Res ipsa loquitur ("The thing itself speaks")
This is an amazing and depressing statistic. There are 800 girls at Chicago’s Paul Robeson High School. Out of 800 girls, 115 are now pregnant or recently had children.
Robeson Principal Gerald Morrow responds with perhaps the most unassailable observation: “It can be a lot of things that are happening in the home or not happening in the home, if you will.” Hard to argue with that.
For the full story, click here.
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Hmmm,
Me thinks it is in the water….
or maybe the ….
Pizza dough….
or maybe way they ….
Grinder…..
We just talked about the amazing differences in teenage pregnancy when The Netherlands came up in the Anne Frank thread last week.
How is it that the teenage pregnancy rate in the United States is nine times what it is in the Netherlands?
puzzling,
because we teach abstinence or we stick our head in the sand or, or, or, or….. it is the safe way to practice sex don’t you know.
AY–
And because there are lots of parents who aren’t invested in their children’s lives…parents who are poor role models…parents who provide little guidance.
Parents like that are also one of the reasons why we have such a high dropout rate in many of our high schools in this country.
And that figure is down from what number?
I saw that figure in the Tribune and I was shocked. It still shocks me to see it again. That is one hell of a success rate for abstinence only techniques. I am beginning to wonder if condoms are not allowed in the city or is that not Manly enough for these Robeson “fathers”?
Elaine,
You have to realize that many of these kids are from one parent families and if the parent is working, it is tough to be “invested” in their children’s lives when you are trying to stay alive. The dropout rate is high and will always be high until kids are safe in the school and on the way to and from school. The economy has hit the inner city very hard and the economics are also part of the whole dropout problem.
What I still find equally “amazing and depressing” about this report and almost all coverage on this topic (teenage pregnancy) is the total lack of information or comment on the BOYS or MEN who are the fathers or expectant fathers of these girl’s babies.
I guess they are just not considered part of the story!
Good Morning, Rafflaw I’m glad you mentioned the baby’s daddies; just to clarify I was referring to the “mainstream media coverage.”
rafflaw–
I was a public school teacher for many years. I know very well about children from one-parent families. I understand how difficult it can be for these parents. Yet, there are many individuals in similar situations who do their best to both work and be invested in their children’s lives. There are also lots of parents who are drug addicts, alcoholics, and parents who abuse and/or neglect their children.
I’m from a blue-collar immigrant family. I was a working mother–as were my mother and my grandmothers before me. (My grandmothers worked in leather factories.) It’s wasn’t easy. But if you’re going to have children, you have to accept the responsibility. You can be poor and still sit your child on your lap and read to him/her at night, make sure you’re kids are in at night doing their homework and not hanging out on the street corner.
(I have also seen children from two-parent families that were affluent–with just one working parent–where children had plenty of material things, but suffered from a kind of emotional neglect. Some of these parents were also drug users, alcoholics, and abusers.)
I agree about difficult economic times being part of the problem. I believe they have exacerbated problems that were pre-existing. We’ve neglected our urban areas, given little help to the poor and working poor, etc. We’ve given tax cuts to the rich and spent billions of dollars on wars while our country decays on the inside.
Elaine you say: “We’ve neglected our urban areas, given little help to the poor and working poor, etc. We’ve given tax cuts to the rich and spent billions of dollars on wars while our country decays on the inside.”
- and yet you still blame the parents?
Elaine,
I think we are pretty much in agreement, but the kids who do make it out of those bad situations and bad or non-existent support systems are the exception to the rule,unfortunately.
CEJ,
The so-called Fathers in this story are missing and may never be found. They leave these children behind to complete the vicicous cycle.
Philosimphy–
I think there are many parents who don’t take their “parental” responsibilities seriously. Are you saying that such parents are absolved from shouldering any of the responsibility for how their children are raised?
rafflaw–
I agree. And I think that the single-parents who work and raise children who are taught the importance of education and studying and doing homework–whose children become upstanding citizens– deserve tons of credit.
rafflaw,
I am unsure of the stats in this area but I presume that you are correct. This is the first generation that has had to feel the effects of Reagenomics with the greatest impact. We are in for a world of hurt when W/43/Idiot Savant/Bushit etc did with his unfunded mandate of NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND.
There is no “one size fits all” reason for this. There is, however, a trend of some 4 decades standing that began with Roe vs. Wade. While RvW was a magnificent decision for rational thought it unleashed in the Fundamentalist Churches, political reactionaries and political opportunists the rationale to hit back at the sexual revolution of the 60’s and 70’s.
