Another Pregnancy Pact: Shocking Photo of Pregnant Teens stirs controversy

UPDATE EDITED TO ADD:  I just learned that this photo is of girls that attend a prestigious charter school in DC [correction: Baltimore] and they range in ages from 15 to 18 (freshmen to seniors) and along with taking regular classes, they also take special classes in birthing, breastfeeding and parenting, and have mentors.  A friend of a friend said she is disgusted by all the shaming going on by “judgmental” people as she stated, “over a fun photo taken on Facebook.”  

That being shared, I admit it is easy to judge without all the background facts.  My original below post is based on just seeing the photo alone.  All that being said, I long for a society where all girls can go through their childhood (including their teen years) without getting pregnant and robbing themselves of what should be the most exciting and carefree times of their lives. These girls made mistakes and if they’re in a good school, they must be academically smart. However,  there is still something not cool that there are so many girls having babies while they are still children. If teen pregnancy could end with the class of teens currently pregnant that would be great, but the fact is there may be more. The fact remains that photos like these may influence other little girls.

Back to the original post….

I spotted this photo of a group of very proud looking pregnant teenage girls smiling brightly while taking a cameraphone photo in the girls bathroom of their big pregnant bellies on The Cubicle Chick‘s blog, which found the folks over at Straight from the A chatting about it.

There have been several incidents, stories and even a made for television movie in the past about teen girls who enter into a pact to purposefully get pregnant for attention, for want of parental love, for the lack of guidance, who knows. At one point,  90 teenagers were pregnant at one Tennessee high school at the same time.

Now this could just be an alternative school for teens who are already pregnant and these girls just met up there and decided to take a bathroom photo or it could be another pregnancy pact.  The girls each shared the photo via twitter to all their followers so it’s public and it has gone viral.

Some folks have pointed blame on their parents and assume these girls come from fatherless households, have never been taught the consequences and hardship of teen pregnancy. Others blame MTV‘s Teen Mom and say these girls may have been raised by young teen moms themselves and don’t know better or see it all around themselves, and think it is just fine. No one knows, but it reinforces my decision to be an active contributor in the No Wedding No Womb and other similar initiatives that focus on making sure girls grow with the self esteem to not put themselves in compromising positions where they will get pregnant at such a young age.  Yes, there is some blame for the boys. Parents of boys are often guilty of the crime of  “omission” by not explicitly instructing them on the dangers of getting a girlfriend pregnant and of sex, in general.

But at the end of the day, the girl has to go through the 40 weeks and 9 times out of 10 is the one left raising the child if the boy runs off, so there is a very good reason why messages ought to be tailored to the girls.

Then finally, the quasi-social-conservative in me can’t help but notice that most likely these girls will need public assistance to raise these children.  With our country already in deep debt and our resources drained, it is rather very irresponsible that they are further burdening the social services and entitlement resources by getting pregnant.  Clearly, they may know the government will take care of them and their babies so when getting down to wire, they choose not to use protection because they figure others will bear the burden of caring for their children. Everyone loses and while products of teen and single moms have done phenomenal things and made wonderful contributions to the world, and some of them credit their own tenacity for the struggles they dealt with growing up in a single family household, that’s no reason for that to be the norm. 

Parents, talk to your girls and boys! This is really a sad photo.

Okay, this boiled my bubble yesterday. Off my soap box for the afternoon. What do you think?