Teen Pregnancy, Hollywood Style
Once taboo, pregnant teenagers are popping up more frequently on TV, in movies and on magazine covers. The problem? This latest pop-culture coverage doesn't show what comes before or after.
The Glamorous Life of a Teen Mom?
7/18/08: As movies and TV cover teen pregnancy, one young mother explains how having a baby changed her life. (Video: Jessica Bloustein)
It could have been Immaculate Conception. In the premiere episode of the new drama "The Secret Life of the American Teenager," 15-year-old Amy comes home from band practice and is shocked--the pregnancy test is positive! That two-second tryst at band camp, as she describes it to her friends, "was definitely not like what you see in the movies." They share the same confusion: how did a good girl end up in this situation? The obvious answer (Amy had unprotected sex) never quite surfaces; it's brushed off in a whirlwind of mystification. By the end of the episode, band-camp guy has taken a backseat to Amy's new love interest. As the plot pushes forward, it never once looks back at whether Amy considered contraceptives or talked to her parents about condoms. Amy is pregnant, and that is where this story starts.
Amy's tale is familiar terrain in the media landscape. Teen pregnancy has become a hot plot device lately, showing up in two new television shows--ABC Family's "Secret Life" and NBC's "Baby Borrowers." The standard plot: teen gets pregnant, teen is horrified and teen tells her family. Audiences saw it in last year's box-office smash "Juno," where an unintended pregnancy becomes a heart-warming adoption. In real life, the same storyline has been running through OK! Magazine's coverage of Jamie Lynn Spears's pregnancy. "I can't say it was something I was planning to do right now," the 16-year-old Nickelodeon star confessed to OK! last December. "But now that it's in my lap and that it's something I have to deal with, I'm looking forward to being the best mom I can be." Now 17 and with a newborn at home, Spears is already sharing her wisdom on parenting: "Being a mom is the best feeling in the world!"
Many teen moms and the adults who deal with them are glad to see a conversation about teen pregnancy out in the open. But they say that big parts of the story are being glossed over: how that baby bump came to be in the first place, and just how hard it'll be for a teen to raise a child. In "Juno," the word condom is used twice; the Jamie Lynn interviews skirt the issue altogether. Even "The Secret Life" (a show originally pitched with the title "The Sex Life of the American Teenager") only makes a few passing references to condoms, mostly students asking the guidance counselor about the ones kept in his office. In none of these shows are the girls asked whether they used contraception, nor is there mention of STD testing, which would seem a logical step after unprotected sex. "It's the missing three C's: there's little commitment, no mention of contraception and rarely do we see negative consequences," says Jane Brown, a journalism professor at the University of North Carolina who runs the Teen Media Project. "What's missing in the media's sexual script is what happens before and after. Why are these kids getting pregnant and what happens afterward?"
To recap, the reality that's not covered: teens are having sex (the average age of first intercourse is 16.9 for boys and 17.4 for girls, according to the Alan Guttmacher Institute) and some are getting pregnant (almost 750,000 each year, also from Guttmacher). One third of those women will have an abortion; two thirds will carry their baby to term. Teen moms are less likely to finish high school and more likely to remain a single parent, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Teens are also contracting sexually transmitted diseases in alarmingly high numbers--a quarter of teenage females have at least one.
"Juno" and "Secret Life" and other movies and TV shows like them could open doors to all of those issues. And research suggests that is actually what teens want: three quarters say they would like the media to talk more about the consequences of sex, according to a 2007 study by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy.
But these topics can be risky for Hollywood producers and purveyors of celebrity magazines. Producers and writers may want to avoid the political controversy over abstinence education. There's also the entertainment value at stake--lectures on condoms don't exactly sell blockbuster films. But there's also a more basic reason: talking about high-school students having sex, using condoms or contracting STDs still makes many people a little bit squeamish and embarrassed. Although the vast majority of parents say they talk to their kids about delaying sex and contraceptive use, most are still uncomfortable with the subject. Eighty-two percent of parents and two thirds of teens say that they don't know exactly what to say, how to say it or when to start the conversation, according to the study by the National Campaign.
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Member Comments
Posted By: kjspanos @ 10/02/2008 11:14:42 AM
Comment: Movies and television share the commonality of including at least a section of 'teen pregnancy' in their scripts, but are they addressing the issue in the right way? I think not. When good ole??? ???June-Bug??? told her father and step mother about her pregnancy, the only thing they could say was "I thought you were the kind of girl who knew when to say when.??? If there is something missing in the staging of these reactions, it???s definitely reactions. Parents aren???t going to be as calm and cool with their baby, having a baby! They never wanted to see anything like this happen to their own child, and yet, in these movies and T.V. shows, these parents can???t seem to lay any sort of derogatory mark on the table. Maybe the reason why so many teen girls find themselves pregnant every year is because they aren???t actually showing the consequences that are the parents??? reaction or when the mothers choose to keep and raise that baby. Hollywood has turned not only pregnancy into a glamorous fashion statement, but teen pregnancy into alluring state of being. Teen pregnancy will continue to be glamorized as long as the media makes it so.
