Lets Talk Teen Pregnancy In Memphis
I think sometime during the holidays my mom made me finish off a whole bunch of cookies and cakes people had sent so I was in a serious food coma and not really moving. It was at that point, my beloved mother decided to turn on Lifetime and enjoy some kind of made for tv movie marathon. You know, the kind where every other movie has either Shannen Doherty in it or Tori Spelling. Sometimes you can kind of half watch, half sleep and you get them both thrown into one.
Anyway, one of the movies that popped up was about the girls in Massachusetts who had taken that pregnancy pact and 17 girls in the high school were pregnant and it was this huge national thing. Well, earlier this week in Memphis some school announced there they have 90 pregnancies. 90? Holy crap. I would attribute it to the Teen Mom thing, but I think it is just people not taking precautions. I would not really be writing this except for some idiot (see above) was on The Today Show this morning and she said the reason it is happening is because there are no OB/GYN's in Memphis. Seriously? There are at least 100 in the phone book. This is the kind of person NBC finds to discuss a topic????
Meanwhile, MSNBC is going to have the principal of the school on later today and he says it is not 90 students but he does not know how many. I hope he knows how many or he is not doing a good job knowing his students. Meanwhile, all the girls who are not pregnant would like news conferences and press conferences for them too.
Actually, we should give coverage to the girls who are not pregnant. MTV has glorified teen pregnancy enough.
ReplyDeleteI think teen pregnancy comes from all of these parents having no qualms about watching all sorts of TV and movies promoting sex as a fun-filled and exciting activity, but then having heavy reservations about talking seriously with their kids about the consequences of sex. Just because a kid learns about the hollywood version of sex, it doesn't mean parents can skip "the talk".
ReplyDeleteOf course, it's easy to point fingers until it happens to me.
Some of these kids are lazy about getting contraceptives but are not lazy applying for food stamps or whatever it is that the taxpayers are paying for them.
ReplyDeleteI can't wait for the comments on this one!
ReplyDeleteBTW, talking with kids about sexuality as they age actually makes them wait in having sex. You also have to take into account their maturity level. All 10 y/o aren't equal. Dr. Gwendolyn Goldsby is excellent in speaking about sexuality and children. I think that she was on the View recently also.
[because there are no OB/GYN's in Memphis. Seriously? There are at least 100 in the phone book. This is the kind of person NBC finds to discuss a topic????]
With all due respect, I'll rather watch the interview before I'll come to your conclusion.
I really hate this entire topic. There is BC everywhere - WalMart, etc. Condoms are not hard to find. They all know where babies come from, and they shouldn't get to be on tv because nature happens when there is nothing to get in the way of sperm meet egg.
ReplyDeleteKellyLynn, you are right. Too many kids being "raised" by tv.
ReplyDeleteI'm just passionate about this, so bear with me. Children will be curious about their bodies and will talk to other kids about anything. I would rather my kid come to me to talk, so I can give them the facts.
Too many kids want to talk to the 'rents, but realize that they would just get judgment. That's sad.
you know a more worthy story? the missing woman from nc that went to baltimore over the xmas holiday.
ReplyDeleteA few years ago Natalie Vargas of 20/20 did a story about Memphis called "Babyland." Memphis has the highest infant mortality rate in the country. Of course there are a lot of factors but it found that there is a culture of having babies at a young age amongst the poor black population and that these girls lack the support and the resources that would help prevent these deaths.
ReplyDeleteOne of the best working programs is through a mostly white suburban church that matches one of its members with a poor pregnant teen. The mentor takes them to all their appointments and keeps interested in the wellbeing of the mother and her unborn child.
It was a very sad story, the name Babyland is the name of the county's potter's field because it is dominated by babies. This is awful, something really has to be done.
This is awful, I agree with the fact that Teen Mom has helped this fake stardom but as A. Bedelia says young adults and teens are not being smart. Even though a child is a beautiful thing, being a mom before you get an university degree is not the ideal thing to do, and they don't realize how hard it's to raise a child. I don't even have a child, I'm still in Uni and I can't even think about having one. 90 girls?? This is just crazy.
