It's Hip to Be a Pregnant Teen

By now you have heard of the 17 teenage girls in Gloucester, Mass. which may or may not have had a pact to get pregnant during the course of this last school year.  The Gloucester High School students were actually visibly disappointed when they went to the school’s clinic and got news that they weren’t pregnant—sounds like a pact to me.  The girls were clearly desperate to get pregnant and they were purportedly to have said one of the driving factors to get pregnant was a desire for unconditional love.  

Amanda Ireland, a recent graduate of Gloucester High School, and mother to a 3-year-old said that the girls wanted to feel loved.  She continues saying, '"They're so excited to finally have someone to love them unconditionally,” Ireland, 18, said. “I try to explain it's hard to feel loved when an infant is screaming to be fed at 3 a.m.”

That didn’t faze the teens as one girl, age sixteen, even went as far as to have sex with a twenty-four-year-old homeless man to fulfill her dream of being a pregnant teen.  The begging question is, “Why do girls think it’s so cool to get pregnant?”

For years now the US has been leading the charts.  Yep, we are the proud owners of the highest teen pregnancy and birth rates among all of the industrialized countries.  We more than double our nearest competitors--we win!  I am pretty sure this isn’t a driving factor in our teen pregnancies but rather just an outcome.  I mean, I really don’t think the teenage girls in the US are thinking that they are in some kind of sick contest against Bulgaria, so what is motivating them to get pregnant? 

I have two words—role models.  For instance, let’s start with the fact that girls born to teen mothers are 22% more likely to be teen mothers themselves thus insuring that not only will the trend continue, but it will actually become a larger problem over generations.  A teen mother is ill equipped to handle the rigors of motherhood and less than a 1/3 of teen mothers under age 18 will actually finish high school.  Sons of teen moms are more likely to end up in jail and babies in general have increased health risks and complications. 

So, the teen mom is a result of a vicious cycle.  But why did the rates increase for the first time since 1991 in 2007?  Why are about 40% of young girls becoming pregnant before they reach the age of 20?  What would lead increasing numbers of girls into a lifestyle that leads less that 25% of them to marriage and half of them to the welfare system?  I believe it has become cool or the fad to be a pregnant teen.  Teen girls see a lot of their peers becoming pregnant in high school and pop culture has its share of teen icons that have this cross to bear—right, Jamie Lynn Spears?  But the attack on the teenage mindset doesn’t stop there.

With movies like Juno and the new TV series The Secret Life of The American Teenager, teen girls are given new pregnant role models—the hip, witty, pretty, intelligent, kind, independent pregnant teen.   Why on Earth would a country like the US, beset with laughable teen pregnancy rates, want to market movies and TV shows to young women that glamorize this less than glamorous lifestyle?  I have been struggling to answer this question, but the best I can decipher is that after seeing the recent success both financially and critically from Juno other production houses want a piece of the teen pregnancy dollar. 

Juno is the story of Juno MacGuff , a sixteen year old sarcastic heroine who gives her baby up for adoption and gets the boy of her dreams in the end.  Heartwarming and unrealistic as less than 5% of pregnant teens give their babies up to adoption.  I am not positive, but I am guessing a smaller percentage than that 5% get the boy of their dreams after said adoption process.  With both worldwide theatrical and DVD sales, Juno has already grossed over $270 million dollars all on a budget of a scant $7 million.  Teen pregnancy pay dirt.