By now, you have probably heard about the group of high school girls in Gloucester, Massachusetts who have gotten pregnant. The number of pregnant girls has been reported at 17 total.
For the past week, since this story has spread, there has been a lot of finger-pointing back and forth between the mayor, the high school principal and district superintendent. There have been plenty of conflicting stories as well in terms of whether or not there was a pact amongst the girls.
Following a closed door meeting with city, school and health leaders, Mayor Carolyn Kirk addressed the media. And during the press conference today, the mayor said the spike in pregnancies (in Gloucester) is in keeping with similar spikes in other cities.
WHAT?! Did the mayor really say that? As in, "well, it's happening everywhere else."
I think the media is missing so many other critical angles on this story. First, OK, we got the point, there's a jump in pregnancy this year. What's being done in the high school to educate kids about sex? What's being done to let kids know about the responsibility of having a kid as a teen? What's in the curriculum? Secondly, how are the kids' parents involved? Third, now that we know that the girls are pregnant, what support will they get? At home? At school? In the community?
It just seems so absurd that for the past several days, there has been this ongoing three-way battle between the mayor, schools superintendent and high school principal over whether or not there was a pact. And let's suppose for now that the girls didn't have a pact, does that mean this is less of a story? I'm just blown away that there was this gathering of city, school, and health officials and the only thing that came out of it was a statement by the mayor that "there's no evidence of a pact."
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Hi! Thanks for the lovely input at my place.
No doubt, every official is doing some back-pedaling, because as the finger pointing continues, they want to be ready to defend themselves. It's the way of the politician.
I've been discussing this with women I know who have grown children. Women my age. We feel fairly sure that the kids are learning quite enough about sex! They know all about it. They know about condoms. Condoms are made available to them. Regardless of whether a pact was made or not, teen girls often choose to either be casual about birth control (likely because they know they can get an abortion) or they just romanticize what having a baby means.
The little "Juno" gal in my story, asked her boyfriend not to use a condom. He wanted to. She said no.
My son's girlfriend had only months before getting pregnant been through an exercise at her high school wherein the girls take home a baby doll and have to take care of it for a weekend. Part of this exercise involved interviewing someone older on the subject. She interviewed me. One of the questions was whether I believed this exercise helps prevent teen pregnancies. I said that I am almost positive it does not. First of all, this little "baby doll" exercise doesn't even come CLOSE to teaching them anything about the reality of being parents. Second of all, teens just have sex because they can.
In short, I feel the school system is definitely not falling down on their job. And since when is it their job to moralize our children?
It's the family unit that has fallen apart. And I honestly think that these girls are looking for a family connection. So they thought they would try making one.
And yes, I feel the only option left now is to try to be supportive moving forward.
Teri...there was an interesting article in one of the local papers this past Sunday about this. Experts are fearing a "teenage pregnancy trend" due to the girls in Massachusetts as well as movies like "Juno."
An advice column writer from Girls' Life magazine said in the article that she sees an increase in her e-mail from teen girls wanting to have babies after they have seen photos of pregnant celebrities looking fabulous in the magazine.
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