I just want to start by saying this, I am not saying it is OK for a teen to get pregnant, I am not encouraging teens to get pregnant, I am not endorsing teen pregnancy at all. That said I must grumble about recent newspaper articles and a few blogs I have read lately. Before anyone defends their blogs, I cannot remember which blogs it was, I do remember they are not ones I read regularly. Also I am not saying they are wrong, I am only saying I disagree with them on a point or two. My main gripe is with the newspaper articles I have read lately. It seems there is a new study and I must say it has pissed me off!
According to a recent study teen pregnancy is on the rise. Guess what they found…. it is on the rise mainly with the poverty level teens. Also concluded in this study……teen mothers start out on welfare, stay on welfare and the children of teen mothers often remain on welfare. It also pointed out that many teen mothers are on drugs and remain on drugs. Fathers are often out of the picture before the baby is born and rarely take an active part in the child’s life. Children of teen mothers are more likely to become teen parents. Teen mothers are often uneducated.
OK, again, I am not endorsing teen pregnancy! If you are a teen, I am not saying it is OK for you to become pregnant! If you are a teen and pregnant, do not drag your parents to the computer and say that I say it is OK! I just can’t stand it anymore!
I was a teen mother. I was not and have not been on welfare. I was not and am not a drug abuser. The child I had at 16, is not on welfare, he is not a drug abuser, he was not a teen parent. I am not saying being a teen mother was easy, because it wasn’t. I would not have made it without the support of my family and future husband. I know not all teen mothers have the support I had, I understand that the study is probably true, but they make it out to be much worse than I bet it is. Also I have to wonder if the figures are really correct.
High class Barbie, middle class Mindy and crack whore Christy are all having sex. The study comes from government records. So because high class Barbie is most likely covered by dad’s insurance and if not, dad just pays for her prenatal, so she is not requesting government aid. Middle class Mindy, is likely covered by dad’s insurance and if not, he is having to pay for it out of pocket because middle class Mindy’s dad makes too much money for her to be covered by Medicaid. Now that leaves crack whore Christy, she is most likely one of the whole lot that has no insurance and and her family makes very little money, so she would qualify for Medicaid and government assistance. So I ask you, who is in the governments records.
Outside of keeping your teen right by your side and never allowing them to leave your sight. There is not a lot you can do to stop them from having sex. Well, there is a Chastity belt, but really, can you still get those? *No really, I have a 9 year old and I would like to know if they are still available!* You can have all the right talks, make all the right points and all the right threats, but when all is said and done, it is their choice! You can put them on birth control and provide condoms to your horny teenage boy, but what parent really wants to do that. So you have to trust them. And I will be the first to admit horny teens are not trustworthy! So on to the study….
Pregnancy is on the rise and it is mainly poverty level teens. Those who are on welfare and government assistance. OK, are they saying poor folks have nothing better to do than screw around? Or is it saying they are too stupid to use birth control? I think it is because these are the teens who must request government assistance because they can’t afford the thousands of dollars it cost to have a baby and the thousands of dollars it takes to raise a child. High class Barbie and middle class Mindy are right there with crack whore Christy in the getting pregnant department, they just don’t need or can’t get government assistance. Or maybe crack whore Christy can’t afford the 100 bucks a month it cost to be on birth control pills! Where Barbie and Mindy can. I still say it is on the rise with poverty level folks because that is who the government has the data on.
Teen moms usually start out on welfare and remain on welfare. I say government data is behind this little statistic too. The children remain on welfare. Government data here too. This is because Barbie and Mindy do not qualify for government assistance. Case in point, with my 2nd child, I did not have insurance, I applied for Medicaid. I was married and 19. Because my MIL had given away my home, we were living with my parents. I did not qualify for Medicaid because my father made too much money. (I was raised in a middle class family.) By living with my parents, we had to list my father’s income on the paperwork, it did not matter that we were married, adults and looking for a place to live. It only mattered that my father made too much money. And the money we paid him for living there had to be included in my father’s income. The government wants to hold on to it’s money!
As far as the child remaining in poverty, I guess they assume that if a poor mother raised it, the child would be too stupid to know how to do better! That pisses me off. My son is doing better than we did. He has a good job, his wife has a good job and he actually has a savings account with money in it!
Most teen moms are on drugs and remain on drugs. That is bullshit! Yes, am sure some of the teen moms are on drugs and I am sure some remain on drugs. We would not have crack babies if that were not true. But you do not have to be a teen mom to have a crack baby! You can be a 40 year old crack whore who gets pregnant! And what exactly are the standards for “are on drugs and remain on drugs”? Do antidepressants constitute “on drugs”? Or do you actually have to smoke pot? And does “on drugs”, mean you do them daily or just if at a party? Does the occasional user also qualify? And who the hell actually admitted to the government they were on drugs? Or is it just a guess on the part of the study, because we all know that poor people are poor because they are on drugs. *gah!* Besides you don’t have to be a teen or poor to be on drugs!
