Strollerderby : teen pregnancy

Best of FameCrawler - Week of May 22nd

Whit Honea — Fri, 22 May 2009 20:00:00 GMT

Gosselins are Good for a Gander

Katie Holmes Sets a Bad Example For Suri

Mormon Marie Osmond Supports Her Gay Daughter!

Stars Come Out For American Idol Finale: Brad Garrett and Kids Max and Hope

Barbara Walters To Interview John Edwards' Mistress Rielle Hunter!?

Bristol Palin and Son Tripp Cover People

Angelina Catches Brad and Jen Aniston Together!

Kate Gosselin Blogs Her Troubles Away

Matt Damon: Bourne to Be a Dad

Pregnant Lauren London & Lil Wayne Will Raise Baby Together!!!

Kelly Clarkson Looks Like She's Pregnant!

Caption This, Julia Roberts (or Don't)

Graphic Video Aims to Scare Kids Out of Teen Pregnancy

KeriF — Wed, 20 May 2009 17:00:00 GMT

My husband's family lives in Ireland, and when we go to visit I'm always amazed by the public service announcements. I remember one from many years ago that showed a group of laughing friends in a car. The announcer says gravely, "In a few seconds, John is going to hit Mary so hard, she'll never walk again." The car crashes, John's head slams into Mary's, bodies are everywhere, and it all ends with John dead, Mary in a wheelchair, and an urging to "Please slow down." Not very uplifting, is it? But it seems to work.

Now England is taking the same approach to teen pregnancies, with a video that hopes to show just how terrifying a teen pregnancy can be.

The video, designed to look as if it was shot on a student's cell phone, shows a girl giving birth on a sports field while dozens of classmates watch. It ends with the caption, "Not what you expected? Being a teenage parent might not be either."

Leicester Public Health officials produced the video to help combat the town's high incidence of teen pregnancies; one in 20 girls between the ages of 15 and 17 are pregnant.

According to Liz Rodrigo, a public health specialist in Leicester, teens came up with the idea for the video, and suggested that a funny or shocking message rather than a "preachy" one would be more effective.

Well, they certainly succeeded on the shocking front. Watch the video below and judge for yourself. Do you think it's effective? Or does it go too far?

The video is graphic (and loud) and not appropriate for kids (or offices).

13 Year Old Alfie Definitely Not A Dad

Brett Singer — Tue, 19 May 2009 01:56:00 GMT

It's official -- Alfie Patten is not the father of baby Maisie. Biologically, at least.

Alfie thought that he had impregnated 15-year-old Chantelle Stedman when he was just 12 years old. Although I admit that science is not my strong suit, that didn't seem possible to me. I guess I was right. (Take THAT Mr. Knauer! He was my bio teacher a long time ago. But I digress.)

This news isn't completely new, but it has just now been released after a ban on the info by a British court was overturned. A judge had previously ruled that "the rights of the teenagers took precedence over the Press's right to report the case." Well, I guess not.

This is an interesting point, one that I've thought of a few times over the past few years. Maybe minors' names should never be released to the public. What possible reason is there for us to know their full names? Does it really enhance our ability to understand a story? I don't see how it could. In my opinion the idea the "the press has a right to know" or report or whatever is very suspect when it comes to matters like this. Why does the press have more rights than a kid?

Source: Daily Mail

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Levi Calls BS on Bristol’s Abstinence-Only Message

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Thu, 07 May 2009 18:30:00 GMT

I don’t whether to be disturbed or relieved that Levi Johnston has emerged as the voice of the reason in the ongoing Palin family drama.

After Bristol Palin assumed a (paid) role as the new face of abstinence-only sex education, Johnston decided to speak out about his, ah, more nuanced view of teen sexuality.

In this clip of his appearance on the Early Show yesterday, he is refreshingly frank about the problems with simply telling teenagers, “Don’t have sex! Don’t have sex!”

One great quote not included in the clip: “It's [abstinence] a great idea and a great message she's trying to send out to the world and all the young kids. It's not easy raising a baby. But I do think there's more things to it than just not having sex."

Johnston probably doesn’t know this, but the numbers support his view that it’s just not “realistic” to believe you can stop teen pregnancy with an abstinence-only message. Family planning services substantially reduce the number of abortions and unplanned pregnancies, particularly among poor women—who are certainly not getting paid to fly to New York and preach about how difficult it is to be a teen mom.

Photo: threebrain.blogspot.com

Bristol Palin Campaigning for Abstinence Only

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Wed, 06 May 2009 21:01:00 GMT

So much for Bristol Palin’s courageous admission to Fox News that abstinence-only is “just not realistic.” She is now the new “face of abstinence,” campaigning against teen pregnancy as the teen ambassador to Candie’s Foundation, which promotes abstinence for teenagers. And yes, Bristol is getting paid.

