'Saturday Night Live' did a spoof of MTV shows that renamed the network 'Maternity Television' for all the shows like 'Teen Mom' and '16 and Pregnant' that they do.
I have to admit that I watch these shows. I think they serve an important function within society. Every girl over the age of 12 needs to be separated from the boys during Heath class and both need to watch shows like the episode of '16 and Pregnant' that I watched tonight. The girl they profiled was by no means atypical.
The girl was named Felicia and she was well on her way to graduating from high school. She would have been the only of her mother's five children to do so until she met her boyfriend, Alex.
She was pregnant at 16 and soon learned that he would rather be with his friends than take responsibility for her and his child.
Once Felicia has her baby she could barely keep up with her schoolwork and while she loves her baby, she regrets the actions she took that put her this situation.
Her story is not at all unique. A lot of teen girls do not take responsibility for birth control because they are in denial that they will get pregnant. Or they think that becoming pregnant will insure that the boy they are so in love with will stay with them forever.
Alex freely admits to his friends that Felicia is 'totally different' from the girl he knew before she got pregnant. Of course she is. She has to grow up now while he is free to continue his life with minimal disruption if he chooses not to be around for the things like doctor's visits that he finds uncomfortable or boring. Even when he offers to babysit the baby so Felicia can do some much needed studying, she ends up doing most of the child care.
In the end, she and her family are left being the primary care givers for the baby and he is off doing 'his things'.
Like I said, this is by no means a unique situation. It's common. It's rare to see a pregnant teen who ends up with her baby's daddy for a long time. Even on the show 'Teen Mom' that shows what happens to teen girls after one and now two years since they had their baby, only ONE of the four girls they focus on is with the father of her child - and she was the ONLY one who put the baby up for adoption. Two fight with their baby's daddies over issues like visitation or custody. One girl is alone because the father of her baby died in a car crash before her child was born.
Regardless of the reasons, the statistics don't look good.
Certainly we have study after study that has looked into this issue and you would think with all the media attention and education that this issue is afforded, that the numbers of single teen mothers would go down.
Hasn't everyone seen those 'baby daddy' shows that Maury Povich does? No glamour there. Do girls like Britney Spear's younger sister really that much of an inspiration that girls as young as 15 want to emulate her by having a baby? Is the process really that intoxicating? I have yet to hear any teen mom say that it's easy to have a baby. That it made their lives better. That they have no regrets.
If I had girl children I would be hammering it into their heads about how the fairy tale expectations they have about boys or babies are just that, fairy tales. Hell I might tell that that they will burst in flames if they even hold hands with a boy. I am sure I could find some footage online to show them that will convince them to wait until they can have children for all the right reasons. So that they can get an education and enjoy their youth instead of having many decisions made for them by the situation they find themselves in.
Of course thousands, even millions of parents have thought the same thing I just said and still their daughters are unwed teen mothers. So I know less than nothing and have no solutions either. Life is a crap shoot. Things happen. Sometimes all you can do is deal with it.
Deal with it and watch another episode next week.
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6 comments:
Yes, I agree that there is value to this kind of programming - if only to serve as a scare tactic. Too bad it doesn't seem to work that way. xo
It's a problem for sure, the world is overpopulated and we need to reduce our populations but at the same time we need to increase our populations to provide workers and taxes to run the country in years to come. It seems to me that everyones trying to get the population under control except our governments?
I wish it wasn't teen girls adding their children to the population. I hate to see the cycle repeating itself. I had a great father and it pains me to think of a kid growing up without a dad in their lives which is unfortunately how too many of these situations play out.
I have two girls and I make them watch if I had already watched it and see that they could pick up on the message. The ones that continue to impress me are the ones that put her up for adoption..The hell THEY grew up in and they turned out so level headed and brave, those kids deserve the best of everything, I saw them in Teen Mom before I caught their episode of 16 and Pregnant. I cried the whole hour over the love and compassion they showed for the baby and the unselfish way they chose to give her up. I pray everyday I get through to my girls, harder when they go into a different environment when their dad has them around a house of teenagers. Ok.. off the rant '}
Irish Dancer (14) watches these shows religiously and in the "good" vein of "I can't believe their irresponsibility." And in that way I can see the total benefit of a real-world representation of the fact that 16-year-olds are not mentally prepared for motherhood - and the fathers are often even more immature and unprepared.
However, I can't help but think that there's a group of viewers who see it as Hollywood-ized because getting pregnant at 16 means you can get on MTV.
But I guess the positive outweighs the negative and there will always be those who don't get the message but play Monkey-See-Monkey-Do.
The downside in this case is that the more ignorant will be driven to breed. Here comes Idiocracy.
I understand that arguement very well Ricky. But I think MTV does a good job at deglamourizing the process, especially by highlighting how much these dream boys act like douchbags the minute they aren't number one in the girl's life.
After all, down at the 7-11 there are five other girls younger and not pregnant that they can have sex with.
And then the cycle continues right to the Idiocracy you spoke of.
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