ReplyDeleteWhy would you expect a principal to know the exact number of pregnant students? The best number anyone could make would be an educated guess. Some girls will be obviously pregnant and will talk about it and some will not. You don't take attendance in every class and ask "whose pregnant?" Students do not have to share that information with the school and teachers and administrators are not mind readers.
ReplyDeleteSylvia and Mikey--the kids aren't 'lazy', they are UNEDUCATED.
ReplyDeleteStates like TN are exactly the places that sex education has nearly DISAPPEARED from public schools in the last 20 years. Education gives kids more respect for themselves and their bodies.
AND low-cost or free reproductive health services' funding has been decimated by 30 years of politicians and scare mongers co-mingling birth control and family planning with abortion. Birth control and education prevent unwanted children AND abortions.
Teenagers are by definition not adults. It is our responsibility to educate them about decisions that can change their lives in an instant. Or we live with the consequences of more unwanted impoverished children for whom the government will be providing, and maybe forever.
JMO, but if you are anti-welfare, anti-medicaid, then you should be FOR free birth control (not abortions--nobody hurt me here). It's SO MUCH CHEAPER both financially and on a human suffering level.
whew
I've said it before, and I'll say it again, and undoubtedly repeat it until my dying day.
ReplyDeleteEDUCATION, PEOPLE, EDUCATION!
We run all these shows about "Teen Pregancy" and how difficult it is to be a "teen mom" etc, however there's not one iota of air time devoted to educating teens (and some adults) on how to be responsible in their sexuality.
Why? Because no matter how much T&A we get exposed to in the media, we still get all squicky inside when faced with having to actually speak about sex in a calm rational manner.
It's a hypocritical taboo - you're allowed to see it but you can't talk about it.
Thank you, Libby! Exactly. Plus, I will say that if you are uneducated and cannot find a job that has benefits/more than forty hours a week, it's hard to see a reason NOT to have a baby. Give girls a path out of poverty and give all manual laborers everywhere a living wage!!
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ReplyDeleteEducation and ANYTHING that makes a girl appreciate her body as something other than a sex object. I don't have kids, but if I had a daughter, I would expose her to sports, music, dancing any activity where she can gain self-confidence and realize that her body is good for other things than sexually satisfying a 14 year old boy.
ReplyDeleteIsn't Memphis divided by the Mississippi? With the West part being the low income area? Or am I totally remembering wrong (drove thru there once.) Anyway, maybe there are no ob/gyns in that part of town, although that would be hard to believe.
ReplyDeleteI had a professor in college who wanted to teach sex ed to the students of the alternate high school, where the pregnant girls attended. He was told, no, they might get ideas. . .(this was in Ft. Worth TX in the mid-80's)
ent and anyone interested:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.amazon.com/Promises-Can-Keep-Motherhood-Marriage/dp/0520241134
Promises I Can Keep: Why Poor Women Put Motherhood Before Marriage
Enty, bear in mind that just because there are OBGYN's in the phone book doesn't mean teenage girls can afford to go to them, with or without their parents financial support. Health care without insurance (heck, even with it) is expensive so I can totally see that people in poor communities can't afford to go to them and thus, things like this happen.
ReplyDeleteWhat SFG said, Enty. There are physicians who won't accept Medicaid (or TN's version of it) because it just isn't financial practical for them. And let's face it, there are physicians who don't want Medicaid-eligible patients in their waiting rooms.
ReplyDeleteI grew up in the suburbs of Memphis, and now live outside of it, and let me tell you something, we are all SO embarrassed about this!
ReplyDeleteMomster, West Memphis is another city, across the river, in Arkansas. I would say most of Memphis is low-income. (There are really high-income sections, and then most of the suburbs are middle-class.)
Memphis teens are just severely uneducated about sex. And many of them don't even care. In my suburban high school 10 years ago, we had numerous girls pregnant (though not 90!) And many girl I went to school with had accidental pregnancies within 2 years of graduation.