Interestingly, Candie’s Foundation not only wants to keep teens from having sex; it also wants them to buy some sexy footwear. That’s right, the name Candie’s may be most familiar to you as a shoe company that markets to teenagers. According to founder Neil Cole, "Just because you're wearing high-heeled sexy shoes doesn't mean you should have a baby.”

And here I was thinking that six-inch stilettos were the fashion equivalent of a stork! I feel so silly. Thanks for clarifying that for me, Mr. Cole. It’s very important for young girls to know that they can be sex objects AND crusaders against sex. (Just for fun, you might want to check out the site for Candie’s shoes, which features seductive images of a half-naked Britney Spears.)

In keeping with Candie’s Foundation’s commitment to contradictory preaching, Bristol told Good Morning America, "Regardless of what I did personally, I just think that abstinence is the only ... 100 percent foolproof way to prevent pregnancy."

I’m sure that as long as Bristol keeps parroting abstinence-only talking points and Candie’s keeps selling stilettos to 15-year-olds, teen pregnancy will be wiped out in no time.

Photo: Ida Mae Astute/ABC

Levi Calls BS on Bristol's Abstinence-Only Message

School Expels Teen for Birth Control Pill

JeanneSager — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 19:32:00 GMT

A teenager who popped her birth control pill during her lunch period at a Virginia school is spending her spring break fighting the district not to be expelled.

The problem? That she did so during school hours. . . specifically, that she took a pill without supervision of the school nurse.

Her mother says she's aware the girl violated school rules, but she's questioning just how far a school should go with its punishment. Two weeks suspension and recommended expulsion for taking a legally prescribed drug? Does that sound fair?

It's a problem for plenty of parents in America - not birth control per se - but medicine. Kids take a lot of it - just this week, a study showed the precipitous rise in the number of kids who require medication to control their blood pressure and diabetes. And those are just two diseases. What about asthma, allergies, ADHD? Not to mention your standard headache or menstral cramps which could use an over-the-counter fix. All legal drugs, and not always feasible to take at home. Some medicines require several dosages in a day, for example, spaced out over time. Others require kids take them at the same time of day, every day. And a headache doesn't come on to suit the school schedule.

Meanwhile, schools are steadily trying to fight the tide of youthful prescription drug abusers in the America - a number that's up fivefold in the twelve-to-seventeen bracket in the past decade and a half. They call for students to take all medicines to the nurse's office, where the school health official is charged with handing out the prescription drugs to the students at the appropriate time in the appropriate dose.

It's what the girl in Fairfax should have done, what even her mom admits she should have done. Unfortunately, it doesn't work for every kid. In part because some school districts refuse to condone over-the-counter medications because they do not come with a doctor's note that can be kept in the nurse's office. And in part because kids need medicines at different times during the day; times when the nurse's office isn't always open. Some schools have cut back on the availability of nursing staff too, sharing one nurse for several buildings - so kids end up handing their medicines over to office staff, who parents argue are often even less informed about the proper use of the medication than the kids themselves, who have been taking the drugs for years.

And school districts have gone overboard. The Washington Post article that shares the Fairfax family's story cites a since-overturned law from Maryland that required a doctor's note for kids to put on sunscreen. Really? Because we'd rather the kids all end up with skin cancer over a legal substance that's available over the counter in any Wal-Mart in the country, for sale to anyone of any age?

With birth control too there's the worry that being so strict on teens dulls the efficacy of the fight against teen pregnancy. Wouldn't we rather our teens were taking the pill than skipping it? And despite the school's claims that this wasn't about what kind of drug but the fact that it was a drug, period, I can't help but wondering if they would have threatened explusion over, I don't know, aspirin? I'm not defending the girl in Virginia for her actions - birth control pills are to be taken at the same time every day, but there's no reason she couldn't have been on a schedule of taking them in the morning before school or at night.

She was wrong and deserved to be punished, but isn't expulsion for a LEGAL drug a little much? Do you feel the schools have gone too far in reaching into our medicine cabinets?

Image: AC

Why Teen Girls are Taking Drugs Meant for Cows

JeanneSager — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 21:01:00 GMT

It's rumor and conjecture at this point, but Wisconsin health officials are taking seriously claims that a rash of teenage girls have taking drugs commonly used on cows to force their bodies to abort babies.

The kids allegedly got hold of prostaglandins, drugs used by farmers to regulate cows' heat cycles for breeding, and ingested them as "a cheap and easy way to end their pregnancies without their parents finding out."

According to officials, as many as ten girls ages fourteen to eighteen have owned up to the home abortion practice, and the American Veterinary Medical Association has gotten pro-active, sending warnings to practitioners about the usage and storage of the drug to discourage the practice from spreading.

Though the numbers are still small, that it's happening at all is clearly indicative of the fact that these kids are just that - kids. Shannon reported on the alarming spike in teenage pregnancies recently, pointing to the fact that at least half of American teens are having sex. Throw in kids' fear of being proactive with pregnancy preventions, and it's not hard to imagine how kids end up in this predicament.

