Objection!
The Home Page · The Integral Worm · My Resume · My Show Car · My White Papers · Organizations I Belong To
Technical Writing · Non-fiction Creative Essays · Grammar and Usage of Standard English · The Structure of English · Analysis of Shakespeare · Analysis of Literary Language
Advanced Professional Papers · The History of the English Language · First Internship: Tutoring in a Writing Workshop · Second Internship: Advanced Instruction: Tutoring Writing
Visual Literacy Seminar (A First Course in Methodology) · Theories of Communication & Technology (A Second Course in Methodology) · Language in Society (A Third Course in Methodology)
UMBC'S Conservative Newspaper: "The Retriever's Right Eye" · UMBC'S University Newspaper: "The Retriever Weekly" · Introduction to Journalism · Feature Writing · Science Writing Papers
Exposition & Argumentation 1 · Exposition & Argumentation 2
Objection!
"Each year in the U.S. over 1 million teenagers become pregnant at enormous costs to themselves, their children, and society. While the facts are clear, our conflicting attitudes and behaviors complicate the issues of teenage pregnancy. Talk of sex fills the airwaves; younger and younger girls are portrayed as sex objects; and sex is used to sell everything from clothing to news. Yet we are shocked at the rising number of teens who are sexually active. If we are truly concerned about the welfare of babies, children and adolescents, we must move beyond the moral panic and denial that so often distorts the discussion. Designing effective solutions will require the thoughtful separation of fact, assumption, wishful thinking and an honest acknowledgement that much is still not fully understood about the causes of teenage pregnancy" (Christensen and Rosen).
Teenage pregnancy is nothing new in society. There is supporting research that has determined about half the women born between 1900 and 1910, who were interviewed, were non-virginal at their time of marriage. Another study performed in 1953, found that one-fifth of all first births was conceived before marriage by doing the math. I know for a fact that my mother was with child before being married. Even before our modern openness towards discussing sexual behavior and acceptance, it was quite common that pregnancy occurred at an early age. During this time period it was considered a moral issue. The problem we have today is that our children are becoming sexually active at much earlier ages, consequently, girls are becoming pregnant between ages twelve to fourteen. Regardless of whether these pregnancies are wanted or unwanted, the focus of the problem has changed from being less a moral issue and more of an economic issue.
The stigma before the sexual revolution of the 1960's has been somewhat reduced. Before that time, society would look upon the child as being illegitimate and the mother as being bad, immoral, oversexed, etc. There are still people out there that still subscribe to this point of view and there are religious groups that still strictly preach abstinence of sex until marriage. For a good portion of society, people understand that no matter how much parental control is exercised over children, they are still going to find ways to experiment with sex. As adults, just think back to your teen years and quite a few of us can remember telling our parents that we were going to the roller rink or some other event as a group. Once we arrived at our destination, we would go off with the opposite sex somewhere outside with the intent of making out. Girls will be girls and boys will be boys with raging hormones and no matter how you try to prevent such meetings between the opposite sex, they can, they do, and they will occur.
The alarming fact is not so much that 1 million teens become pregnant in the United States alone, but that with abortion on demand being a legal option, only half of these girls actually give birth. "The fact that 11,500 of these births in 1989 were to girls age 14 and under is the alarming portion of this fact" (Freeman). According to Colleen Finn of the University of Maryland, "These children are not just teenagers but 'children having children.'" McCuen adds, "In the early 1970's, 61.7 births per 1000 teens were registered but, in 1983, the rate was 51.7 per 1000 teens." Finn's commentary on this particular statistic is "Even though the incidents of teenage child births may be fluctuating up and down, the statistics are still significant. There is always worry about how the American family with all these too young parents, will function" (Finn). As far as a family functioning, a phenomenon that was not reported in the research consulted, in several instances in my own family, a pregnant child would disappear with the boyfriend/father and shack up leading to even more detrimental situations.
