Teenage
pregnancy has been a topic of discussion for the last couple decades; things
such as why it is happening and what can society do to prevent it. Recently
there has been a different debate considering teens and having children, and
that topic focuses on the media’s play in the epidemic. Shows like The Secret
Life of an American Teenager, which started in 2008 portray the life of a freshman
in high school having children. The main focus of this show is to inform
teenagers of the struggles that being a young mom entail. The controversy with
shows like this is that it is glorifying teenagers having children, and leading
them to getting pregnant themselves. Teenage pregnancy is an evident problem in
society today, and the media is helping glorify the lifestyle.
Surprisingly the birth rates of
teenagers decreased by forty-two percent from 1990 to 2008, but three out of
ten teenagers with get pregnant at least once before the age of twenty. Nearly
half of these teenagers will not graduate high school and only two percent will
achieve a college degree by the age of thirty (dosomething.org). Even though
the teen birth rate is decreasing television shows such as: The Secret Life of
an American Teen, Teen Mom, and 16 and Pregnant continue to glorify having
children while still being considered a child.
Many
of the parents in these shows do not seem to care that their teenager is having
a child and many help them out financially, mentally, and some even take
custody of the infant and raise their grandchild. Many of these young moms are
shown going out, drinking, doing drugs, and dropping out of high school or
college, instead of raising their children. This gives the viewers a very
unrealistic view on the struggles of being a young mom. In the article posted
by mediainfluenceonteenpregnancy.com, the author brings up a valid point about
what about the normal teenager, not on television with parents who cannot
afford to support her and her child. It is very prevalent that the media does
not portray these situations. Another topic these shows do not discuss and
should is how not to get pregnant, contraception and how to use it; instead
they focus on the after effects. It seems like the media is trying to make it
okay to be a teen parent, and forming a new definition of what a teen parent is.
According to Google’s dictionary a teen parent is defined as a custodial parent
between the ages of thirteen and nineteen who is enrolled in high school or a
GED program. This statement definition clearly leaves out those few teen
parents who are under nineteen and going to college, such as myself. It is
degrading, stating that teen parents under the age of nineteen are only
enrolled in high school or a GED program. The media has another opinion to teen
parents going to college; it simply does not happen, at least not very often.
The
interest in sexual intercourse starts with television shows Rick Nauert claims
that adolescents who watch excessive amounts of shows with sexual content are
more likely to be involved in a pregnancy. The television shows that these
teenagers are watching very rarely state the precautions that need to be taken while
partaking in intercourse, TV shows are made for entertainment not for
education. The RAND Health researchers’ voice that exposure to sex on
television increases the risk for teen pregnancy because it leads viewers to
believe that there is no risk in engaging in sex without the use of
contraception. But contradicting all of the information that puts blame to
television promoting teenage pregnancy in an interview with Bill Albert, the
chief program officer for the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned
Pregnancy, he states that television can be just as good of an influence as it
is bad and that no one thing is going to solve the problem. When teens are
watching the shows like 16 and Pregnant it is an excellent opportunity for
parents to step in and talk to their child about contraception and how to
prevent pregnancy. Parents like to point the finger at television shows and the
media instead of taking the opportunity to talk with their child about what
they do not like about the show and how to prevent not acting like the
characters in the show. This leads us to the discussion concerning the
controversial issue stating whether these shows are beneficial to teens or if
it is damaging and promoting teenage pregnancy.
In Gina Stepp’s interview with Bill Albert she asks
him the question “Is there a common denominator among teens who become
mothers?” to my surprise he answers this question saying that there is no
common ground between any of these girls, they all have different backgrounds.
He states that the numbers are way too high to be able to find any common
ground between the three out of ten girls who will become pregnant before the
age of twenty. This ties into our discussion about the media’s play in teen
pregnancy in the event that since there is not a common link between the girls
the television shows they are watching has nothing to do with it. A girl coming
from a disadvantaged home with little to no television stations has the same
capability of getting pregnant as the extremely advantaged girl with all the
stations. This concludes that the shows promoting and glorifying being a teen
mother really have no influence on teen girls getting pregnant, but television
can increase the likelihood in both genders to partake in unprotected
intercourse.
In November of 2008 psychcentral.com posted an
article stating that “Adolescents who have high levels of exposure to
television programs that contain sexual content are twice as likely to be
involved in a pregnancy over the following three years as their peers who watch
few such shows.” This strong claim expresses that teenagers should steer clear
of all movies and television shows that promote, have any kind of sexual intercourse,
or any sexual references. As teenagers watch and are exposed to teenage pregnancy
as a “normal lifestyle” they begin to think it is okay and may even attempt to
conform to this idea of “normal”. What these teenagers do not realize is that
the teen mothers that appear on shows like Teen Mom and 16 and Pregnant get
paid to appear on the show which allow them to not live in poverty and are able
to live away from their parents, but in reality teen parents only get paid less
than half of the poverty rate. The adolescents viewing these shows are naive in
thinking that a reality television show is a true representation of how being a
teenage mother would actually be. Which brings up the point of what should be
done about these shows, should they be discontinued or is it the parents’
responsibility to talk with their teenager about the issues that are not
discussed on the show such as the paycheck.
When two individuals decide that they are going to
become parents they take on the whole role of informing their child of all the
fantasies of the world, and when that child is a teenager the excessive sexual
content that is seen in the media is one
of those things that should be discussed. The American Academy of Pediatrics
started the campaign, Media Matters, to inform parents of how influential
television and the media can be and how to discuss this with their children,
their main goal is to alert parents that it is their job to monitor and control
what their child is viewing. MTV as well started a similar campaign to
challenge teenagers and young adults to change their sexual behavior. These
campaigns are only useful if they are used, and many people do not listen to
the messages, they instead pull the wool over their eyes and try and believe
that there is not a problem with their child partaking in intercourse. In some
ways the parent is just as naïve as the teenager, they both believe that “this
won’t happen to me”. With shows like Teen Mom and The Secret Life of an
American Teenager on television and being watched it opens up a great
opportunity for conversation with one’s child and this opportunity can and
should be used, though it may not help the effects of the teenager getting
pregnant it can help with the communication between the parent and child. These
shows are made for entertainment but also to start discussion and to help the
parent-child relationship.
With the statistics of teen parents as dangerously
high as they are parents need to be talking to their children about the effects
of becoming a teen parents, they need to be watching these shows that portray
and to a point glorify the role and discuss how hard it would be to become a
teen mother or father themselves. Parents need to take their head out of the
sand and talk about the uncomfortable topic of intercourse and protection to
prevent becoming grandparents at a young age. The media’s role in the epidemic
of teenage pregnancy is both good and bad but it is ultimately up to the
parents to decide how far they will let television, movies, and the internet
glorify the not so glorious role of being a teen parent.