They're having sex like adults. But they're still kids. And at the end of the day, they are afraid of how to properly deal with the consequences of their actions. They're afraid of owning up to their parents that they've made a mistake.

What should happen? It's really up to the kids and their families. Whether it's a baby given up for adoption, a baby kept or an abortion (pro-life groups are naturally using the news to once again decry legalized abortions, somehow arguing that legalizing abortions has actually encouraged these types of home abortions despite the fact that the legalized abortions means kids have much better options) is dependent on the family and their situation, but what's important is that these kids get the support of adults, adults who have the good sense not to feed their kids dangerous drugs meant for massive animals with drastically different genetic make-up.

But as Shannon pointed out recently, with abstinence-only education comes a lack of discussion about what happens when. . . and if . . . And pregnancies are happening, have always happened. Shrouding sex in mystery is not stopping it, but it is still putting our kids at risk.

Image: SFGate.com

Little-Boy Dad Inspires Sex Ed for the Very Young

Madeline Holler — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 22:05:00 GMT

Dozens of primary schools in the U.K. have begun talking about sex with kids as young as 7 thanks to Alfie Patten, the boy-faced 13-year-old, who is one of his country's youngest fathers.

Next year, those lessons will be aimed at even younger pupils -- those who just started school.

The newly introduced lessons are part of a now compulsory sex-ed curriculum for all school chidren, including 5-year-olds. The new lessons were supposed to start in 2010. However, school administrators, worried about Alfie's contemporaries also procreating, have stepped up the facts-of-life discussion to reach kids before they hit puberty.

The very youngest children won't be getting all the details on how babies are made. But they will begin to talk about bodies and feelings, which sets the stage for the details that will follow.

I think this is great and would love to see body/health/sex talks start much younger in schools here in the U.S. What do you think? If 5 years old simply too young?

Photo: DailyMail.co.uk

Baby-faced Boy Becomes Dad

Mom Buys High School Musical Star's Condoms: Would You?

JeanneSager — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 17:16:00 GMT

If your first reaction to news that High School Musical star Zac Efron's mom buys his condoms is a grimace, don't worry. I don't like thinking of my three-year-old one day having sex either.

But Efron is twenty, and his mom wants him to be safe. Wouldn't you?

When photos of Efron and girlfriend Vanessa Hudgens surfaced, showing them at what appeared to be a sex shop, Efron says his mom confronted him. But she admitted she knew already that he was sexually active - and she showed it by stocking his Christmas stocking with an economy-sized box of condoms.

I don't know that I'd be quite that showy. A box slipped under the pillow or left on the bedroom desk, maybe. Shoved in the Christmas stocking? Er, reserve that for socks and underwear Ma!

But it's nice to see a mother who understands you need to set the squeamishness aside if you want to protect your kids. Remember - I'm not talking about a three-year-old, but if a teen is having sex, and you know it, ignoring it is not going to make it go away. Neither is screaming, yelling or riding them about it. Once it's happened, you have to get cracking.

The problem? A 2000 survey by the Kaiser Foundation showed thirty percent of sexually active teens are too embarrassed to actually condoms (although eighty-seven percent said they believed they were somewhat or very effective at preventing pregnancy, followed by eighty-four who believe they can protect against HIV/AIDS and seventy-two percent against STDs). That's nearly a third of all sexually active kids.

Would you really want to run the risk that your kid is one of the three in ten who won't buy them? Is it worth saving yourself the embarrassment to have to have someone call you Grandma?

So would you follow Mrs. Efron's lead? If you already knew your child was sexually active, would you buy them birth control?

Image: LA Times

Chicago Doula Works With Poor Pregnant Teens

Miriam Axel-Lute — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 19:30:00 GMT

For all those tempted to think of a doula as a luxury who merely provides pampering, it's worth taking a little time to watch A Doula Story.

Loretha Weisinger, the subject of the documentary, a former teen mom herself, works with pregnant teens in a poor area of Chicago. She's really a combination of childbirth educator, doula, lactation consultant, and parenting educator, which is a hell of a job, but clearly a crucial one.

I keep remembering the moment where she takes a cell phone away from a new mom who's trying to breastfeed in the hospital in order to tell her boyfriend that, no, breastfeeding isn't "nasty." Or her careful explanation that she wasn't going to leave the delivery room until one of her "girls" was ready to hold her baby and got to do so. Or her repeated insistence that her girls actually talk to their babies, in utero and out.

It's not exactly a feel-good flick, as the lives of these girls, and Loretha herself, are hard. But it also shies away from what I came to realize, as I found myself tensing for it, must be a stock documentary habit of sticking a tragedy in somewhere around 2/3 of the way through. No deaths or horrendous confessions. Just the day-to-day work of trying to improve the lives of babies and parents.

(Hat-tip: Citizens for Midwifery)

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13-Year-Old Daddy - “I’m the daddy. If not…I’ll still be there.”

