Do any of you watch Teen Mom, or its precursor, Sixteen and Pregnant, on MTV?
Those shows have been described as the best teen birth control, ever, and it's true. Showing what it's like after the kid is born and the boyfriend takes off and grandma won't babysit and there's not enough money for diapers has got to be a deterrent for all those teenage airheads who think having a baby is no big whoop.
Imagine my dismay when I was standing in line at the grocery store and noticed that one of the Teen Moms was on the cover of People. And another Teen Mom was on the cover of, I don't know, Us Weekly or something.
And I was all, like, Nooooooooooo! Ur doin it rong! Because NOW all the teenage airheads are going to think that getting knocked up at 15 and having a kid at 16 will land them the cover of a national magazine.
Shit.
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While I don't think it's good to glorify the choices those young people are making, I also don't think that there's such a thing as "encouraging teenagers to make bad decisions." Thank you, Mother Nature, you've done a wonderful job with that. Just go to the strawberry festival in Owego--I think I was the only woman there between age 15 and 30 that didn't have at least one child with me. I was counting.
By the way, are these people famous? Since when does being pregnant constitute some kind of fame? Last time I checked, a lot of babies are born every day. They should have TV shows about teenagers who don't have kids--now that's something.
I agree with you, Kate. And yeah, the Strawberry Fest - they start 'em early out in the country. The sad thing is, they're all on welfare - our tax dollars at work.
But then again, I can totally see some tween looking at those mags and aspiring to be like that. When I was a kid (back in the middle ages, obv), pregnancy out of wedlock was something to hide away, not celebrate.
Then again, I don't know if the teen pregnancy rates were actually any LOWER back then with all the shaming - time to do some research!
Okay, a quick check reveals that teen pregnancy rates are actually lower now than they were back in the seventies ... hmmmmm.
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