To these cretins, the foundation of that sexual revolution were females who had discovered they liked to have sex and had a right to follow their urges. Tied in with this was the demand by women that they enjoy equal status with men, rather than subservience. This is very frightening to those of a particular mindset and is seen in almost apocalyptic terms.
Remember, the traditional Biblical and Koranic interpretations paint females as the seducers of righteous men and the creators of all evil. Original Sin anyone?
A female behaving sexually was seen by them as an evil person, corrupting male-hood and deserving of divine retribution. What better retribution for a sexually active female teenager than to have her life burdened with taking care of an unwanted child? That is why the anti-abortion people are also anti sex education and anti birth control.
The plain fact is that the feminine part of this equation stems from an unreasoned fear and loathing of the power of the female and their sexuality.
There is, however, a male part to this equation. Our society
implicitly teaches that young men who “score” are more manly. This provides encouragement for male teens to first brag of their loss of virginity and then to actually try to do something about it. In this “crusade” they are abetted by their fathers, who see their son’s success with females as reflective upon them and also proves to them that their son is a man. While these fathers may counsel their sons to use “protection,” their powerful peer groups sees it as condoms cut down pleasure and are for sissies. The truth is too that for a teen anxiously trying to convince his sex partner to give in to him and do it, taking time to put on a condom may interrupt the process enough for the girl to have second thoughts.
The other aspect of this is the false American belief that the only true sex is vaginal intercourse. This prevents many a young man from believing he has performed satisfactorily sexually unless he gets to penetrate. Finally, despite the rash of laws promulgated to ensure that the male support his unwanted offspring, the reality is that many escape doing so, or cannot financially do so.
This of course doesn’t even touch upon the problem of poverty and the fact that historically poverty has contributed to
unneeded children. I remember my father once commenting on the fact that his immigrant parents had nine children, the same as had my maternal grandparents. He said that without TV, radio and living in poverty, what other pleasures did they have but sex?
In the black community, despite the stupidity of pseudo-liberals like the late(unlamented to me)Pat Moynihan, everything possible was done through slavery and afterwards to destroy the strong family oriented culture of Africa and was somewhat, though not entirely effective. Poverty programs in the US like AFDC, specifically barred males from the household. Even after the Civil War, the Orphanage System was instituted, rather than providing support for family’s who had lost a husband. Children were taken away from their mothers, so as to allow the mothers to work and not destroy their “work ethic.” This created generations of orphanage raised and abused children who than were incapable in the main of being adequate parents.
Finally, when you live in poverty and despair, with little hope for the future and a disdainful society judging you harshly, a teen (and older man)develops the available ways of distinguishing himself. One way is by being a “stud” and how does one prove “stud-dom” beyond doubt, by the number of children fathered? What do we expect when horrible school systems for the poor and unemployment rates at about 50% for Black teens, leave these boys/men in a hopeless degraded system. We see in its’ wake gangs, crime, addiction and teen pregnancies. For the young impoverished girl, with just as little hope of escaping despair, the idea of some boy or man caring for them is a powerful incentive to give in to their desires.
I’ve realized that I’ve covered a lot of territory here and that this is not a place to give a full sociological run down of this problem. Suffice it to say that it is far more complex than pundits make it and it reflects quite badly on our society and the fundamentalist/extremist/corporatists that do so much to keep it going in the wrong direction.
AY,
The No child left behind tragedy is still haunting us. The mere reliance on testing to determine the success of a school is preposterous. Teaching to the test becomes the norm and the students are the losers. Subject matter that is not tested becomes left behind.
Mike,
I can agree with some of what you say, but to put part of the blame on womens lib and Roe V. Wade is misguided. The mere fact that women demanded their equal rights has no connection to increased sexuality of both men and women. In my opinion, the economics and the abstinence(religious standards are the biggest culprits. You are correct that it is a problem with many causes, but Roe V. Wade, which legalized abortions, does not bear any of the resonsibility. I don’t think anyone ever has had sex because they knew they could get an abortion. And having the access to abortions should reduce the birth rate,shouldn’t it? How do you reconcile the higher teen birth rates in many of the Southern states where the religious pressure to abstain from Sex may be the greatest?
For sure, there isn’t just one cause for all these teen pregnancies.
From the article Professor Turley linked to: “And all of the pregnancies have happened, despite prevention talk.”
AND
“LaDonna Denson and two other Robeson students say parents not talking to teens and, in some cases, the pursuit of public assistance also factor into the pregnancies.”
Another thing noted in the article was absentee fathers.
rafflaw,
I had a mixed bag of education. It was parochial school and main stream education. I am unsure which was worse. I do remember that I was a challenge for both. I did get what they called independent study in 5th grade.
