I suspect the problem is that pregnancy is just about the only validated vocational option that anyone has ever considered for these girls.
When you are a girl living in certain spaces, and your parents have certain income and other limitations, you tend to get written off unless you are bright enough at school to be "elect". Resources aren't wasted on those whose apriori fate - through neglect or design - is to get pregnant and either get married or go on welfare.
I saw this way too many times when I was growing up - many of my childhood friends fulfilled just about the only expectation anybody ever had for them. Those that took a different path, like myself, had better options and had people around who insisted that we make use of them (like my own grandmother, who married at 15 and bore my mother at 17; or my friend's mother who had been a teenage mother herself).
I guess my statement is more along the lines of what would be going through my mind if I were said parent because I know that I'd be in a position to encourage my children to be the best at whatever it is they choose to do (except a teenage mother). And the epic disappointment that would come along with watching my child effectively throwing their teens and twenties away.
I'm hoping that 1)making condoms available and 2) making it clear that I expect them to protect themselves and their partners will prevent any such incidents. Fingers crossed.
I don't care if I wind up buying an industrial-size Costco box each month and supplying the entire classes of 2014 and 2016 through my boys, either. When it comes to STDs, herd prevention can be useful.
If these girls did have a pact, providing them with all the condoms in the world won't help.
Also, how about making it clear to your 11 and 13 year olds that you don't want them having sex? One of the biggest ways to get kids to abstain and thus prevent pregnancies - intended or otherwise - or STDs is to have parents, mothers especially, who make it clear that it is not acceptable behavior.
Abstain? Really? Puhleeze. That crap is about as effective as DARE is at keeping kids off drugs. Plenty of evidence that saying just say no might as well be saying yes yes yes do it cause it will make you grownup!
Yeah, right. Make it all mysterious and shit. Make it forbidden. Make it "oops just happened" so they don't plan or think about it (and maybe chicken out and say no as a result) Just like the tobacco companies tell teens - to get them to smoke, of course.
17 girls this year is seemingly aberrant, although without knowing the standard deviation it's not provably aberrant.
3 girls not involved in a pact when there are still 14 other girls who could be involved is statistically meaningless given that 4 girls on average are non-pact pregnancies each year.
The person to start this "no pact" discussion was the mayor. The principal didn't have anything to gain from describing this "pact" but the mayor is tired of having their town look like Hillbillyville on international news so they have everything to gain from trying to kill this story.
A new Time magazine article backing up the previous one interviewed nine girls from the same year who know the girls who are banding together in pregnancy (some may have become pregnant, THEN discussed banding together with others...who then chose to also become pregnant), including one girl interviewed who is friends with the pregnant clique.
It's "too weird" to have a group of girls who all want to do the same thing together? Oh boy, Adam, just wait until the kidlet is older. :)
Oh, I know all about that. I believe the phrase for 9-year-olds is "Webkinz." Here's hoping their desire to do the same things remains at that level. :-).
Where the story starts to fray is when the principal - one of the originators of the story - is now foggy on how he first heard of the pact, and when the local paper interviews, on the record, with names and everything, three of the 17 girls, all of whom deny such a pact existed (as a reporter, I will generally believe people who give their names rather than anonymous sources; that's my bias).
So maybe there was a pact among a bunch of girls to get pregnant and raise the kids together. Or maybe some girls who got pregnant vowed to help each other after they learned the others were pregnant. That's not quite the OMG story originally presented by Time.
Not knowing what really happened... it seems entirely reasonable that the principal would be feeling huge heat in town, and would back down. It also seems reasonable that the girls would deny being in the middle of a national scandal. The story is certainly suspicious, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was true at least in part.
this didn't stay only national for even a day. However, of course, if the whole Gloucester school pregnancy pact thing turns out to be mostly untrue, it won't get clarified any farther than Eastern Mass I'd wager.
TIME is backing away from this because they haven't been able to get even one girl to go on record and source it. In fact, the girls are saying the opposite.
Some journalistic integrity right there, they ran a story that would sell, when in reality it looks like something different happened. How the hell did the editor let that one slide?
So the Gloucester High principal issued a statement yesterday on the whole thing. Dan Kennedy parses the statement, concludes the guy wasn't really confirming the most controversial part of the Time story, that a bunch of girls had "a pact" to get pregnant and help each other raise their babies (also worth noting: the local paper really broke the story about the rise in pregnancies and the possibility that some were intentional, way back in March).
Comments
The scariest part of that story
"Another student who just completed her sophomore year, and recently gave birth to her second child..."
WTF?!?!
Spare the rod, spoil the child.
Is it legal for a parent to emancipate a child under 18 if the child has his/her own children?
"If you're grown enough to have kids, your grown enough to get the hell outta my house."
That isn't the problem
I suspect the problem is that pregnancy is just about the only validated vocational option that anyone has ever considered for these girls.
When you are a girl living in certain spaces, and your parents have certain income and other limitations, you tend to get written off unless you are bright enough at school to be "elect". Resources aren't wasted on those whose apriori fate - through neglect or design - is to get pregnant and either get married or go on welfare.
