she was raised.

For the last ten years, virtually every study on these issues have presented some rather convincing and alarming evidence: That teenagers are far more influenced by the media and their peer groups than their parents. And this applies to everyone, whether they be the product of good and involved parents or neglectful ones.

Runaway teen pregnancy rates are basically the product of a tipping point in some areas. The more teen pregnancies rise in a small town, the more likely it is that they will continue to rise as teen pregnancy becomes normalized among peer groups.

[Greenday]

So, what options do we actually have for solving the dramatic increase in teen pregnancy? I mean, it's increased so much that genetically, female bodies are developing faster and faster to keep up with this trend of having kids at such a young age.

[AdminAssistant]

I mean, it's increased so much that genetically, female bodies are developing faster and faster to keep up with this trend of having kids at such a young age.

Actually, "back in the day" women were having children much younger than they typically do today. During the Renaissance, women were typically married off at 14, 15, 16 years of age to 20-30 year old men and were expected to start popping out kids right away.

It makes sense, then the life expectancy wasn't what it is today, so people needed to have kids at a younger age.

[Greenday]

Yea, but it's happening in girls that young and sometimes younger today. I'm just saying, women are evolving to have the ability to reproduce earlier. I'm sure the same thing happened when it was normal for women to be married off young too.

[Sylvia727]

Do you have a link to any scientific studies? I hadn't heard anything about that before. Just to put us all on the same page.

[anriana]

My rule of thumb: If you can't afford birth control, you obviously can't afford a kid, so you better not be having sex because you knew what you were getting yourself into so I shouldn't have to pay for it.

Thanks to abstinence only sex ed, there are plenty of sexually active people who don't understand how pregnancy actually works. Yes, everyone understands the basics, but how many people think pulling out is effective contraceptive? Or that women can't get pregnant during their period? Or that it's impossible to get pregnant from anything other than p-in-v contact?

So, what options do we actually have for solving the dramatic increase in teen pregnancy? I mean, it's increased so much that genetically, female bodies are developing faster and faster to keep up with this trend of having kids at such a young age.

Uh, what? American teenage pregnancy has been on the rise for two whole years and now female bodies are genetically changing to keep up with the trend, and research proves this isn't caused by anything else such as the high number of chemicals in the environment or the growth hormones in meat? I'd be very interested in seeing this reserach.

[Greenday]

I'm just going by what I was taught in my genetics class. But when you think about how evolution works, it sounds like a pretty damn good theory.