Apparently this was not challenging enough and I finished it up by the end of October 68′. They had to mainstream me again and they did not have a curriculum for me as I had finished up 5th, 6th and 7th grade material in 2 months.
Some people are better test takers than others.
AY–
And just because someone is good at acing tests doesn’t mean he/she is truly well educated.
Mike,
My father was in high school in the late seventies and went to school in a predominately black community. He was raised by my grandmother, who herself was an orphan, all by herself. She worked two jobs throughout the time he was in high school and still had a huge impact on raising my father.
I think the problem is that there is a lack of responsibility when these situations arise and a young mother becomes pregnant. When my father was 19 when I became his first child. Because my grandmother had been such a good role model to my father, all by herself, he took full responsibility for the situation that he had created for himself. My biological mother left my father after they had their second child, my dad was 22. He raised me and my brother all by himself and did a very good job.
I agree with you about our society and how men are viewed as more manly if they “score” and about the sexuality of women. But I think the problem is a lack of parenting.
Sheesh! I need to proofread my comments better. In my comment at 10:54 am I wrote:
“You can be poor and still sit your child on your lap and read to him/her at night, make sure you’re kids are in at night doing their homework and not hanging out on the street corner.”
That “you’re” should read “your.” Mea culpa…once again.
As mentioned by CEJ and rafflaw–these appear to be virgin births! Mike S. as well, speaks out strongly on the role of boys and men in pregnacy. The fact that the numbers are all about girls and we learn nothing about boys is absolutely significant. I will add two other observations to those above which I think should be factored in as well. Have you noticed that having babies is chic right now? All the celebrities are having/buying babies. This culture worships celebrity. I think these kids are tring to be like our cultural role models.
I have noticed the extreme ignorance of women aged 30 and under concerning their own sexuality. I don’t simply mean the plumbling, but the knowing that one has the right to say yes or say not. That one’s body belongs to your self–not a man, not to god–but to the woman and the girl. I also hear many girls say they want to have a baby so someone will love them. Of course this is exactly backwards, but it bespeaks a lack of love in their life that is so profound I can hardly bear it. We are failing our girls and our boys.
plumbing and yes or say no–sorry for the typos!
“I can agree with some of what you say, but to put part of the blame on womens lib and Roe V. Wade is misguided.”
Raff,
You misread me. Roe v. Wade was a great decision and I’ve been in favor of women’s equality all my life. Neither the court case, not the movement were wrong. As I wrote reflecting the over reaction of these unthinking fools:
“To these cretins, the foundation of that sexual revolution were females who had discovered they liked to have sex and had a right to follow their urges. Tied in with this was the demand by women that they enjoy equal status with men, rather than subservience. This is very frightening to those of a particular mindset and is seen in almost apocalyptic terms.”
Abortion has been used as an issue that has fueled these people, because they could develop the false meme of innocent babes being murdered. That is their problem, not the problem of people who are rightly pro-choice. Since the anti-abortion people are unafraid to be liars, or hypocrites they used this issue to mobilized the many who are threatened by women’s sexuality.
“How do you reconcile the higher teen birth rates in many of the Southern states where the religious pressure to abstain from Sex may be the greatest?”
Easy answer. first the abstension programs intentionally portray birth control itself as ineffective or harmful. So the kids, who like all teens are so juiced on hormones wind up having sex, but don’t use protection which they’ve been taught doesn’t work. Secondly, these backwards areas have the greatest belief that the only real sex is intercourse, so the boys feel pressures to lose their virginity in “the right way.”
AY,
I also had a catholic grade school education and then I went to a public high school. That being said, both schools were good and Skokie, IL in the 60’s was a safe place. I grew up in a one parent family, but my mother stressed to all of five of us that an education and hard work was the norm. Of course, I was the toughest sell!
“When my father was 19 when I became his first child. Because my grandmother had been such a good role model to my father, all by herself, he took full responsibility for the situation that he had created for himself. My biological mother left my father after they had their second child, my dad was 22. He raised me and my brother all by himself and did a very good job.”
Chris,
You were very lucky to have a father who was such a good man and I think probably an extraordinary one. He had a mother who was an extraordinary woman. I agree with you that parental responsibility is among the most important factors. To me the problem is that our system and our shared mythology sets things up so that mostly extraordinary people are the only ones who can break out of the mold. The average person is so filled with lack of hope and despair that they give up.
Jill,
Great comments which I totally agree with and feel need to be related over and over again. I think it is part of the pattern of being overly invested in and wanting to punish women’s sexuality,
freedom and self awareness.
Elaine M.,
I like to think that today I possess wisdom regardless of the smarts or education.