Cole Gamble — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 18:00:00 GMT

Even 13-year-old daddies who look like 8-year-old daddies still want to do the right thing and man up. So to answer all the claims of paternity by other “men” (read 14 and 16-year-olds) little Alfie Patten has taken to wearing a hoodie personalized with a message for the world: “I’m the daddy, if not f**k you all I’ll still be there,” with a giant up yours gesture printed on the back of his head.

Way to own it Alfie.

Oddly enough, this case gets odder.

If all the other minus 18-year-old suitors are cleared and Alfie is found the one true father of Maisie, the best possible scenario is for the wee man to move in with the baby and baby mamma Chantelle Steadman, 15. Under that circumstance, Steadman would be the legal guardian of Alfie as well as Maisie—making her, in the eyes of the law, a single mother of two.

Photo: thesun.co.uk

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Sarah Palin: Family Has to Pull Together for Pregnant Teens

JeanneSager — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 13:34:00 GMT

In what was supposed to be Bristol Palin's big moment with mom's buddy Greta on Fox News, but I doubt anyone was suprised when Alaskan Gov. Sarah Palin stuck her head - and her two cents - into the conversation.

But while her daughter's common sense approach to abstinence-only education (it doesn't work - duuuuh) has been getting all the attention, the former vice presidential candidate was surprisingly on the ball. When things go wrong, she says, families have to come together.

In fact there are five generations coming together in the Palin clan - Bristol, her mom, her grandmother and even her great-grandmother make four, plus baby Tripp. Admittedly (and this isn't a knock on the Palins), it's a lot easier to pull together that kind of crew for a teen mom - they're the few moms young enough to still maybe have a great-grandmother around. But as VanSusteren points out, there's "joy" in the Palin family when they look at the product of a teen pregnancy. Most families don't have that. If anything, a teen pregnancy has the affect of driving families apart as the various generations point fingers and play the blame game.

It can be argued that's how teens fall into the teen pregnancy trap, but not always. Look at the Palins. For all that's wrong with them (do I really need to go there?), they are neither destitute (stereotype number one), lacking in family values (stereotype number two) or, well, a minority (stereotype number three). Any kid can end up a parent at seventeen, whether their parents support them or not.

Once it happens, the only way to wrest a victory for all three kids involved is to throw the weight of the family behind them. Whether that means supporting a teen's abortion, their choice to give up the child for adoption or their choice to keep it. What's happened has happened, and a family turning their back on the kids in their time of need is the absolute worst thing that can happen - for everyone involved.

Teen pregnancy sucks. There is no way around it. But when a kid is in trouble, it's up to their parents to step in and pull them up by those boot straps. It's called parenting, people.

As Palin points out, "It's not the most ideal situation, but certainly you make the most of it."

Kind of like a liberal agreeing with something Sarah Palin says, huh?

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School Counselor Forces 12-Year-Old to Take Pregnancy Test

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 20:25:00 GMT

Parents have filed suit against the Nevada City School District after their twelve-year-old daughter was called out of class by her school counselor and asked to take a pregnancy test.

The counselor, Steve Davis, had heard through the middle school grapevine—a very reliable source of information, as we all know—that the girl was pregnant, and he wanted to see if this was true. The girl (who is naturally remaining anonymous) explained that she was only the butt of a nasty rumor, but took a urine test supplied by the school nurse at Davis’ insistence. Lo and behold, the test came back negative.

My sense, from the limited information we have about the story, is that Davis was genuinely concerned about the girl—he just acted on that concern in the most misguided possible manner. If the rumors about the girl’s pregnancy were so widespread that he felt he had to act on them, he should have found a way to speak with the girl privately and then he should have spoken with the classmate she identified as having started the rumor.

Instead, he behaved in a way that humiliated a 12-year-old and enraged her parents—which is why they’re suing the school district for emotional distress and violation of the right to privacy.

Clearly, no parents would want a school counselor to intervene in their child’s life in such a thoughtless manner as Davis did. But would you want your child’s school counselor to gently and skillfully approach her without your permission if she seemed to be struggling in some way?

Photo: Westridge School (unrelated to this story)

Stop Sending Palin Baby Presents

JeanneSager — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 13:03:00 GMT

So the economy's in the crapper, and parents are cutting back on everything from Santa to travel. So why are gifts pouring into the Palin household?

The former (so happy to say that) vice presidential candidate's father, Chuck Heath, told Grandparents.com that gifts for granddaughter Bristol Palin's soon-to-be born baby boy have been piling up from around the world. Really, this is what people are spending their money on?

In case none of you remember, the Palin family isn't exactly hurting. Mom just got offered a raise by one of the commissions she helped appoint (OK, OK, she turned it down - but who is actually getting offers for EXTRA money in their paycheck this year?). Then there are all those RNC shopping spree clothes (including that Ramones tee for a tot).

Bristol Palin does not need our charity. But at last count, Chuck Heath says there are one hundred thousand gifts waiting for baby boy Johnston. Yes, you read that right - one hundred thousand.

