"It's Not All Honey and Roses Baby"
A viewer favorite of MTV’s hit show “16 and Pregnant,” Markai Durham said this when asked, in an interview with “Radar,” what advice she would give to potential teen moms. Durham is not alone in her struggle, in fact, thirty-one percent of teenage girls get pregnant at least once before they turn twenty; about 750,000 girls get pregnant in the United States every year. The United States has teen birth rates that are at least twice that in Canada, England, France, and Sweden, and 10 times that in the Netherlands. This rate can be lowered and strides can even be taken to prevent teen pregnancies through earlier and better sex education.
Debt from Diapers
According to a report from the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, thirty four percent of young teen mothers earn neither a college degree nor a high school diploma, and less than two percent of teen mothers earn a degree by the time they turn 30. Each year, the country’s lost earnings from an increased number of high school and college drop-outs are compounded by the estimated billions of dollars that teenage pregnancies cost taxpayers. Teenage pregnancy poses a substantial financial burden to society, estimated at $10.9 billion annually in lost tax revenues, public assistance, child health care, foster care, and involvement with the criminal justice system. Also, more than half of all mothers on welfare had their first child as a teenager.
And You Thought Homework Was Hard...
In addition to teen pregnancies’ negative impact on the national economy, they affect the mothers’ education in a bad way. Only 38% of teen mothers who have a child before the age of 18 graduate from high school, compared to approximately 75% of women who delay child bearing until 20-21. In fact, thirty percent of teen girls cited teen pregnancy or parenthood as a reason for dropping out of high school. Not only are the mothers affected, their children are as well. Research shows that children of teen mothers not only start school at a disadvantage, they also fare worse than those born to older parents later on. A study of children, age fourteen, born to teen mothers showed that those born to the youngest teen mothers performed more poorly on tests of cognitive ability, were more likely to be retained a grade, and were less likely to be perceived by their teachers as performing favorably by the time they reached high school.
The Educated Solution
Teen pregnancy is an issue in the United States; however, there is a solution to this problem; the solution is better and earlier sex-education programs. Comprehensive sex education is effective at assisting young people to make healthy decisions about sex and to adopt healthy sexual behaviors. Research conducted by Pamela Kohler, a program manager at the University of Washington in Seattle, has shown that teens who received comprehensive sex education were 60 percent less likely to get pregnant or to get someone pregnant than those who received no sex education.
Abstain From Abstinence-Only
Another widely used method to preventing teenage pregnancy is abstinence-only programs and education; however, although frequently used, these “virginity pledge” programs are not as effective as early and comprehensive sex-education. According to a Colombia University study, virginity pledge programs increase pledge-takers’ risk for STIs and pregnancy. The study concluded that 88 percent of pledge-takers initiated sex prior to marriage even though some delayed sex for a while. Pam Kohler’s research also states: There was no evidence to suggest that abstinence-only education decreased the likelihood of ever having sex or getting pregnant. When analyzed, federally-funded abstinence-only education programs supported by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, eighty percent were found to contain false, misleading, or distorted information about reproductive health.
Conclusion
Teenage pregnancy is a large, economically hard-hitting problem in the United States. The mothers and their children are both negatively impacted in their educational careers as well. These issues related to teen pregnancy can be solved by implementing earlier and better sex-education, and not abstinence-only programs.