During the 1960's, society saw adolescent pregnancy as one of the main causes for dependency on welfare and a continuation of the state of poverty predominantly within the black community living within the inner cities of America. This view is still held today by some whom are not aware that this problem has expanded into all social circles and all religions across the country. It is a problem within the cities, within suburbia, and within rural setting and occurs with all ethnicity's and races. Nor is it even an alarming trend unique within the United States. All developed countries in the Western Hemisphere are experiencing this problem. When we, as a society, set aside the notion that teen pregnancy was merely a moral issue, we became focused on the economic implications. People began to worry about what these unwanted pregnancies were going to cost us as a society.
"Every year, more than half the federal welfare budget goes to women who were teenagers when they gave birth for the first time. Over $25 billion dollars were spent on families that were headed by teenagers. Some of the government institutions that help these young mothers are: Aid to Families With Dependent Children, Welfare, Medicaid, and Food Stamps" (Finn).
When we look at other Western countries, a study was done that included five countries that were culturally similar to the United States. The countries included in the study were Canada, Britain, France, the Netherlands, and Sweden. The age and sexual behavior of the children was similar to American children. The important finding was the incidence of a first pregnancy. Teen pregnancy in America was twice as high as Canada, Britain, and France, three times higher than Sweden and seven times higher than in the Netherlands.
To account for the difference in the figures, one must look deeper into these societies. Attitudes about sex and sexuality is much more open than it is here in the United States, no matter how open we may think sexuality has become here in America. Looking back in American history, a great deal of our ancestors came over to America due to religious persecution in continental Europe. In order to practice their religious beliefs freely, they came over to the colonies in order to avoid persecution. If we look more deeply into this exodus to the colonies, we find a great deal of these religious groups were opposed to many of the religious reforms that were sweeping Europe at the time. This country was founded by such religious groups as the Puritans, the Quakers, the Shakers, the Mennonites, the Amish among others who had strong moral views that were in direct conflict with religious reform groups in Europe such as the Church of England, the Lutherans, and others. States such as Pennsylvania were founded on the premise of the ability to practice religion openly without fear of persecution. A good number of the founders of this country had morals that opposed our European ancestors, which included sex. Therefore it should come as no surprise that European attitudes about sex are very different from most Americans within the population.
I traveled across northern Italy in the 1980's and sex was everywhere and in everything. There was no way that you could possibly shield a child from the open display. I saw commercials on television during prime time that were advertising soap and instead of seeing camera angles of a woman showering from the shoulders up or from the upper thighs down, the woman was in full length view of the camera lens wearing nothing but a smile. In Venice, we walked through the canals near Saint Mark's Square, a high traffic area for tourists. One of the shops had a full window display of glass male and female figurines. These figurines were about two inches tall that were fired in flesh tones and were completely nude. They all had black glaze in the places where we all have pubic hair, red coloring where the areolas would be, and all the male figurines had full erections, again with red coloring accenting the head of the man's penis. If this was not descriptive enough, these figurines were all sold as pairs because each pair was in a different sexually suggestive position where either the male or the female was preparing to mount his or her partner. Others were shaped in such positions that suggested that one; the other or both were about to perform oral sex with their partner.
At the time, I didn't have children, but I know in my mind if I was a child and saw these figurines, I would have been naturally curious and probably would have become fixated upon them. I may not have asked my parents any questions at the time, but I know the images of those figurines would have left a lasting impression in my mind. Eventually, that curiosity would be revealed in questions directed towards my parents or in a session playing "doctor" with the opposite sex.
European attitudes about sex is more open than here in the U.S., but the difference in Europe is that they attempt to keep teen pregnancy down by making contraception easily available and at a low cost. European children are provided with a timely education of sex throughout their school system and also by the parents.
"Do your parents know where you are going
tonight?"
"Yes."
"Who educated you about sex?"
"My parents."
"Do you think you know how to make a baby?"
"Yes."
"Do you know how to use contraception to prevent pregnancy?"
"Yes."
"What kind of contraception do you use?"
"A condom," and then they would giggle and hold it up showing it to the camera.
"Where did you get the condom?"
The answer was unanimous. Each one said either their father or their mother gave it to them, it was given to them as they were walking out the door, and the parents knew full well where they were going for the evening.