The father’s are often out of the picture before the baby is born and do not take an active role in raising the child. OK, what man takes an active role in raising a child? How many change diapers, breastfeed, clean up puke and do all that nasty stuff that mom’s do? I know men do more nowadays, but I can’t get my teenage son to pick up his own dirty clothes, I know he wouldn’t change a shitty diaper! And of these father’s who are gone before the baby is born, how many knew there was a baby on the way? And I am sure it is just as likely that Oxford Joe skipped out on high class Barbie, as it is that gas pumping Randy run off on crack whore Christy. Maybe more likely on high class Barbie’s end, because Oxford Joe has a future in politics! I married the man I was with when I got pregnant, still married to him.
Children of teen mothers often become teen parents. Well, of course because we all hope our children are just like us! *GGGRRRRR* What parent doesn’t constantly tell their child, “Be just like momma and daddy, we don’t want you to do better than us! *insert maniacal laughing here*
And the best part of this study is most teen mothers are uneducated. Well, DUH!!! Most teenagers have not completed high school, so uneducated pretty much covers it! How many Harvard grads do you know that are still teens? I will admit I did not finish high school, but it was not because of my pregnancy. I had a neck injury that had me on pain pills and muscle relaxers and I kept getting knocked down the stairs and my dad decided I would be better off at home. My son was about a year old when I quit school.
I know my situation could be very different than others stories. I got pregnant at 15, delivered a healthy baby boy at 16, and married his wonderful daddy at 17. I had support from my family and my (then) boyfriend. No support from hubby’s family, but they felt I was trapping their wonderful son and brother. I did not use drugs, nor did his father. I was not on welfare, nor was his father. I was not the typical teen mother I guess.
Being a teen mom is hard. I missed out on a lot of things. While I was still pregnant my dad told me, my mom was not my built in babysitter. She would babysit 1 night a week and I should choose wisely. She would not tend to the baby when I was at home. She would tend to the baby when I was at school but once I arrived home, he was mine. I got up with him at night, I did my homework while he climbed on me, I, like all moms, ate a cold dinner because the baby came first. I comforted him when he was sick and ill. I did everything any other mom did and I went to school to boot. I missed school dances, I missed prom, I did not attend football games, because it was just too cold to get a baby out. I may have missed all of the normal teenage things, but I didn’t care, I was raising my son.
Teen mothers have a lot of options. They can abort the baby. This was never a choice for me, I just couldn’t do it. I have never and will never look down on a teenager for doing this. It is a tough decision, but it is an option. There is adoption. A great choice for someone who decides to carry the baby to term, but knows there is no way they can raise a child, be it emotional or financial. That would be a hard choice to make. I don’t think I could do it, but I guess if it was the best choice for the child. And, of course, you can choose to keep the baby. This is a hard life too. You have to be ready for a lot of sacrifices. Whatever the choice, it has to be right for the baby, the mother and the mother’s family and in an ideal world the father and his family. But mostly the baby and mom.
I will add here I have no tolerance for those who use abortion as a birth control or those who do not learn from the first pregnancy. Once you can say, “OOPS I never thought that would happen to me.” but the second, third, fourth babies, come on, get a grip! Also I have no sympathy for the teens who get pregnant on purpose, whether it is to hang on to their boyfriend or because they want someone to love them.
I am sorry I had to gripe, I have been there and it is studies like these that make it hell for teen moms. Like they don’t have enough on their plate already! When I was pregnant, I heard comments like, “You should be ashamed!”, “There goes my tax dollars at work!”, “I can’t believe your mom would let you out in that condition!”, and the best one…..”Another bastard child on the way!” OK, here are my responses to all the comments I heard…… “You should be ashamed for being such an ass!”, “Your tax money is not being spent on me, BC/BS is covering this one!”, ” I can’t believe your mom raised such a rude person!”, and finally….. ”Better than another asshole!”
I do not condone teenage pregnancy, I do not endorse teen pregnancy. But the next time you see a pregnant teen, think before you speak. She is someone’s daughter, she made a mistake and she is dealing with a lot of shit. Think of it this way, she could be your daughter! She made a mistake, we all do. And could you make the decisions she is having to make when you were a teen? I had to grow up overnight. I went from being a teenager without a care in the world to being someone’s mom. I was responsible for another life, that is a lot to deal with at 15.
And everyone blaming it on TV is a lot of crap! Yes, TV has gotten bad to show teens having sex. Yes, TV makes it look easy. Think about it, TV shows are 30 minutes to an hour, they have to make it easy to fit it in. Movies are a couple of hours long and would you watch a movie that showed all of the gory truths of being a teenage mom? I wouldn’t and I have been there. It is not amusing, it is not sweet, it is not happy. You make the best of a bad situation, you love your child, and you do the best you can. HUM, looking at it that way, it kinda sounds like first time parents of any age.
I guess I have griped enough. Let me have it. How wrong am I? How lucky was I to have it so easy? I am not done with this one. I have a post going about how it was for me, during and after delivery. Let me know what you want to know about it.
And I will add, if you found me because you googled,”pregnant and a teen” and need an ear, email me at mcmine(at)bellsouth(dot)net I won’t offer advice but I will listen.
*High class Barbie, middle class Mindy and crack whore Christy are all fictional and not based on any real persons. Also just because I made the “poor” one crack whore Christy, I do not think all poor people are crack whores. I just went that way for comical effect. Poor choice,I know. I apologize to anyone who I offended.*
Until next time…….
HAVE A GREAT DAY AND THANKS FOR VISITING!!!!!!
