what are your thoughts on teenage pregnancy?

[lynni]

Over the last few weeks, whilst on placement with my Health Visitor.... ive seen alot of teenage pregnancies

Went to one house today, pair of em 16 ops: seem to be coping pretty well, the baby was 5 wks old

Just wondered what your views where and what we should be doing to stop this?

[Knoxville]

I personally think the idiotic scallies that get pregnant and keep it are the reason for societys recent downfall. Think about it, a 14 year old girl has a baby girl, by the time that kid hits 12 her moms 27 and still dressing up in short skirts and going out on the pull on a saturday night, because the child wants to emulate its main role model it wants to wear short skirts, low cut tops etc.

Her mom see's nothing wrong with this as she did the same at the same kind of age. The kid goes out tarted up and asking to be taken advantage of. 2 years and alot of drunken sex later she's pregnant..........and so the cycle continues.........

[Alex]

Schools are to scared to talk about it, until its too late. The types who get pregnant at 13 are not the types who actually go to PSE lessons at school anyway. You need to start teaching it earlier, primary school etc, not when the kids know it all from the playground anyway.

[subucni]

this may seem a bit harsh, but really if you don't feel responsible enough (or more importantly actually wanted) to have a baby, keep your d*ck in your pants or your legs closed. And failing that they do bring a baby into the world, they should really have to be able to show to the world that this baby is going to be able to receive the same quality of life as a child born within a family that had planned having a child. if they can't then it's not fair on the child and really should be taken away and put in care, which ever is best for the child. either way the child is still not going to be as fortunate as the one from a loving family that planned to have their kid.

i know it sounds harsh but really it shouldn't be up to a 16 yr old mum or dad whether they want to keep a baby, it should be a case of whether letting them keep it will be good for the baby.

[Devilbod]

It's not a good idea, question of maturity really and I agree with Knox its become a cycle now except it appears to be getting younger.

Subucni the problem is sex, at the age of 16 I was responsible enough to wear a condom but not strong enough to resist the temptations of sex.

Free condoms to anyone under the age of 21, avaiable by really easy means - i.e. anywhere and everywhere, like with an ID card which means you get them for free.
No child benfits to anyone under the age of 18.

[lynni]

I personally think the idiotic scallies that get pregnant and keep it are the reason for societys recent downfall. Think about it, a 14 year old girl has a baby girl, by the time that kid hits 12 her moms 27 and still dressing up in short skirts and going out on the pull on a saturday night, because the child wants to emulate its main role model it wants to wear short skirts, low cut tops etc.

Her mom see's nothing wrong with this as she did the same at the same kind of age. The kid goes out tarted up and asking to be taken advantage of. 2 years and alot of drunken sex later she's pregnant..........and so the cycle continues.........

this may seem a bit harsh, but really if you don't feel responsible enough (or more importantly actually wanted) to have a baby, keep your d*ck in your pants or your legs closed. And failing that they do bring a baby into the world, they should really have to be able to show to the world that this baby is going to be able to receive the same quality of life as a child born within a family that had planned having a child. if they can't then it's not fair on the child and really should be taken away and put in care, which ever is best for the child. either way the child is still not going to be as fortunate as the one from a loving family that planned to have their kid.

i know it sounds harsh but really it shouldn't be up to a 16 yr old mum or dad whether they want to keep a baby, it should be a case of whether letting them keep it will be good for the baby.

I know i asked for opinions of teenage pregnancy, but these are really judgemental opinions

the family which i mentioned in my first post yesterday, had fantastic family support. They wernt spongeing off the state, although they are recieveing benefits, but the house their living in is funded by her family. Her parents have gone and found them a house, and are paying the rent on it. Both were at college when this happened, and the father is still there, studying the building trade or something . Both were loving and supportive of each other and their baby (although there were concerns that the mother was showing signs of post natal depression). You cant say that young parents have to show the world they can support their child the same way middle aged couple can, cos thats not the way it works..... a middle aged couple are just as likely to neglect and abuse their child, and i know this because my mentor has plenty of her case load on the child protection register and these arent young mothers either!!

Teenage pregancy happens due to ignorance i believe, people think 'oh its my first time, it wont happen' when it bloody will! and you can bet your bottom dollor that family we saw yesterday, was their first time when they conceieved this baby. Which is a shame, and partly due to a lack of education, both on the schools and their parents.... i think condoms should be made more widely available, and kids made to feel that they wont be questioned or judged if they need them. I dunno, do the school nurses keep a stash? maybe they should start, in particualar if they dont want their parents to know, and cant get to the family planning clinic or their GP after school and in secret....