*stands up and claps for Libby*
ReplyDeleteI wonder how many of these girls who are pregnant, have parents who are on the band wagon of having no sex ed in schools--you know because it gives the kids ideas. Waking up gives teenagers ideas...they need to be told how to curb those ideas or at least protect them so they aren't spread around. And I wonder how many are trying right this second to call MTV--cause you know that Amber is leaving the show.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the info, funky. It's been about 10 years since I drove through, on our way to TN from Houston.
ReplyDeleteIf most of these pregnancies came from the high-income or middle-class part of Memphis, I bet something would be done then.
ReplyDeleteI watched an episode of Teen Mom 2, and it made me so very, very sad. Particularly the teen who constantly goes out and the mother filed for custody.
I'm in Memphis. First, to Momster, West Memphis is across the Mississippi River in Arkansas, not Tennessee. It's a whole other planet over there.
ReplyDeleteI'm also a uterine cancer survivor who went to one of the low-income OB/GYN clinics for several years trying to get a diagnosis. I never got one, nearly died several times, finally gave up and went to another state which was a good thing because within 48 hours I had a diagnosis, a radical hysterectomy, and radiation scheduled at an east coast cancer clinic. If I'd continued trying to get medical care in Memphis, I'd be dead.
Anyhoo, I'm in Memphis again and I can speak to some of the questions and comments being raised.
There is minimal sex ed in the schools. There is a lot of peer pressure to have sex and, yes, babies. Most of those babies are treated like crap and the Babyland reference is still somewhat apt.
The population of Memphis is largely African-American and most of that is lower income. The people coming up in the city schools are barely literate and recent test scores here are terrifying all across the board. The unemployment rate here is incredible. Services for the poor are virtually non-existent.
The girls are at a high school in an area called Frayser. My late grandmother lived there during the last years of her life in the early '70s. I actually spent time in that area with some musicians I knew back when and in a nutshell, there's a lot of white trash there. The daughter of a woman I knew had a baby at 16 as her mother had had her at 16. It would not surprise me at all to learn that girl's baby had a kid as she/he is a teenager now.
There is a HUGE economic rift in this city. Most of the lower income people come from generations of the same. Many of the girls having babies do so, I gather, because it's the thing to do, they don't know any better, and they're looking for a way to get free money/handouts/what have you. The babies I see in the grocery store or on the bus or downtown trolleys are mostly kept by their grandmothers or great-grandmothers. The ones with young mothers are often ill-kept, scarred, and used to being yanked around and smacked for nothing.
I wish I were making this up.
There are, of course, good young mothers who are trying to get as much education as they can. Unfortunately, where I live, near the power company HQ and social services and jail and courts, I see much of the worst.
Please remember that Tennessee is a state with no income tax. Services are minimal. Also, they threw out Medicaid in favor of the debacle that is TennCare. Since the floods in Nashville, services in this area are even more sparse.
Anyhow, that's my input. I hope it makes sense.
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ReplyDeleteTeen pregnancy just isn't as black and white an issue as "educate them and give them contraceptives and teen pregnancy will go away." Teens are biologically wired to have sex and get pregnant. It's just that our society is structured so that if they do, they'll ruin their lives.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I think some teens want to talk to their parents, and some teens would rather die than talk to their parents about sex because they're so embarrassed. I have two teenagers, I've always been open with them, etc, and they'd still rather die than talk to me!
I live in the Memphis area. 90 miles to the north, but all my local channels are the Memphis affliates. If I need to shop in a city, I go to Memphis. I can fully vouch for every thing that Fat Lady's Navel had to say. The kids in Frayser High School are fifth and sixth generation single parent kids, and I use the word "parent" loosely. Most of them have no idea who their father/grandfather/great grandfather is. They know their mother but are most likely living with their grandmother or great grandmother. Keep in mind their great grandmother is probably only 45-50 years old. The ones who are with their mother are shamefully neglected and usually outright abused, but the human services dept. in Memphis/Shelby County is constantly overwhelmed. They do what they can, but it's usuallly too little, too late. Believe me, most of you treat your pets 1000x better than the kids in Memphis get treated by their families.
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ReplyDeleteReading all of these comments makes me so sad. :( It's the 21st century, we should be way past this.
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