The narrator's last question was "Are you going to use it?"
Yet another giggle, a blush, and a shoulder shrug, "If I get to have sex, yes."
I was taken back because in my mind it was giving them a license to go into a sex club and go f#$! because they had a fundamental understanding of carnal knowledge! It wasn't until years later that I finally understood my own lack of understanding and that no matter what you do, teens are going to find a time and a place to have sexual relations. All I had to do was think of my own past.
When I received sex education in school, it was already way too late, it was in 10th grade Biology. The lesson was scientific and clinical. By this point, the more advanced kids were already "heavy petting" and what else, I couldn't even conceive. I was in the upper three-fourth's of my class as far as my grades, but in my mind, this biology lesson still left a tremendous amount of questions unresolved. We were shown pictures of a uterus, Fallopian tubes, ovaries, testes, etc, but none of it made any sense. I was familiar with my own body, but what was being taught about male reproductive organs was obscure. When it came to girls, it was even more obscure. As I looked at girls walking down the hallways as we went to class, I never had a satori. I could answer all the questions presented on a test like a good little parrot, but what I had learned didn't make sense. When a girl is standing in front of me, where are the Fallopian tubes, where's the uterus? It didn't make sense. Sure the sperm swims up and meets with the egg, but how does the sperm get into the girl's body? The images we saw were the type shown in medical books, but the whole man or woman's body was never shown in silhouette. As a boy, I knew I had a penis and was quite familiar with what it looked like, but what did girls have between their legs? I knew they had a vagina and a birth canal, but all these terms were still abstract.
We got our lesson on sexually transmitted diseases twice in my education, once in eighth grade Health and once in eleventh grade. Both portions of health education were taught in one quarter of a semester and all of it was described to us in words. Most of our health education dealt with polio, influenza, and the four food groups. In eleventh grade, we received a strong education in street drugs. I was ten years old in 1967, so by the time we got to eleventh grade, drugs were readily available and highly glorified in the music and the culture of the time. Even so, for a great deal of us this education was already too late. The more advanced students were rolling on the floor laughing when marijuana was discussed. When the class was over they probably went out to the football field and smoked dope on the bleaches with the truant officer.
Teen sex is handled with greater responsibility in European television and movies, where here in America, the consequences of first insemination are not stressed. When an actress in our programs, such as "Murphy Brown," gives birth, the child mystically disappears with the actress's life being the same as it was before the pregnancy. We all know, this isn't REAL life. Once the baby comes, you're responsible for this little person's needs. When you used to go to the movies and other events, with the arrival of a child, you're not going to be able to do these things. What's left out is that this new person is fully dependent upon you as a parent for all their needs such as food, diaper changes, bathing, feedings, illness, attention, nurturing, and so on. What is not shown is that child rearing is a twenty four hour, seven day a week job, for at least the next eighteen years, if not more. And you wonder why your mother had a tired worn look on her face.
In American society sexuality is glorified on television, in the movies, within the music kids listen to, the music videos, advertisements in teen magazines, and the suggestive display of clothing on store window mannequins in shops targeting teens. Stores such as Northstroms will be promoting g-sting panties to pre-teen girls. How do you explain to a pre-teen how one of these is worn? In the news we have heard of teachers at high schools going so far as to have panty checks at school dances to make sure when girls wear skirts to dances that they are not wearing g-strings. Before this, there were numerous incidents of the girls twirling on the floor so their skirts would rise and they could show off their butts, or bend over and flip their skirts up suggestively wiggling their butts enticing the boys. I'm not suggesting that the girls are at fault, for the boys are just as bad. When teens meet at these dances it is not uncommon for them to form circles so the adult chaperons can't see what is going on. Some of them will dance extremely suggestively, imitating what they have seen in music videos, literally simulating sex on the dance floor with their clothes on. We not only have a problem with the way they dance, as every generation has had with the way the younger generation dances, but also a problem of exhibition and voyeurism.