My grand father was low on the education chain but by all accounts he died a very wealthy man. I too should be so lucky.
rafflaw,
I understand from a personal level, what you state.
I am unsure if I was a hard seller, hard sale or hard headed but I did like to do it my way, long before I knew about the song.
Mike,
Growing up my father raised me to believe that sex is an act of love and that having sex with multiple partners is extremely irresponsible. He believed that that was the worst form of disrespect towards women. My father happens to be pro choice, but it is because of this belief that being promiscuous is irresponsible that I myself am pro life. I believe in taking responsibility for your actions, whether you are a man or a woman. I also believe that the punishment for not paying child support should be much more harsh.
Jill,
Well said
Thanks Mike S.,
There’s one other thing that really bothers me and that is what feminism has become. Feminists used to speak the truth about birth control, abortion, about the real strengths that come from knowing who you are and what you value. People who really know themselves well, who are strong inside, are the most caring people, whether as parents or in any other aspect of life. You are correct to say that our society hinders this kind of radical strength, so that is isn’t ordinary as it should/could be, but rather it is extraordinary.
The right wing has played it’s part, but so has academic feminism. With the introduction of post modernism, feminism became jargon which required a PHD to understand. The emphasis on women’s actual lives simply disappeared. “Feminism” seems to be little more than a jobs program for the upper class. I have watched this with anger. Feminism should be forthright, plain spoken and on the side of women and men who want the best for each other. Without this real concern for women, without the plain spoken information and insistence on the worth of all people, feminism no longer counters right wing hatred of both men and women. The sooner post modern “feminism” goes out of style, the better!!!
clearly abstinence programs don’t work. they just dont.
kids will have sex for the same reasons adults do: it feels good.
they should at least be educated in how to avoid conception and be given, free of charge, the birth control method of their choice.
AY–
“I like to think that today I possess wisdom regardless of the smarts or education.
“My grand father was low on the education chain but by all accounts he died a very wealthy man. I too should be so lucky.”
***************
We have lots of well-educated individuals in our country–the “smartest guys in the room” who helped to blow multi-billion-dollar holes in our economic system. Of course, they made lots of money for themselves. I guess some folks would consider that “smart.”
Your wisdom probably issues from a combination of intelligence and experience–and may also be due, in part, to your education.
While it’s still possible, I do think it’s more difficult today to succeed in life without–at the very least–a high school education.
GWLawSchoolMom: Wait, back up. This isn’t some Christian private school in the Bible Belt. This is a public school in the middle of urban CHICAGO. Say what you will about abstinence education, but I seriously doubt that such a Democratic stronghold isn’t giving these kids a full explanation of how things work Down There, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the school nurse provided condoms on request. Something else has to be the problem.
“Feminists used to speak the truth about birth control, abortion, about the real strengths that come from knowing who you are and what you value.”
“With the introduction of post modernism, feminism became jargon which required a PHD to understand. The emphasis on women’s actual lives simply disappeared. “Feminism” seems to be little more than a jobs program for the upper class.”
Jill,
These two statements, which are the essence of your post, wonderfully sum up my own beliefs. The turning point for me with the “Feminist Movement” was when MS. magazine did an article in the 70’s of how women could achieve success in the corporate world by acting more like men and why that was they way to go. That mindset took feminism away from its’ humanistic roots, which you referred to in the first quote above and indeed make it into a “jobs program for the upper class.” The other sad misdirection was radical feminists like T. Grace Atkinson, who literally not only hated men, but deemed all pornography rape. These were the “academicians” you referred to, who rather than exploring the subject objectively, used academic language to clothe their own pet peeves and stifle disagreement in the process.
The original intent of feminism was to raise women’s consciousness about themselves, how they were being marginalized by society and how they could deal with it. I was attracted to it as a male because the the flip side of female oppression, was the oppresive nature that repressing women put on men’s shoulders, the need to be both protector, breadwinner and patriarch, prevented the two sexes from living equally and harmoniously.
“Say what you will about abstinence education, but I seriously doubt that such a Democratic stronghold isn’t giving these kids a full explanation of how things work Down There, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the school nurse provided condoms on request.”