He admits she'll probably never use them all (ya think?), but I've yet to hear any offers to give these things away to a pregnancy center or maybe make some Christmases brighter around Alaska.

We get it, some people actually liked Sarah Palin. If you really want to pay tribute to her, how about donating some gifts in her name to someone who could actually use them?

Ooh, I know, how about one of those centers for pregnant teens she cut funding from? Just a suggestion.

Image: Reuters Via ParentDish

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Teen Mom Must Visit Cemetery for Abandoning Baby

JeanneSager — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 19:33:00 GMT

The sixteen-year-old mother of a baby abandoned at a South Carolina fire department has to visit a cemetery, mortuary and a maternity ward, get her GED and a long list of other requirements. The baby's father, a twenty-one-year-old who graduated from high school, has a shorter list - but he'll have to make the rounds with his girlfriend.

The couple, who have an eleven-month-old baby and a two-year-old toddler at home, apparently left their newborn at a firehouse because they knew they couldn't care for the six-hour-old baby. Firehouses meet safe haven criteria under South Carolina law, but the couple failed to give the baby to an actual person at the firehouse - which means they've been facing felony charges for leaving the child on the doorstep in the cold weather.

The mother is being charged as a juvenile - she turned seventeen just days after the incident - and the father as an adult. She reportedly hasn't gone past the ninth grade in high school, and part of the suggestions from Seventh Circuit Solicitor Trey Gowdy as part of her juvenile arbitration is a requirement that the girl return to school to get a diploma or at least pass the GED exam.

Gowdy says the couple did at least make an attempt to abandon the baby properly, which takes them out of the realm of parents who shake their babies to death or simply abandon the baby in garbage can. But he wants them to see what could have happened if the baby hadn't been found on that doorstep: hence the visits to the mortuary and cemetery. His list also includes parenting classes (phewww), reproductive counseling (considering she would have been what, fourteen when she first got pregnant, and he was nineteen - three kids ago?), and meetings with the representative who pushed for the South Carolina safe haven law and an adoption law specialist.

Here's hoping the judge in the case takes Gowdy up on the suggestions - there's an obvious lack of common sense between these two, but at the very least, they tried to do the right thing. What they need now isn't a ten-year sentence behind bars, but some smartening up and some birth control.

Source: WYFF

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One in Five Teens Having Tech Sex

JeanneSager — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 15:36:00 GMT

I'm officially too old for this crap. This has nothing to do with birthdays, wrinkles or grey hairs. I've simply come to the conclusion that thirteen-year-olds having any kind of sex grosses me out.

Yes, that includes "tech sex." Excuse me for my Clintonian response here, but can I have a definition please?

A survey from the folks at Cosmogirl.com and The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy puts the number of teens sending racy text messages and shooting naked pics of themselves with their cell phone cameras at one in five. That's twenty percent of kids, although the number of girls is closer to twenty-two percent - not surprising there, guys talk a big game, but they're not as fond of sharing pictures of their johnson because of that little, er, fear of inadequacy.

Of course, we're still talking about teens and their johnsons . . . so, ewwww. I'm not a prude, but I'm not into kids - and the fact is, these pictures and texts aren't staying in kids' hands. The study showed the kids aren't just sending them to friends but fifteen percent have pushed a button and sent their private parts off to someone they know solely via the Web. In other words - into the hands of someone who could just as easily be a child predator as their new best friend.

I'm not a fan of taking kids off line - Myspace, Facebook and the like give them a real outlet for venting frustrations and reaching out of their own environment for like-minded individuals that can cut through the solitary life of a lonely teen. BUT, and this is a huge but here, naked pictures of a teenager can ruin lives down the road. I'm not talking getting kicked off the cheerleading squad; but imagine trying to run for president? Or walking into your boss' office when you're twenty-two, only to be handed a picture of yourself circa five years ago doing some very teenage versions of ultimate naughtiness?

Kids are just starting to get a handle on their body boundaries; and what they feel comfortable sharing. But where a teen girl flashing the football team used to be the stuff of urban high school legends, now a teen girl's accidental text about losing her virginity is the stuff blowing up the net.

I know parents today have valid reasons for getting their kids cell phones - even though none of us had them. Parents are more mobile today, and so are their kids. But at thirteen, a girl taking nude pictures of herself and sending them out to a boy . . . who is sending them out to the rest of the school . . . should be something avoidable. Maybe not giving our kids the best cell phone on the planet with all the gizmos - really, I think they might survive.

Image: The Inquisitr.com

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Teen Attacked by Mom Over Hidden Pregnancy

JeanneSager — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 21:54:00 GMT

I would love to be the Dad from Juno. I'll tell you right now. I wouldn't be. I'd be the tempted-to-smack-my-kid parent if my teenage daughter waltzed into the house and dropped that kind of bomb. The difference between me and the mother of a Detroit teenager who is now in protective custody? I said tempted.