Things have changed a great deal, yet they haven't changed at all. When I was in seventh grade, it was my first year in a new school. The school was a huge factory in which junior high and high school were in the same building. For the most part, we were kept separated from the high school students by having all our classes in one wing of the school. The school was built in 1955, and had two floors. I remember one day I was by the staircase on the first floor with a few boys. Just by chance, I looked up and a girl who was in all of my classes by the name of Linda was at the top of the staircase looking down. What I saw was Linda's womanhood staring at me from under her short skirt. She wasn't wearing panties. Remember this is the 60's and mini dresses were in at the time. I whispered to my friends, because I just couldn't believe what I saw. They looked up, she smiled, and walked away. They were eager to confirm my observation. Her and a boy by the name of Tom were going steady and it was a well-known fact throughout the junior high school that these two were fast tracking. I remember them both quite well because the two of them were quite unique. The thing that stands out in my mind is how these two used to constantly squabble as though they were an old married couple.
My point is that when you think things have changed, they really remain the same. The difference today is that teens are just more blatantly open about their sexuality. There were a few girls who would play these games with us in class, crossing and uncrossing their legs without wearing panties, but it was an exception and not the rule. When I was fifteen, I met a few girls who were thirteen who wanted us as boyfriends. They figured that because we were older, we were sexually knowledgeable. I also remember there was a girl my age who was madly in love with a boy who was two years older than her and when he turned eighteen, she dropped out of school at age sixteen, got married and raised a family. She wasn't pregnant, it was just her life goal to marry this guy and start a family immediately.
As far as my own sex education, it was my mother who gave me my first lesson at age eleven, which was at most not very helpful nor enlightening. That summer, I was caught playing “doctor” with one of the girls in the neighborhood. The girl was told to go home and I was immediately dragged into the house, brought into my parents' bedroom and the door was promptly closed. Then began the scolding and my first lesson in sex.
"If something happened (what was something?), that boys and girls have these feelings, but we would have to move and be scorned by the neighborhood, that the girl's parents would have to move, if I got a girl pregnant I would have to marry her and support her, (this is what my older brother had already done when I was eight, but I didn't REALLY know that's why he got married) and that if you were going to do such things (what things?) you had to wear a prophylactic (what's a prophylactic?) on your John Thomas (who was John Thomas and why did I have to put this prophylactic thing on him?) to keep the girl from getting pregnant, your father is never going to teach you this lesson because he never told my brother and that he was not performing his manly duties in giving me a sex talk and that he left all the responsibilities to her and that don't you dare grow up to be a man like him who doesn't defend a women in a fight or sends me to over to argue with the neighbors or..."
I'm aware that this is one long run on sentence, but this is the sentence that came out of my mother's mouth and all of the talk that had to do with sex made no sense at all. She went on for at least five minutes, most of what she said had little to do with sex education. More of it was about how she despised my father. My sex lesson at home was typical of the time: we basically learned everything from our peers on the street.
In order to reduce the current problem with teen pregnancy, parents must take full responsibility in their duties of parenting and sit down with their children regardless of whether they have boys or girls and provide them with a full education on procreation. This does not necessarily mean putting a leash around their necks and watching their every move or as in the Sprint commercial having your daughter leave her cellular telephone on during the date with a boy. After all, remember the moral of that commercial. At the end the boy and girl are no longer in the club and are in the car necking, playing the same song on the car CD player over and over, tricking her father into thinking they were still in the club, in a public setting. Parents aren't dumb, but children aren't dumb either. Just think back to the things you did as a teen that even today your parents don't know about. As your mother will tell you, there's nothing new in this respect and each generation has gotten into all kinds of things that the parents will never know about. The story is as old as mankind itself.
I strongly believe that the schools should not be used as the end all be all for all aspects of education and there are more than likely moral issues and religious issues that we, as parents, will want to instill in our children's education that the school cannot provide. Remember, in this country we have a separation of church and state which prevents religious issues from being discussed in a public school setting. Also, the person teaching this subject may not have the same morality as the parents. Do you really think this aspect of your children's education should be left to someone else especially someone you hardly know?