Posted By: cherbear @ 08/12/2008 5:12:16 AM
Comment: I had a very interesting conversation with a teen the other day. She told me that she was reading some of the various comments with regard to teens having babies. This 15 year old told me that she is very angry about the terrible comments aimed at teen parents, especially teenage moms. When I questioned her on why she felt angry with this topic, she exclaimed that it was, "none of an adult's business to police a teen's body when it comes to sex and babies because they are all just jealous of how teens can make babies faster and easier than old folks; let them all shut up and let us run our own bodies because we are smart people and in charge and more richer and mature these days!" Upon quizzing this little upstart on why she feels so empowered and opinionated on an ADULT decision to have kids, she replied that her 17 year old sister has twins(a girl and a boy) who complete the 17 year old's life and therefore she must follow the same path. I pushed harder for details, getting only her mushy and dewy account of her version on parenthood. When I reminded her of how expensive and important such a responsibility is in parenthood, she shot back with, "That's why we have the government, stupid! They are there to pay for everyone even if they are teens or illegals. That's why my parents and grandparents pay taxes and why my sister can have kids now and finish school if she chooses to later on ! Family first, school and all that jazz later. She's gonna be cool and neat just like Jamie Lynn Spears!" Aha! No wonder such resistance! There is her great example and idol! It's right out of the mouth's of babes. Of course, not all teens or kids will feel this way, but look at the ones who do. It's bad enough that kids/teens are underdeveloped in brain capacity via nature/biology. Now we may have somone such as Jamie Lynn as a fill-in for parents who don't educate and caution their children on sex before kids are 18 and over or married. This kid was wrong in seemingly every angle of her arguement and conclusions and also used a richer-than-most teen diva Jamie Lynn as an example of real life in her "world" (along with her older sister with the twins). Government exists for this? I'm stupid? Sorry baby girl lost. You probably have parents who could care less about your future or your sister's present path in life(perhaps like Britney and Jamie Lynn"s parents). I'm proud to say that at age 40, I was taught better than those how seem to have less morals, standards, and values. It's still safe to say that well, ...........some people are just too dumb to know how dumb they are!
Posted By: Maybe Father Does Know Best @ 08/09/2008 11:20:31 PM
Comment: People, People
Teen Pregnancy is by no means a new issue, an epidemic, or a crisis. It has been happening since we lived in caves and swung down out of the trees. Humans are sexual creatures. We enjoy pleasure both physical, spiritual, and sexual. A female???s body is capable of procreating even before the onset of menses. However is up to society to judge the appropriate time and circumstance for sexual behavior to commence. Do I need to remind everyone that sexual behavior begins far before a person engages in intercourse. The idea that ones son or daughter is to young for sexual thoughts, acts, or behavior is as ludicrous as the idea that the idea that the availability of condoms, birth control, and or the depiction of sexuality in the media influences the behavior of an individual. This is a dangerous concept. It absolves the person of their personal responsibility to themselves. I am a forty-five year old single father with two teenaged daughters. 16 and 18; one is sexually active while the other chooses not to be. Are these decisions that I would have made for them. That is a pointless thought. It is not my decision to make. The sexual expression of a person is their own personal choice. I can preach chastity, abstinence, or sexual irresponsibility and it would make very little difference. What then is the key? It is education. I began with my daughters when they were young, about six or seven, giving them age appropriate information on sex. I explained the mechanics of sex, periods, birth control, STDs, abortion, adoption, and any other variations on the topic I could imagine. I gave them the facts. I take them for their yearly gynecological check-ups. And, swallow, when they began sixth grade I made sure that in their purses they along with their feminine hygiene needs they carried an ample supply of condoms. My eightteen year old only recently decided to become sexually active. When she made HER decision and before she engaged in the behavior she came to me we discussed it, she made HER decision and I assume engaged in sexual activity.. My youngest is has decided for now she will remain celibate. I know the course of action I took is radical because it places the responsibility for my daughters??? behavior squarely on their shoulders. I know this concept is new and foreign to many but it seems to have added benefits. I have escaped problems with other behaviors using this approach, namely that of drugs, alcohol, delinquency, acting out, and other such behavior.
Maybe Father Does Know Best