It's one of the worries that comes with parenting a girl; as sexist as that may be. Parents worry about their daughters getting pregnant. They worry about their sons crashing a car. And the failure earlier this month of California's (oft over-looked of late) Prop 4 ballot measure that would have required doctors to contact a teen's parents before providing her with an abortion, pointed to more parents' admission that their kids' futures are out of their hands once the sperm hits the egg.

But it doesn't mean parents are making it any easier on their kids. In the Detroit case, the girl initially told police she'd discovered the newborn when a cat pulled at a trash bag in the garbage near her home. She later admitted she was afraid of her mother's reaction to the truth - and with good reason. The mother is facing assault charges after allegedly beating the girl for concealing her pregnancy. The girl and her baby are in the hands of protective services.

Her daughter's future really is out of her hands now. Or maybe it was before the girl got pregnant? Because teens are going to have sex, and unfortunately, on occasion, that sex will lead to pregnancy. But the parent whose kid is that scared of telling her parents that she's got a baby on the way probably hasn't had a frank discussion about much with Mom and Dad in recent years. It seems like a mom who reacts to a daughter's dilemma with her fists is setting herself up to be disappointed somewhere down the line.

Image: Amazon

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Could Sex on T.V. Lead to Teen Pregnancy?

Shannon LC Cate — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 13:00:00 GMT

A new study from the Rand Corporation shows, for the first time, a provable link between teens' exposure to sex on television and teen pregnancy. The strong connection--teens exposed to lots of t.v. sex are twice as likely to get pregnant or get someone pregnant than those not exposed--holds up even after taking other social factors into consideration.

The study conducted surveys with a large group of teens over three years, unlike previous studies that merely took one-time "snapshot" surveys. Its depth lends it further credibility.

Some teen parents confirmed the study anecdotally, agreeing that television sex had influenced their own decisions. But not Sandy Tomlinson of Glendale, Arizona, who had her son at age 15. Tomlinson said

"I feel that if my parents would have been more involved in my life that I would have made different choices. It gets old hearing all these studies that blame everything and everybody but the parents."

Most researchers and other experts agree that even if television can be proven to influence teens' decisions about sex, parents' and other adults' involvement in kids' lives cannot be discounted. Though parents may have limited control over increasingly pervasive media messages via t.v. computer, cell phone and in every private and public space imaginable, parents, teachers and other adults can teach media literacy to teens. Since contraceptive use is only "spotty" at best on the t.v. shows with the most sexual content, adults need to intervene by talking kids through the real consequences of risky behavior when watching with them.

And that's the take-away study author Anita Chandra would like parents to find:

"We know that parents are busy, but sitting down and watching shows together with their teen, talking about the character portrayals, talking about what they just witnessed, and really using it as a teachable moment is really, I think, a good recommendation from this research."

Evangelical Teens' Very Active Sex Lives

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 21:00:00 GMT

In this week's issue of The New Yorker, there's a cartoon that made me laugh so hard I spit out my tea. Although it's not technically Bristol Palin's unborn child speaking, it easily could be. Two kids are sitting on a stoop and one says to the other, "I was an abstinence-only baby."

An article by Margarot Talbot in this same New Yorker tackles the issue of evangelical teen pregnancy in a more serious vein. Even for someone who is already convinced that abstinence-only sex education doesn’t work, these statistics are shocking.

Although 74 percent of white evangelical teenagers are opposed to premarital sex, more evangelical teens are sexually active than almost any other major religious group, including mainline Protestants, Jews, and Mormons. The average age for an evangelical to lose her virginity is 16. And half of these kids are not using protection. Compare that with 69 percent of non-evangelical teens who report using contraception every time they have sex.

The reason for this high percentage of unsafe sex among evangelical teens likely stems from shame at being sexually active—if you carry around condoms or suggest using one, you could give the impression that you are looking for sex. Furthermore, abstinence-only sex ed. teaches that condoms are not effective protection against STDs and pregnancy.

As we’ve seen in the widespread conservative support for Bristol Palin’s plans to get married and have a baby at age 17, for many evangelical parents, a teen daughter becoming pregnant is not a problem—so long as she keeps the baby and marries the father. This is a perfectly valid attitude based on a personal moral belief. The problem is that this retroactive problem solving often does not lead to happy families.

The states with the highest divorce rates and the highest teen pregnancy rates are all red (where people are, obviously, more likely to be evangelical conservatives than social liberals). The states with the lowest divorce and teen-pregnancy rates are all blue.

Many are arguing, even within the evangelical community, that if Christians want to preserve a commitment to abstinence until marriage, they must do more to encourage happier, younger marriages, since delaying sex until age 25 or 30 is just not realistic.

A large part of encouraging young Christians to have happier relationships is offering them more realistic attitudes toward sex. If hormonal teenagers are taught, for instance, that masturbation is sinful, they are more likely to have less engagement with and control over their bodies. Similarly, teen girls who are taught that they can always become "born-again virgins" if they "accidentally" have sex before marriage are not likely to embark on a responsible sex life. And such guilt-addled, unrealistic attitudes toward sex are likely to cause problems for couples well into marriage.

