Does it seem likely to you
that teens who may get pregnant otherwise would be more procreatively
responsible in an economic downturn? Or
do you agree with some of the voices in this article which say that this is
more likely because of sex education?
Should sex ed be a part of the Slovak curriculum if it helps bring down
teen pregnancy? Are reality shows about
it a good thing as well?
I agree with the economy and child development experts. In my opinion, most of teen parents aren’t actually so observant of the world around. I can’t imagine teenagers making decisions about whether to have a child or not based on the current economic situation. Personally, I believe that those teenage parents are just less cautious.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, the article says that all the collected data comes from birth certificates. This means that there is no information about the parents’ social and economy status. Then it is possible that teenagers from financially stronger families don’t have to care about the economic situation at all while those financially weaker have to reconsider their decision twice. I can imagine that it would be far more reasonable for a pregnant teenage girl with no financial stability to undergo abortion. Therefore it is quite obvious than an economic slowdown may cause decrease of the number of teenage childbirths. Thus I cannot deny Bill Albert’s statement that the economic cause is certainly somewhere on the list of reasons for the drop.
Nevertheless, I believe that sexual education and other preventive programs are the most effective. As the Program Area Director of child development research centre claims, they are tested and proven to work. However, I disagree with her statement that teenagers from economically depressed families are more likely to have kid. At first it sounds very plausible. In fact, it is our daily experience with marginalised poor communities, for example Slovak Roma population. But ultimately, I believe that talking about American teenagers is a bit different story. In my opinion, they don’t live in so confined economic conditions that they couldn’t afford contraceptives. Moreover, and this is a more important point, I believe that majority of American teenagers have better sexual education than some truly isolated marginal groups. Although I don’t think many of the teenagers sensibly plan parenthood, they are certainly aware of the consequences of irresponsible behaviour.
Reading your comment made me think about one more possibility, which was not mentioned in the article. The fact that there was less children born may be also credited to increased number of abortions. Worse economic situation might push people into more drastic solutions, such as an abortion, which would not, under normal circumstances, be regarded as a solution. However, I hope I am mistaken.
DeleteAs to the other part, I also think that the most effective "contraception" is the enlightenment in the field of sexual behavior. On the other hand, even if we admit that teenagers "are aware of the consequences of irresponsible behaviour," I am not persuaded it has the implications we would like to believe it has e.g. being more careful.
The article proposes five reasons for why the births to American teenagers dropped from 2009 to 2010. These include improved contraceptives, the economic downturn, improved sexual education, more communication between parents and teens about sex and relationships, and reality shows (e.g. “16 and pregnant” and “Teen Mom”). Out of all of these reasons, I believe that the ones that affected teen pregnancy the most are most definitely the last three: sexual education, communication between parents and their kids, and reality TV shows.
ReplyDeleteSimilarly to Kika, I do not really agree with Bill Albert’s theory considering the effect of the recession on teenage sexual activity even though it might be somewhere on a list of minor factors. Although the financial condition could most definitely have an effect on the long-term plans of married couples and relationships between adults, I do not think that teenagers think that far ahead. Of course I do not doubt the ability of teenagers to notice the difference in the economic situation and the effect it might have on the community around them, but I’m not so sure that they would carry their observations as far as to change their actions also in their relationships. Since most teenage pregnancies are not planned, this would mean that the individuals concerned would actually either become a lot more cautious, refrain from sex altogether or be more for an abortion just because of the financial situation they find the adults that surround them in. Maybe subconsciously it does somehow have an effect on the teenagers, but somehow I do not see this very probable on a conscious level.
