We often hear media stories about teenagers from poor and single-parent homes getting pregnant.
Research conducted for the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, however, concludes that only 28 percent of people who reported giving birth or fathering children as teens lived in families with incomes below the federal poverty line, and only 30 percent said they were living with a single parent.
Although teens from poor families headed by single mothers are disproportionately likely to become teen mothers, "teen pregnancy is not limited to a particular racial group or socio-economic status or a particular family structure," says Bill Albert, chief program officer for the National Campaign.
In other words, parents and schools need to be vigilant about teaching teens either to abstain from sex or to have safe sex — even upper-middle-class teens. After 15 years of a decline in teen pregnancy, the number of teens giving birth has gone up in the last couple years. The reason? More sex and less contraception, says Albert, especially because teen boys are less concerned about contracting HIV.
Aminaka Wilmont
Belstaff
Dina Bar-El
Too bad. I thought the numbers were going down. Whose fault is it? The schools?
1Well, sexual education is widley available, unfortunately kids don't really seem to pay attention. I know too many kids who have gone through sex ed and still didn't think of alternatives when one party was allergic to latex.
2I think sex ed has changed over the years since I was in school. When I was in school - we learned how to put on condoms, about different methods of birth control, saw the horrendous birthing video to scare us from allowing ourselves to get pregnant, learned about STDs, and of course had a sprinkling of abstinence lectures too. In a upper middle class high school of 2,000+, there were maybe a dozen girls who got pregnant, almost all of which ended up having an abortion. I only know of two who in their senior year decided to keep the child.
I think there are so many schools afraid to teach more thorough sex ed classes because special interest groups get up in arms that it promotes sex in teens or that it's not the school's responsibility - it should be the parents. Maybe the school's aren't giving as thorough a sex ed class as they used to out of fear of the controversy special interest groups would start. And it seems that there are a lot of parents who are not having this talk with their child or only saying "don't have sex" which does nothing to prepare the child should they actually go out and do the deed.
Knowledge is power and I really think the key is to arm these kids with as much knowledge as possible because kids will have sex if they want to. Nobody's going to stop them from having sex. Parents can hope to raise a child that shares their values/morals/beliefs but they're not with their child 100% of the time. Maybe make contraceptives more readily available so that the kids who do have sex will use protection. I'd rather see kids using protection than having teenage girls try and get the next-day pill, or finding out their pregnant.
3Sex ed is NOT available. It's all abstinence only crap. That never works.
4YOGA - my school was very similar to yours. I took a sex ed class 3 years ago during my sophomore year and there was only two or three times we talked about abstinence. We learned how to put on a condom, we learned about STDs (pictures and everything), for a week we had to take care of one of those babies that would cry every few hours for 20 mins straight, we learned about getting tested, learned about all types of BC, and so much more. I must say my high school sex ed class was better then the one I am taking in college.
I went to a school in SoCal in a community that is considered working class. In the four years I was there only about 25 girls were pregnant (majority kept the baby and went back to school) and this is a school that had over 4000 students. I really do think our sex ed class made the difference, in the school one city over the number of pregnancies was about 85 girls in a school of 1700 people.
5All good points. I also note that the "poverty line" is not the best benchmark, as it's widely considered to be way too low. You could be at twice the poverty line and still be damn poor.
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