Photo: Mary Ellen Mark/The New Yorker

Could Sex on TV Lead to Teen Pregnancy?

Scary Teen Kidnappers Going to Jail

Amy Kuras — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 18:19:00 GMT

This story is fairly chilling, but has a happy ending. An 18-year old woman who, with a friend, kidnapped another pregnant teen with the intention of cutting her baby out of her womb in a suburban Kansas city motel was sentenced to eight years in prison earlier this year. Police said Lauren Gash had allegedly told people she was pregnant and even set up a registry. Her co-defendant, Alisa Betts, pled guilty last week to a charge of kidnapping and first-degree assault.

Betts and Gash allegedly contacted Amanda Howard through a MySpace ad for baby items, and promised to pick her up at her home in Clinton, Mo., drive her to Kansas City to collect some baby clothes, and then take her back. Instead they pepper-sprayed her and took her to the motel in Blue Springs, where they bound her with duct tape and were about to begin slicing her open with a craft knife when police burst in – tipped off by Betts, who got cold feet.

Yeee-ikes. Howard is apparently doing well after her traumatic experience, as is her baby son.

Another scary case happened in Kansas three years prior, when someone kidnapped a woman and actually did cut the baby out of her womb, killing the mother. Is there something that breeds baby-stealing psychos in the water out there? The only person I know from Kansas is very nice and not at all psychotic. And what the hell makes an 18-year old so insanely desirous of some else’s baby?

Hey Sarah Palin, Make Your Kids Go to School

JeanneSager — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 16:03:00 GMT

I've got one question for Sarah Palin: Do your kids ever go to school?

That Bristol Palin has essentially been glued to her mother's side since the news broke that she's got Levi Johnston's bun in the oven has made me wonder if the Republicans have dropped all pretense of subtlety and are outright telling us they really don't think a girl needs an education once she's fulfilled her duty of making babies. Then Johnston announces he's opted out of school too and gotten a job in the Alaskan oil fields.

Why? The baby won't be here until December, yet no one thinks these teenagers should be spending the precious days left before the birth in a school building? Sarah Palin expects us to put her a heartbeat away from commander in chief because she's in charge of the Alaska National Guard, but has she forgotten she's also head of that state's education system? Not exactly a shining reference for becoming second-in-command to the guy overseeing the nation's department of education.

One quarter to one third of female dropouts in this country say pregnancy played a role in their decision to leave school before graduation. But a study by the Gates Foundation found the girls who dropped out of high school due to motherhood were more likely to say they would have stayed and done well if they'd had a little support. They were more likely to have been on track to graduate, many with higher marks than their peers.

So what happens to them? The National Women's Law Center report, When Girls Don't Graduate We All Fail, says dropouts have lower paying jobs, higher health risks and lower access to quality healthcare. Then - surprise, surprise - their kids turn around and drop out of school. Another shocker? Many end up living off the state. The NWLC report surmises that every student who graduates from high school saves the state as much as an average of $40,500 in total publich health and $3,000 in welfare expenditures over his or her lifetime.

Yet Levi Johnston has decided to forego his senior year of high school, and the woman who told us she's from a family of school teachers during the debate is OK with this? She's OK with her pregnant 17-year-old daughter spending days flitting around the country instead of sitting inside an Alaskan school building? No, there's been no official announcement that Bristol is droping out of school, but there's little evidence that she's actually attending. Considering the chunk of time she spent playing hooky last year that helped fuel (untrue) rumors that her baby brother was really her child, there's no sign her mother really cares.

Let me explain something to you Governor Palin, your job as a mom is to prepare your kids for their future. Want what's best for them and your grandchild? Tell your daughter to get her hind end back to Alaska and go to school. And call the Johnston family and tell them to do the same. Unless you want the people of Alaska to be stuck supporting them too.

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Teen Marriage: It Can Last a Lifetime

Preventing Teen Pregnancy, One Tick at a Time

Teen Marriage: It Can Last a Lifetime

JeanneSager — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 16:37:00 GMT

I know I'm in the minority on the 'Derby - and perhaps in this country - but I'm not ready to condemn the possible nuptuals of Sarah Palin's daughter Bristol and her baby daddy. And I finally found a little supporting evidence for my side: Carl and Winifred Blake.

The Florida couple celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary late last month. He's 73. She's 76. Yes, he was 13 when they got married. She was 16 and having a baby.

A little disclaimer here - this is an extreme case. I wouldn't advocate for getting married before you're legally able to vote any more than I would advocate teen pregnancy (wait, wait, wait as long as you can!!). I don't even think having a baby together means you should get married. Many miserable parents have made their kids' lives that much more miserable by sticking together. But - this is a big but here folks - I shudder a little when I hear there's just no hope for a couple of teens getting married. Whatever happened to good, old-fashioned love at first sight? Can't a girl get married at 18 because she found the guy she wants to spend the rest of her life with . . . and she wants the rest of her life to start right now?