Private religious schools are not subject to these rules, but I still believe that it should not be entirely the school's obligation. After all, this is just another one of many responsibilities of parenting. Yes, it's usually an awkward topic for parents and children, but unfortunately, it's a part of maturing and becoming a responsible young adult.
Some of the education can be dealt with as it comes up, especially when the children are young and they ask questions, such as age five, they see a relative is obviously pregnant, and they begin to ask questions. They really only need to know what a five year old needs to know. They don't need to know all the graphic details of how she became pregnant, but on the other hand, I don't think shielding them from the truth is conducive for them either. I usually follow their lead and answer their questions with the truth, but not the whole adult truth, only what they are asking about and what I believe they are ready to understand.
The issue of teen pregnancy is extremely complicated and we are only just discovering all the causes involved. Psychologists and social workers are aware of such as aspects as low-income, poorly educated families who are not aware of a great deal of the aspects of sex and how to prevent pregnancy. There are single parent families, where the parent is off to work and because the children are old enough, they are left at home alone hence, the 2:36 to 6:00 coffee break in which teens can get into all kinds of trouble because there are no adults around. Plus, with the parent not home, there's a comfy bed and all the creature features to have a grand old time in the bedroom while no one is home. This is especially true in families that have a father and mother, but both are out working. Cutbacks in school budgets have not helped this situation either. In my day there were a great deal of clubs, sports, and other activities that were held after school. One time at work, I walked into my boss's office when I had no work to do and stood there with my hands out stretched with my palms facing up and said, "Cathy, do you know what this is?" Of course she had no idea what I was getting at and with a smile I said, "It's the devil's playground (i.e. Idle Hands). My point is that most of us have heard of the saying that "Idle hands are the devil's playground," and what we have here is a situation that because of financial cutbacks and lack of funding, teens are not being kept busy and are left to their own devices. Hence they have time to get into all kinds of trouble, including experimenting with sex.
Other causes that are well-documented in psychological journals are many teens suffer from low-self esteem. Girls suffer more from this than boys, but that does not mean that this is exclusively a girl's problem. Boys sometimes have low-self esteem problems also. "Relatively low self-esteem is a risk factor for suicide, suicide attempts and depression, for teenage pregnancy, and for victimization by other" (Emler). These girls do not receive the attention, nor the moral support they crave from the parents, usually the father, and so in order to get what they so badly need, they look outside of the nucleus family. They quickly become emotionally attached to a boy who treats them well and makes them feel good about themselves. Sometimes the feelings are genuine, but most times the boys aren't really telling them the truth and are just preying on the girls with low-self esteem just so they can have sex. On the other side, girls will sometimes go out of their way to get pregnant because they believe that if they have a baby by this boy that will be a way of keeping him and getting him to stay with her.
Peer pressure also figures into it also. In my time it was more talk than actually doing it. There's an anecdote on the Internet, which compares teen sex to client/server technology in the computer industry, which says:
Everyone is talking about it, but very few are doing it.
Everyone thinks they know how to do it, but very few REALLY know how to do it.
Those who claim they are doing it aren't doing it at all.
I know in my time this was quite true because speaking with a woman from my generation, who lived in the mid-west her entire life, confirmed this was also true in her high school also. Unfortunately, she was gullible enough to believe it and went out and had sex with a local boy at age 16 because all her friends had claimed that they were already doing it. Afterwards, she told her friends and to her surprise they began asking her all kinds of questions, which immediately told her they had never done it because of the questions they were asking. Basically she was tricked into having sex under peer pressure. The problem is that as adults we all know it only takes one time when having sex to get pregnant and contraception is not 100% effective. So no matter what you do it's a crapshoot. If it's not the person you want to spend the rest of your life with, you might as well wait to have sex until the right one comes along.