My class (well actually the MYP part of it) has only had one sexual education class; it was either in MYP2 or MYP3 (I’m not really sure now). Coincidently, I wasn’t at school that day. However, I do not think that I missed out on much (except for the part that it was supposedly extremely hilarious) because I believe that most of the information that teenagers obtain on topics like sex and relationships comes from what they see/read in media or see/hear about in their community. Even though reality shows like “16 and pregnant” seem extremely annoying for me and I cannot stand watching them, I guess they serve a certain purpose. From the little that I have seen of these shows, I can conclude that most of the time there are just people arguing, having emotional breakdowns, and creating drama. Thus, for me teenage pregnancy becomes linked with negative feelings. However, since I do not think that the people that go into such TV shows are completely normal (I definitely would not if I were to be pregnant), I guess they aren’t a representative sample.
Furthermore, I guess there is a general prejudice in society against teenage parents. When people see a younger mother with a child, I do not think that a normal reaction follows (“How CUTE!”) but mostly the people start to guess her age and begin to analyze her situation. These negative feelings of society towards teenage parents contribute to the reluctance of teenagers to have children and to their cautiousness in sexual activities. The stronger the prejudices and emotions become, the more careful the teenagers are. I also believe that the parents and siblings of teenagers have an influence over the attitude of the teenagers towards teen pregnancy that is even stronger than that of the whole society (since despite the many arguments, they are a few of the closest people to us).
Teen pregnancy is an ever important issue in our society whether it is in Europe or in America. Raising next generation involves a lot of hardship, and most of all it does require an immense amount of dedication. Whether teens are capable of such behavior is a debate for another time, but whether they should be doing it in the times they should mainly focus on developing their own abilities and skills i.e. themselves, to ensure themselves a bright future, is a lot easier question.
ReplyDeleteEconomics is called a social science for a reason. Since times people started trading things with each other, it grew in importance rapidly. Unfortunately, I would say. The most noticeable change came with the introduction of money, and society’s broadening dependence over those little pieces of metal and paper. Nowadays, we live in a tough capitalism, where through money one can obtain almost anything. On the other hand, even if it is hard to believe, there are things which are rooted deep inside of us, and which, I believe, are uninfluenced, at least directly, by economy. Among these things I would include a reproductive instinct, in other words sexual behavior.
The average age for the first sexual experience has significantly dropped over the last century. Media have been successfully breaking through any taboos posed on such themes, and promiscuity quickly established a solid position within the society. I do not want to comment on whether it is good or bad, but surely, one of the undesired consequences is a rise in a teenage pregnancy. What I have previously written, about economy influencing whole society, is a way too generalized. It is because society consists mainly of three groups: teenagers, adults and pensioners. The first, and the last group are dependent on how well does the middle group, because in fact, they are the ones financing the whole system. Therefore if we talk about the relationship between economy and society, and its impact on people’s sexual life, we have to be sure who we are talking about.
Majority of people under 20, well, like 99% of them (no connection to any political movement), is living with parents, and is still being funded by them. This relationship would suggest high relevance of economic influence, and I am persuaded it is like that, but let’s face the facts and get to the point. What are the costs of a single intercourse? Nothing, in cases we frown upon, and contraception, in cases we approve of. What the article was concerned with, was the first case. It was stated that in the last years, we may have noticed a decrease in teen pregnancy, and an increase in unemployment. The article then hinted at causation among the two, which, however, was sufficiently counterclaimed. For me, two points stood out. Firstly, as Jennifer Manlove said, it is widely known that poorer families have, on average, more children. Therefore it is very unlikely that downturn in economy, which lowered living standards of vast amount of families, should result in drop of teenage pregnancy. Also, what is more plausible, that people under 20 will become more reluctant or that they will spend less on contraception? Secondly, as Saul Hofman and Jennifer Manlove both said, the main factors behind the decrease are better sex education, and as a result of that a wider use of contraceptives, and I just have to agree with that, similarly to Jana and Kika.
On the other hand, I am well aware of the fact that factors which play role in social dynamics, are countless, and many yet unknown. Therefore it would be foolish of me to say, that economy has zero importance, but what I am trying to say, is that on the list of all the things possible having some power over this matter, it is at the bottom. Similar principle applies to claim that teenagers “sobered” and became more economy-aware. It is not possible to rule out such statement, better sex education is however probably the main reason though.