Apparently ab1385 sex education in the merseyside area, is now taking place in primary school

[GreenPiggy]

Educate them as young as possible is all i say. Obviously you'll never stop the kids who just want to get pregnant for the perceived cushy life they will get (maybe there should be economics education to go alongside it) but there are definitely a good percentage out there that wouldn't have got pregnant if they'd been in possession of all the facts.

[Hidden Spirit]

I'm not against teen pregnancy. Like the family you saw, Lynni, there are some that make pretty good parents.

I agree they should be educated better on sex and consequences of unprotected sex (not just pregnancy) but also that schools should teach "life skills" to include things like looking after a baby. This would give kids a better idea of how their life would be should they have unprotected sex and get pregnant. To me this would stick in their head better than any teacher going on about how a pregancy in a young age will ruin your life etc.

[Russ]

hank, although i agree with what your tring to say, a 14 yo shouldnt be a mom, could you "Kill" your unbirn child>?

[Rave]

As far as I'm concerned, the reason we have the highest rate of teenage pregnancy in Europe is that we have a ridiculous attitude to sex. On the one hand we're too embarrassed by it to educate our kids properly, on the other hand we have a media industry that is constantly throwing sex in our faces.

The country that has the lowest rate of teenage pregnancy in Europe is Holland IIRC; Holland, the country where the age of consent is 12. Holland seem to have (correctly) figured out that once children hit puberty and realise that sex isn't just something that you do to make babies, but that it might be enjoyable too, there's no point not telling them all about it. Our children (and I know I'm generalising here) grow up being bombarded with messages from the media that sex is cool at the same time as being told that it's dangerous and they mustn't do it until they're 16. The fact is that if two 14 year olds are sexually mature and attracted to each other, there isn't a great deal you can do to stop them having sex. If you've constantly told them from the age of 11 that they need to use condoms to prevent pregnancies and STDs, and made it possible for them to get hold of them, then at least there's a good chance they'll do it safely.

There's a lot to do to reverse the trend in this country I think. First up, every secondary school in the country should have a condom machine in the toilets (girls and boys). The Daily Mail will probably kick up a stink....screw them. Secondly, kids should receive regular sex education from the age of 11 onwards, at least every 3-6 months to keep drumming the message into them. Thirdly, we should get the country as a whole out of this weird attitude we have to sex; it's the permissive society gone wrong IMO. I'm struggling to phrase this, but here we go: we've decided that sex should be out in the open, but we've still got too many hangups to deal with it.

There's one other thing: when we talk about teenage pregnancies we seem to automatically assume they're unwanted. When we talk about girls who choose to get pregnant, people seem to think they get pregnant so they can get housing and benefits; I genuinely don't believe that's the main motivation. You can get housing benefit if you're unemployed whether you have a baby or not. I think in fact a lot of what motivates girls like that is that having left school with few or no prospects, and quite possibly having had a dysfunctional family life of their own, having a baby to love and look after seems a better prospect than just getting a McJob and settling down to a life of poverty and boredom. I for one can't blame them at all.

Rich :¬)

[Knoxville]

hank, although i agree with what your tring to say, a 14 yo shouldnt be a mom, could you "Kill" your unbirn child>?

thats a whole other can of worms man, i never said teenage abortions were the answer, if you wanna go down that road every time a bloke has a five fingered shuffle he's killing un-born children. All depends on your perspective tbh

Lynni it may sound harsh and sound like i'm generalising, but the problem is are all the teenage fmailys gonna be a nice and caring as the one you saw there? a pretty good mate of mine who used to frequent these boards who's not as young as some but is "only" 19 is raising a child with his g/f at the moment and knowing them and knowing the support they get from the family that it should *touch wood* all turn out well for them and the kid. These people are great and they make teenage pregnancy not seem such a problem. The amount of young girls i've heard disscussing stuff like this is untrue, and more often than not it comes down to one of 2 things.

1. I wish i had a baby i really want something to love

ffs buy a dog, buy a cat, go out and get a b/f who doesn't count you second to his fiesta xr2.

or

2. I really wanna move out my parents are really pissing me off, nah man i should just have a kid, the council will give me a flat n i can just claim benifits for it

A child is a housing oppurtunity to you people? christ, try listening to your parents, they may be right, that skirt probably was too short, you really shouldn't be going down the bus stop on gaz's moped every night to drink cider and yes the music you listen to is rubbish.