There is a lack of readily available contraception and also a lack of education in types of contraception available for males and females. Things have substantially changed in the past ten years and there are many more options on the market to prevent unwanted pregnancy. Even with this sexual openness there is still a stigma attached in society for a teen, whether they are male or female to purchase contraception for themselves. What is misunderstood here by the teen is not the idea that, "Oh my God, you're having sex," but in using contraception you're actually doing the responsible thing for yourself and your partner by preventing sexually transmitted diseases and doing something about preventing an unwanted pregnancy.
The media has been cited as yet another cause to teen pregnancy because of their glorification of sexual freedom. I can't think of any movie I've seen where one of the people stop mid stream and say, "Oh wait hon, I've got to put my condom on, or insert my IUD, or..." You get my point. Are we supposed to assume because most people love spontaneity in sex that the woman is on the pill or has a Norplant inserted under her underarm? Rarely do actors wear a condom so what message does Hollywood put out to impressionable teens? Teens are highly impressionable and when they say they are going to movie A that you approve of, they go off to movie B, that they know full well you don't approve of. After all movie B is forbidden fruit and there must be a reason why you don't want me seeing movie B so while the cat's away the mice will play.
Other causes are sexual abuse, which is well documented. Usually, the abuser is a well-known male family member and the mother of the child is in total denial that this situation is occurring. This only leads to other sexual abnormalities if not treated by a professional counselor.
Moral and spiritual training is usually lacking in the households of teen mothers. It has been found that in households with strong morals and deep rooted religious beliefs that the children usually abstain from sex until marriage. This also brings up the aspect of involved parenting, which goes hand in hand with the practice of morality and religious beliefs. After all, practice what you preach.
Some of these teen mothers live in economically deprived areas such as the inner cities, have dropped out of school because of lack of self-esteem or the inability to keep up with the coursework, a lack of local authorities providing after school care services, and juvenile delinquents.
As you see there are many causes and many facets to the issue of teen pregnancy. Sex education in the home between two parents is just one alternative as a solution to this problem and it's not a solution that will work for all teens or for all households. It is but one solution to the problem and in my mind a very effective one.
Aspects of their education should encompass such things as abstinence until marriage, the dangers of sexually transmitted diseases, the dangers of multiple partners, the proper use contraception in preventing pregnancy, including what works and what doesn't work, the myths and the realities of sex, the responsibilities that come with having a child beginning with going to bed with someone, how boys and girls bodies function, the difference between having sex and making love, and specifically with the girls, a great deal of boys will tell you anything you want to hear, even that they are madly in love with you in order to meet their own personal objective; getting into your pants and getting their rocks off. Sex education in the home is not the only solution, but merely one solution.
"For most of us, sexual relationships are an accepted — indeed expected — dimension of adult life. In making the transition from child to adult, all young people need to learn about:
In addition, they need to develop the confidence and interpersonal skills to be able to act on this knowledge. Although there remains a belief in some quarters that promoting sexual health and responsibility also promotes sexual activity, there is no research evidence to support this assumed relationship (Meyrick and Swann).
You just can't leave anything uncovered, nor can you assume that some things are implicit. You have to teach them very specifically and explicitly everything they need to know in order to prevent them from being children having children. Lastly, I would like to recommend a web site I found in doing my research for this essay that I found to be very helpful in teaching sex education to children. The education material was written with an eight-grade audience in mind, but from my own life experiences, fifth-grade might be a good place to start.
Grade 8 Health Education Curriculum - Revised
Works Cited
The Family Connection of St. Joseph County, Inc. Ed. Christensen, Sue and Ann Rosen. 1996. 7 July 2002
Emler, Nicholas. Self-esteem: The costs and causes of low self-worth. YPS Publishing. ISBN 1 84263 020 2.
Teenage Pregnancy. Finn, Colleen. 7 July 2002
Teenage Pregnancy: An update on key characteristics of effective interventions. Meyrick, Jane and Catherine Swann.
Health Development Agency. 2001. 7 July 2002
Works Referenced
Marshall, Alex and William Ryan. "Teen Pregnancy is an Adult Problem". 1998. 7 July 2002
The Home Page · The Integral Worm · My Resume · My Show Car · My White Papers · Organizations I Belong To
Contact Me · FAQ · Useful Links