Firstly, I am not really sure whether parents talk more to their teenagers about sex and relationships. I think this is still a big problem teenagers are dealing with. They do not have enough information about sex and relationships in general and therefore they are sometimes behaving irresponsibly. From my point of view, teenagers are more cautious about sex.
ReplyDeleteSecondly, I sometimes have the feeling that the television shows such as 16 and Pregnant or Teen Mum aren’t really helping young people to deal with sex or parenting. I think that these shows are often being more advertisements for young people to have children, than a form of educating them about sex and pregnancy. Every time I see such a television show, the young teenagers in the show do not behave as if there were in a bad situation. There look as if they were enjoying the fact that they can be in a television show and that the fact they are pregnant isn’t affecting them at all. In my opinion they aren’t showing the difficulties of parenthood enough.
Nowadays, sex is getting more and more popularized. It is absolutely normal to have sex when you are 14 years old. I think that before, when our parents or even grandparents were young, sex wasn’t so propagated. This topic was taboo. However, they still were young teenagers having sex of course, but probably they weren’t bragging with it. Kids or teenagers start to live a sexually active life in a very young age. So I still think that the birth rates are pretty high even though it dropped 9 percent. I agree that the drop might be a result of better contraceptive use, but government should concentrate on this issue even more.
I agree with Saul Hoffman who claims that the economic explanation of the drop in teen pregnancy is not really plausible. In my opinion, economy really is not a factor affecting teen sexual behavior, or at least not to that extent.
In conclusion, I think that teenagers should be more aware of the risk of getting pregnant. They should be educated about this at schools, so we could prevent them from having a baby. They should be familiarized with the sexually transmitted diseases as well. In addition, sex shouldn’t be so propagated in all movies and advertisements; it should be something what is just between two people and no one else. Something people don’t see everywhere, because then it affects the young teenagers really much and they may even start to think that sex is something you don’t have to value. Sex and sexuality in general is losing on its value from generation to generation.
Teen pregnancy is one of the main problems countries, like USA have to deal with. However, in the last few years the schools, parents and the government are trying to find a way, how to prevent teen pregnancies. I personally think, the reason why the number of teen pregnancies went down is as Jennifer Manlove, Program Area Director of child development research center Child Trends, says „The drop is likely a result of better contraceptive use, which in turn may be a result of government focus on teen pregnancy programs“.
ReplyDeleteI disagree with the statement from the article that the economy is the only reason. Most of the teen mothers and fathers are not very educated, mainly because they dropped out of school after they got pregnant. It’s not the economy but the lack of education most of the teen mother have. When I was in the USA, two years ago I was shocked how many teens from my high school were pregnant. I wasn’t as surprised after I talked to a girl from Columbia, who told me that she can get pregnant only one day before her period , so she never used a condom except this one day in the month. Not as surprising for me, after 3 months she got pregnant. Moreover, the most shocking thing was that there were special schools for pregnant teens and there was also a day child care in the school, what I personally think is too much. It almost seemed like, teen pregnancies was a totally normal thing. I do know that it helps the pregnant teens to get education, but I don’t think that it should even come to this point.
A good thing how to prevent teen pregnancies is reality shows, as “teen pregnancies” and “teen mom”. I watched a few episodes of “teen mom” and it did make me realize how hard it must be for the teen moms to work, study and be there for their child. Furthermore, I believe that these types of reality shows is a better way how to prevent teen pregnancies than sexual education at schools since the students are either making fun of the theme or they think it’s boring. Basically, they will not learn as much information, as from these reality shows.
In the end, I also think one of the main causes of the drop of teen pregnancies is that parents start talking more about sex and contraception with their children. I personally think, it’s much better to talk to a teen about sex than telling them that they should never do it. Teens are more likely to do something they are said not to do. However, when they already had sex, it’s still better to talk to them about it to prevent pregnancy.