So I offer up the story of the Blakes. Winifred's dad was working for Carl's dad when they met in the small town of Paw Paw, (you can't make this stuff up people) Michigan. They fell in love. He'd been working as a driver delivering farm equipment from the age of 8, so few suspected she was robbing the cradle. When he told his father she was expecting, the elder Blake wanted him put in jail. But Carl and Winifred got married and she gave birth - and they made national news because he was considered the youngest father in America (the youngest to admit it anyway).

They went on to have six kids - by the time Carl was 19 he was already the father of four - who say they were raised in a house of love and respect. One daughter joked to a reporter that if they'd tried threatening to call social services (as she said too many of today's kids do), her parents would have handed her the phone and dared her to make the call.

But this story isn't about their kids. It's about Carl and Winifred Blake who got married as teenagers and still kissed on their 60th wedding anniversary like they were newlyweds. Not everyone is that lucky - especially people who got married with a baby on the way - but sometimes it just makes you feel good to know they could be.

For Dad: How to Beat Up Your Daughter's Boyfriend and Not Get Caught

JeanneSager — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 16:18:00 GMT

Raul Colon was having a really bad night. The father was fast asleep when a noise in the house woke him up. Did he poke his wife and tell her to go check it out?

No, this family man did what every dad would. He rolled over and grabbed a metal pipe (Lesson One, Dad: sleep with potential weapon or spare plumbing parts next to the bed). He snuck down the hall to the bedroom of his 15-year-old daughter (Lesson Two: Always check the daughter's room first; they're trouble those girls).

When he found a naked teenage boy standing on his daughter's bed (oh to still be that athletic), he did what any father would like to do - he smacked 15-year-old Lucas Contreres with the pipe and chased him across the house, brandishing said pipe (Lesson Three: They might be bigger than you, they might be stronger than you, but a naked teenage boy is a scared teenage boy).

Colon called 9-1-1 to report an intruder was loose in the house before discovering Contreres' identity - or so he says. He told the cops when they arrived that he'd just learned Contreres had been sneaking into the house for at least a year, without his knowledge (Lesson Four: See Lesson Two - Always check the bedroom of your teenage daughter). When we initially reported this story, Colon was charged with aggravated battery on a child and had to place a $10,000 bond.

The State of Florida Attorney's Office announced yesterday they won't be filing assault charges because a father has the right to "defend his family and home against what he believes to be a burglar or intruder into that home."

The announcement is legit, but I can't help but wonder, how many fathers in the state's attorney's office powered up Google yesterday and typed the words "chastity belt?"

Source: News Journal

Image: inmagine.com

When Dads Attack: Nude Boy Chased Out Of Daughter's Room With Pipe

Are Shotgun Weddings the Best Answer to Teen Pregnancy?

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 19:11:00 GMT

Teen pregnancy is certainly foremost on the nation’s brain these days. With one in three girls in the U.S. pregnant before the age of 20, this is not a bad thing. But many commentators are concerned that the national dialogue about teen pregnancy that has resulted from the Palin affair has made teen moms seem like heroes. I’m concerned, more specifically, that few have questioned whether shotgun weddings between teen parents-to-be are the best way out of a very difficult situation.

The Palin family has been careful to stress that Bristol Palin and her baby father’s, Levi Johnston, will eventually get married. Bristol may have gotten pregnant by accident out of wedlock, but she’s keeping the baby and she will marry the father—so she gets a standing ovation at the Republican National Convention. In other words, there’s nothing wrong with getting pregnant as a teen, so long as the accidental pregnancy gets turned into a traditional family unit.

There is no doubt that marriage can be the best choice for teen couples who are truly in love and committed to raising their baby together. But let’s not forget that there are numerous options available to teen parents. The couple could stay together but delay marriage until they feel certain that they want to spend their lives with each other. This would improve their odds of staying together, since teen marriages are two to three times more likely to end in divorce than adult marriages. Or the couple could break up, but co-parent the baby, along with the help of both of their families.

Clearly, Bristol and Levi are under undue pressure as teen parents-to-be. “Having the eyes of the entire country staring at you because of your baby’s mama’s mama is the biggest shotgun to aim at a young man’s head,” writes Marlene Davis in the Vancouver Sun. Not to mention the perks offered to Johnston by agreeing to play the part of father- and husband-to-be. Any 17-year-old, even one who proclaims himself a “f****n redneck” who doesn’t want kids, would have a hard time making a decision based on his authentic desires in this scenario.

But what about teens who don’t have the eyes of the world on them as they navigate the very difficult decisions they are faced with after an unplanned pregnancy? Marriage, particularly the first few years, is difficult even for mature couples in their 30s, who have solid working lives and are absolutely certain of their commitment to one another. Should this difficulty be added to the trials of raising a baby at 17?

Photo: Rick Wilking, Reuters

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