| [ |
mood |
| |
 bitchy |
] |
| [ |
music |
| |
"Á Ferð Til Breiðafjarðar" - Sigur Rós & Steindór Anderson |
] |
Incase nobody's heard yet.
tl;dr -- 17 girls under the age of 16 are pregnant at the moment and they all go to the same high school.
I'm watching CNN right now and they're now saying that there was no pact held among these girls to get pregnant. Well, I'm sorry, but I'm not buying that. That's just too ridiculously coincidental for me to believe that 17 girls at the same high school are all pregnant on their own without any agreement on some sort of plan. Some reporters are claiming that the girls said that they planned to "help each other out" with their pregnancies.
I'm sorry, but--what does that mean? Ten girls are pregnant so seven decide that getting pregnant will help them out? Does it mean that there were a few feeling the heat so others decided to jump in and that would somehow ease the social burn on their little group? I'm so lost on what they're claiming right now. A parent of one of the girls that goes to that school says that there was tremendous pressure on his step-daughter to get pregnant and she had the common sense not to. That's a pretty direct source if you ask me.
And then it all comes down to "well, we have to blame someone, so who is it?" Here's what I think: if you have to blame someone, blame everyone.
a. The frontal lobe of the brain is what controls everyone's judgement, personality, and other individual traits (which is why when they used to scramble it in prison inmates, they practically turned into robots). At this point in a teen's life, the frontal lobe isn't finished developing yet. While that's a fairly legitimate argument, I have to say that at the age of 7, I knew about the birds and the bees and at the age of 12, we had talked about it in school. I know where babies come from and I would find it very hard to believe that those girls are not fully aware of the consequences of sticking a penis inside a vagina.
b. Hollywood glamourizes teen pregnancy. There is no doubt about it, and these are kids who watch Zoey 101 and listen to Ashlee Simpson and all of that. When Jamie Lynn Spears got pregnant, the media romanticized it to no end, showing pictures of her smiling everywhere, at the baby shower, and now they're apparently shelling out one million dollars for Jamie Lynn to release the baby photos. So, what kind of message does that send to teenagers? I know that celebrities are only human but when you consider your social status, you have to consider the societal consequences of your actions, too. Besides, getting pregnant in high school is just stupid. "Great, you made it out of high school and now you can get on your way to college. Or at least, you could if you didn't have a bouncing toddler to attend to."
c. Sex Education isn't a real issue here, I think. And if it is, then it shouldn't be. While I'm a very big fan of teaching such things in school because it's just the way that life works and I don't give two shakes what religious zealots have to say about human nature, parents still need to talk to their kids about this kind of stuff. I didn't learn all I needed to about sex in school, and I still had questions, so I asked my parents. Even if the kids don't bring it up, the parents need to take the initiative to bring it up to them. As much as the kids think it just "won't happen to them," it still helps to know that your parents care enough to start such a conversation on their own.
BUT
d. For whatever reasons, both parents usually have to hold down jobs these days in order to bring in enough money just to get by. Food, gas, and heat--probably the three most important items in our everyday lives--are costing us more than an arm and a leg now. Mom and dad don't have much time to stay home with their kids and bond or to build up the kind of relationship it takes to talk to their children about such issues as sex. So, where do they turn?
e. Everyone in high school is trying to find themselves and gain an identity. When you think there's nothing special about yourself, what are you going to look for? Well, what biologically can give you an identity? Come on girls, it's already in you. You just need a guy to have a little fun with. There, now everyone knows your name. Right?
Well, it seems trendy to be pregnant. You get all these perks and people pay so much attention to you, just like in the media, right?
"Oh well that's poor judgment." Well, they aren't exactly capable of understanding the consequences of their actions COMPLETELY, but I think they understand that penis + vagina = baby.
So. Pact or not, sex ed or not, frontal lobe development or not, at the age of 16... what do you think any girl with common sense would have done?
I think one of the reasons I'm so caught up on this story is because one of my acquaintances from high school revealed to me a couple days ago that she might be pregnant because she was fooling around with her ex boyfriend (and she has a boyfriend now) and her period is 1 1/2 weeks late. Condoms? Who uses those?
I swear...
[Man, I needed to rant.]
|
busy
lazy
cheerful
energetic
peaceful
happy
calm
awake
hungry
dirty
tired
sad![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
thirsty