First the facts. Then the opinion.
As researched from the The National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, the United States had the highest rates of teen pregnancy and births in the western industrialized world. It also states that it costs the United States nearly 9 billion dollars a year due to teenage girls becoming pregnant and having babies. It is also noted that 31% of girls get pregnant before the age of 20 years old. 81% of the pregnant girls are not married.
Although teenage pregnancy has declined a total of 35% from 1991 to 2005, teenage pregnancy is still an issue that needs to be kept in the public eye.
The facts speak for themselves when it comes to teenage pregnancy, but the prevention is much harder than just words on an internet site or a book. I want to say that the way to preventing teenage girls from getting pregnant is educating them and being as honest as possible with them, but from personal experience, this way does not always work.
Being a teenage mother once myself, I can understand how if I myself was told that I could get pregnant the first time having sex, then I probably would not have gotten pregnant. If I was talked to about having sex protected or even talked to about sex in general, my life as a mother would probably be very different. My life in general would be completely different.
With my mother speaking about sex was not an occurance at all. Speaking to me about anything really was actually void. So when I did get my first real boyfriend at the age of 14, I didn’t think about birth control pills, condoms, or anything to prevent getting pregnant or even preventing sexually transmitted diseases. All I really thought about was that I had a boyfriend, and the next step with him would be to have sex. Which I did, and 12 weeks later I found out that I was pregnant with my first daughter Nicole.
My mother of course was so disappointed with me, that her first words were for me to get an abortion. The thought of even doing that to myself, let alone to my child did not even come to my mind. I refused her opinion, and took my responsibility like I was suppose to. The boyfriend however seemed to love it for the first few months, then decided that he was not responsible enough and left me. I was in a situation that I had to take care of by myself. Not my mother or anyone else, just me. And that I did.
Luckily at the age of 17 I met a wonderful man who fell in love with me and my daughter. And I have been with him for the past 19 years. We have now 6 beautiful children together, including Nicole, “our” first daughter and another one on the way due in July 2007. Our oldest four are girls and the two youngest of course are boys. Their ages between 5 and 20, and raising them has not been an easy task, even though I never thought that it would be.
Teaching them the difference between right and wrong was the easy part. Letting them understand it completely was the hard part. As parents, John (my hubby) and I told each other that we would never sugar coat anything in our children’s lives. We mutually agreed that anything they did wrong, they would learn from it, and understand that it was part of life, and there was nothing to regret about doing it.
When it came to getting pregnant, we were sure to bevery blunt and to the point with our girls. We made sure that if they wanted to become sexually active, that they could come to us for protection or for advice. We offered the protection because we knew from experience that if you tell your children NO that their going to do it regardless and their going to do it in the worst way. So when our oldest came to us at the age of 17, she was given the choice of condoms or birth control. She choose to take the condoms instead of the birth control, which was her choice. Our other daughter that was 16, also came to us and wanted to start having sex. We went through the usual speech as we did with all of them, making it personal for each, and gave her the choice of protection. She also took the condoms instead of the birth control.
Little did we know as parents, that being open and honest with our children would give us two grandsons, three months apart at the age of 37. At first I thought that maybe we had just been a little to honest and blunt with them, then we both agreed that we did exactly what we were suppose to do. We informed our daughters abour sex, we informed them about getting sexually transmitted diseases, and we informed them about the importance of using birth control when they became sexually active, whether it was condoms or birth control. We informed them to the best of our knowledge as their parents.
There was nothing else we could do. We did our best. For other people, they might go about it a different way. In my opinion, the best way to go about preventing teenage pregnancy, is still the way that my husband and I did it. Even though it didn’t work to well with out daughters, other girls might see it differently.
1. Talk to your teenagers like their people and not beneath you.
2. Let them discuss what is going on in their lives.
3. Discuss sex with them and don’t make it a dirty subject.
4. If your children are sexually active, offer protection without embarrassing them.
5. Always stay blunt and honest with your children. Don’t sugar coat life. Life is not as easy as you would like it to be.
If you would like more information about teen pregnancy, Google “The National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy” . Also last but not least, National Teen Pregnancy Awareness Day is May 2, 2007. Take part and make yourself and your children aware.