I've got nothing against people of my age who genuinly want a child for the right reasons. But as prejudiced as it'll make me sound there's some scum walking our streets that should never be allowed to breed.

[0iD]

I've been dwelling on this for a bit now, with my eldest 2 girls being 10 & 12 it wont be long before they hit puberty and start being sexually inquisitive. I think the parents are the first line of defense & I try & be open with them as much as poss. However It does concen me that my ex wife's 2 sisters got pregnant at 15 and the ex herself has 3 boyfriends that all 'stop over' from time to time. This I believe is sending the kids the wrong messages about sex & promiscuity. Let's face it, it's all over prime-time tv, from soaps to sitcoms sex & sexual inuendo are portrayed as the norm and without adequate educaion from an early age what are kids supposed to think?

[daniel_owen_uk]

hank, although i agree with what your tring to say, a 14 yo shouldnt be a mom, could you "Kill" your unbirn child>?

I believe it doesn't become a child until its born, so you would be "Killing" your unborn fetus to be technical about it. But this debate is about teenage pregnancy and lets not let it stray into an abortion debate.

Personally I think education on contraception is one thing but how much more can parents do? We educate like crazy about the use of condoms to stop unwanted pregnancy and spread of disease and yet europe has the highest spreading rate of hiv/aid in any continent.

Personally I think we should have contraception more freely availabe, education is one thing, but whats the point in educating a 14 year old on the use of condoms then never offering them any?

[Galant]

My bone to pick is with sex education. There are of course a lot of other factors involved, I just want to challenge how we 'educate' kids about sex.

As far as I remember from school, and from what I hear these days not much has changed. It's assumed that kids are already hearing about sex from their friends, they're 'almost experts on it', and we need to tell these kids that it's safer to do what you're already going to do if you blah blah blah, here's a freebie, now go get to it youngs uns!

Okay, maybe that last 'go get to it' part was a bit of exagerration, but it appears to me that sex education is missing a few rather large bits of info, one huge option, and the right attitude.

The fact is that the kids are just that, kids. They aren't the responsible adults everyone seems to wish they were, that needs to be borne in mind. What's more, the only education most of them have received is what they se on MTV< what they hear about shaking bootie on the CD's they listen to, and how really amamzing it all is, cause my mate's friend says so. Then some horny guy decides he wants it bad, and he doesn't matter how he'll get it, he'll say and do just about whatever he think will get him what he wants. His brain being disengaged for a large portion of all this.

It's nice to treat them with respect in the hope that they'll value what they say, but I think the side effect, and what we're seeing now, is that they believe that they as responsible and capable to make decisions as we wish they were, and that what they want and decide is perfectly fine, they don't need to learn from some repressed old people. The fact is, they do need to learn. How we get the right perspective and attitude back is a bit beyond me right now.

Next - erm, sex just isn't that safe with whatever rubber recepticles you choose. Disease is a major danger, a very unpleasant one, and should not be minimised. Education shouldn't just be damage control.

How about - now dare I say it? - abstinence shhhhhhhhh!
One big thing we should be teaching kids is that they DO NOT have to have sex. In fact, it would be greatly beneficial to them to NOT have sex and to wait. It's better physical, emotionally, and is an all round wise decision.

What is happening is we've given up the battle to the sex is cool, MTV crowd, are convinced that kids having sex is a foregone conclusion, and we have to work towards making it as safe as possible. That approach actually patronises and belittles those 'responsible' kids. The better approach would be to give them the other options, to advocate them, to counter the other crap that gets thrown at them, and show them that there are other better ways to choose.

Sex is far far bigger than they realise, and in some cases plain dangerous. They should save it for later, for someone who really cares, and who is willing to really commit to them, and wait with them.

[Blub2k]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/st...213875,00.html

Have a read here Galant then come back with something better.
10 Million Bush put into this in Texas and what did he get, almost the highest STD and teen pregnancy rates in the US.

Where does lying blatantly fit in with being a "good" Christian????

[GreenPiggy]

Abstinence is a fine thing to teach but the main problem is that it tends to be taught as an alternative to, and not in conjunction with contraception education. Studies show that abstinence groups actually have a much higher rate of teenage pregnancy than standard sex education.

Thanks Blub, couldn't find it on the site for some reason