ShireNomad,
Unless you have information that can back that up, I seriously doubt the truth of that statement. We went through 8 years of the Bush administration pushing “Abstinence Education” and opposing real sex education classes. The copious federal money that flowed to schools all over the country had tight strings attached and not supplying condoms would be one of them, whether in Chicago, or Podunk.
shire writes: GWLawSchoolMom: Wait, back up. This isn’t some Christian private school in the Bible Belt. This is a public school in the middle of urban CHICAGO. Say what you will about abstinence education, but I seriously doubt that such a Democratic stronghold isn’t giving these kids a full explanation of how things work Down There, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the school nurse provided condoms on request. Something else has to be the problem.
did you read the response from Mike S?
public schools get federal money that is tied to curriculum.
all kids need to know how their bodies work from basic health and first aid to contraception and sexual transmitted disease.
when parents abdicated their responsibility to teach their kids what “happens down there” as you so eloquently refer to genitalia, they made the schools responsible for what is usually called Health and Human Development curricula. Of course parents who think that god is in charge of such things neither teach their children themselves or allow their kids to participate in these classes.
perhaps this is out their embarrassment. maybe it is because they think that scaring their kids with hellfire will keep them from touching themselves and others.
it would be nice if the school nurse did provide condoms, but many schools forbid this.
Mike S writes: Jill,
These two statements, which are the essence of your post, wonderfully sum up my own beliefs. The turning point for me with the “Feminist Movement” was when MS. magazine did an article in the 70’s of how women could achieve success in the corporate world by acting more like men and why that was they way to go. That mindset took feminism away from its’ humanistic roots, which you referred to in the first quote above and indeed make it into a “jobs program for the upper class.” The other sad misdirection was radical feminists like T. Grace Atkinson, who literally not only hated men, but deemed all pornography rape. These were the “academicians” you referred to, who rather than exploring the subject objectively, used academic language to clothe their own pet peeves and stifle disagreement in the process.
I’m a 3rd generation feminist and it really is not all that complicated. magazines do not speak for the women’s movement, they provide entertainment for a readership.
feminism is about equality in the workplace, the home, the public. it is about women deciding to take on whatever challenges that turn them on and getting paid what men get paid for that work.
it is about women having access to credit, private banking; about married women holding property in their name separate from their spouse.
it is about respect.
how womens’s studies classes are held has something to do with this but in the real world it has as much to do with feminism as psychology classes have to do with everyday people making good choices or living their lives as actualized individuals.
GWLawSchoolMom & Mike S.–
Even if a school does provide condoms, it doesn’t necessarily follow that all students will request them from the nurse or use them if they have them.
Here are some excerpts from the article that Professor Turley linked to:
“And all of the pregnancies have happened, despite prevention talk.”
“If you want to know why, the people closest to the situation say there’s no simple explanation.”
“LaDonna Denson and two other Robeson students say parents not talking to teens and, in some cases, the pursuit of public assistance also factor into the pregnancies.”
The people closest to this issue beieve there are a number of reasons why so many girls at this high school got pregnant.
Were condoms available upon request from the school nurse? The article didn’t say.
elaine writes: ven if a school does provide condoms, it doesn’t necessarily follow that all students will request them from the nurse or use them if they have them.
Here are some excerpts from the article that Professor Turley linked to:
“And all of the pregnancies have happened, despite prevention talk.”
“If you want to know why, the people closest to the situation say there’s no simple explanation.”
“LaDonna Denson and two other Robeson students say parents not talking to teens and, in some cases, the pursuit of public assistance also factor into the pregnancies.”
The people closest to this issue beieve there are a number of reasons why so many girls at this high school got pregnant.
Were condoms available upon request from the school nurse? The article didn’t say.
these are all good points but what we dont know is how comprehensive prevention education was. was it a 5 minute talk or a semester long class?
prevention education is but one piece of health and human development education. what we don’t know are the home factors. were the boys refusing to wear condoms? this may be a cultural thing.
how sexually explicit were you at 15? 16? could you ask for certain things? tell your partner what made you fee good? could you insist he wear a condom? or was it more important to have a boyfriend at any cost?
one thing we do know from listening to teens talk about why they chose to get pregnant, and many do choose it, is that they want someone to love who will love them. kids from inner cities who come from bad family situations often cite this as a reason why they get pregnant on purpose.
GW Mom,
At age 15 I was only able to ask someone to pass the french fries. The only explicit sexual things were in my dreams! A different world and different environment.
rafflaw writes: At age 15 I was only able to ask someone to pass the french fries. The only explicit sexual things were in my dreams! A different world and different environment.
which was exactly my point. fifteen year olds may have bodies that do adult things but their brains are far from being fully developed and their basic insecurities make them easy targets for emotional manipulation.
plus they are shy about such things, at least about putting them into words.
sex talk, clinical talk, is embarrassing. asking for a partner to do something is anathema.
the world is not that different for them.
So much for abstinence only sex ed.
Personally, I think a few graphic videos of a woman in labor being shown in a sex ed class would make many girls rethink having sex so casually.