I saw this way too many times when I was growing up - many of my childhood friends fulfilled just about the only expectation anybody ever had for them. Those that took a different path, like myself, had better options and had people around who insisted that we make use of them (like my own grandmother, who married at 15 and bore my mother at 17; or my friend's mother who had been a teenage mother herself).
It was more projection then a suggestion of the problem...
I guess my statement is more along the lines of what would be going through my mind if I were said parent because I know that I'd be in a position to encourage my children to be the best at whatever it is they choose to do (except a teenage mother). And the epic disappointment that would come along with watching my child effectively throwing their teens and twenties away.
Not sure it's the solution either
And as for sparing the rod... er, let's not go there.
Would you do likewise for a son?
Why is it that girls get all the blame and all of the consequences.
Would you throw your son out if he impregnated someone?
Inadvertent sexual bias
I meant to make it as sex-neutral as possible but I accidentally wrote "teenage mother" when I meant "teenage parent".
But yes, both sexes would be at risk of being tossed.
With two sons ...
I'm hoping that 1)making condoms available and 2) making it clear that I expect them to protect themselves and their partners will prevent any such incidents. Fingers crossed.
I don't care if I wind up buying an industrial-size Costco box each month and supplying the entire classes of 2014 and 2016 through my boys, either. When it comes to STDs, herd prevention can be useful.
Wont help
If these girls did have a pact, providing them with all the condoms in the world won't help.
Also, how about making it clear to your 11 and 13 year olds that you don't want them having sex? One of the biggest ways to get kids to abstain and thus prevent pregnancies - intended or otherwise - or STDs is to have parents, mothers especially, who make it clear that it is not acceptable behavior.
Just say forget that crap
Abstain? Really? Puhleeze. That crap is about as effective as DARE is at keeping kids off drugs. Plenty of evidence that saying just say no might as well be saying yes yes yes do it cause it will make you grownup!
Yeah, right. Make it all mysterious and shit. Make it forbidden. Make it "oops just happened" so they don't plan or think about it (and maybe chicken out and say no as a result) Just like the tobacco companies tell teens - to get them to smoke, of course.
Statistically
4 girls per year is average. No pact involved.
17 girls this year is seemingly aberrant, although without knowing the standard deviation it's not provably aberrant.
3 girls not involved in a pact when there are still 14 other girls who could be involved is statistically meaningless given that 4 girls on average are non-pact pregnancies each year.
The person to start this "no pact" discussion was the mayor. The principal didn't have anything to gain from describing this "pact" but the mayor is tired of having their town look like Hillbillyville on international news so they have everything to gain from trying to kill this story.
A new Time magazine article backing up the previous one interviewed nine girls from the same year who know the girls who are banding together in pregnancy (some may have become pregnant, THEN discussed banding together with others...who then chose to also become pregnant), including one girl interviewed who is friends with the pregnant clique.
It's "too weird" to have a group of girls who all want to do the same thing together? Oh boy, Adam, just wait until the kidlet is older. :)
Girls doing things together
Oh, I know all about that. I believe the phrase for 9-year-olds is "Webkinz." Here's hoping their desire to do the same things remains at that level. :-).
Where the story starts to fray is when the principal - one of the originators of the story - is now foggy on how he first heard of the pact, and when the local paper interviews, on the record, with names and everything, three of the 17 girls, all of whom deny such a pact existed (as a reporter, I will generally believe people who give their names rather than anonymous sources; that's my bias).
So maybe there was a pact among a bunch of girls to get pregnant and raise the kids together. Or maybe some girls who got pregnant vowed to help each other after they learned the others were pregnant. That's not quite the OMG story originally presented by Time.
Not knowing what really
Not knowing what really happened... it seems entirely reasonable that the principal would be feeling huge heat in town, and would back down. It also seems reasonable that the girls would deny being in the middle of a national scandal. The story is certainly suspicious, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was true at least in part.
this didn't stay only
this didn't stay only national for even a day. However, of course, if the whole Gloucester school pregnancy pact thing turns out to be mostly untrue, it won't get clarified any farther than Eastern Mass I'd wager.
(edit to fix at least one spelling issue)
TIME is backing away from
TIME is backing away from this because they haven't been able to get even one girl to go on record and source it. In fact, the girls are saying the opposite.
Some journalistic integrity right there, they ran a story that would sell, when in reality it looks like something different happened. How the hell did the editor let that one slide?
How the story came to be
Read Dan Kennedy's post on the topic.
17 pregnant girls...I wonder
17 pregnant girls...I wonder how many got pregnant and didnt deliver.
Breaking his pregnant pause
So the Gloucester High principal issued a statement yesterday on the whole thing. Dan Kennedy parses the statement, concludes the guy wasn't really confirming the most controversial part of the Time story, that a bunch of girls had "a pact" to get pregnant and help each other raise their babies (also worth noting: the local paper really broke the story about the rise in pregnancies and the possibility that some were intentional, way back in March).