this is an excerp from the " national day to prevent teen pregnancy" website. beware contains steaming hot bullshit
Children of teen mothers often receive inadequate parenting. Children born to teen mothers are at higher risk of poor parenting because their mothers - and often their fathers as well - are typically too young to master the demanding job of being a parent. Still growing and developing themselves, teen mothers are often unable to provide the kind of environment that infants and very young children require for optimal development. Recent research, for example, has clarified the critical importance of sensitive parenting and early cognitive stimulation for adequate brain development.4 Given the importance of careful nuturing and stimulation in the first three years of life, the burden born by babies with parents who are too young to be in this role is especially great.
Children with adolescent parents often fall victim to abuse and neglect. A recent analysis found that there are 110 reported incidents of abuse and neglect per 1,000 families headed by a young teen mother. By contrast, in families where the mothers delay childbearing until their early twenties, the rate is less than half this level - or 51 incidents per 1,000 families.4 Similarly, rates of foster care placement are significantly higher for children whose mothers are under 18. In fact, over half of foster care placements of children with these young mothers could be averted by delaying child-bearing, thereby saving taxpayers nearly $1 billion annually in foster care costs alone.4
Children of teenagers often suffer from poor school performance. Children of teens are 50 percent more likely to repeat a grade; they perform much worse on standardized tests; and ultimately they are less likely to complete high school than if their mothers had delayed childbearing.6
And bad for us all...
The U.S. still leads the fully industrialized world in teen pregnancy and birth rates - by a wide margin. In fact, the U.S. rates are nearly double Great Britain's, at least four times those of France and Germany, and more than ten times that of Japan.3
Teen pregnancy costs society billions of dollars a year. There are nearly half a million children born to teen mothers each year. Most of these mothers are unmarried, and many will end up poor and on welfare. Each year the federal government alone spends about $40 billion to help families that began with a teenage birth.10
Teen pregnancy hurts the business community's "bottom line." Too many children start school unprepared to learn, and teachers are overwhelmed trying to deal with problems that start in the home. Forty-five percent of first births in the United States are to women who are either unmarried, teenagers, or lacking a high school degree, which means that too many children - tomorrow's workers - are born into families that are not prepared to help them succeed.6 In addition, teen mothers often do not finish high school themselves. It's not easy for a teen to learn work skills and be a dependable employee while caring for children.
i had never heard of this campaign untill i saw a tv show about it. ive never seen such propaganda in my life. so i did some research and found their site. they have a whole bunch of teens telling " sob " stories about how awful it is to be a teen parent. and the whole thing sounds like it was written by a man. who wants his tax's reduced. the tell tale sign is that they talked about money. they talked about morals and children but in the end the last paragraph was about money, they figure if for no other reason you care is that they are gonna make it hit where it hurts. what can we do to counteract this? im seeing it all over the media recently, is there anyway to protest this widespread media frenzy about teen parents and how they are so " at risk" ?? is there another organization we can promote or donate to? i know society in general has twisted idea's of what teen parents are, but i didnt realize there was actually an organization doling out the bullshit. what this whole thing failed to mention is with over 50 percent of marriages ending in divorce and 75 percent of second marriages. being married and older doesnt gurantee your man will stick around, or that you wont be a SINGLE PARRENT!. any thoughts guys?
melissa
what was the link you got all that from, i was under the impression that the national day to empower teens site (the one we had up and running last year anyways) redirected you to a porn site.
www.teenpregnancy.org
porn site? i googled it and found a whole bunch of shit. i really need to stop looking for trouble because i always find it, i was just interested to see what the fuss was about. national day to empower teens? explain that to me
This (along with the rest of the excerpt) is completly incorrect! My children recieved wonderful parenting! I visited that website and read some of those "sob" stories you were talking about. They say how they had to stop their school activites and things like that. They act like their life is over and will never be good again. Sure once you have a child your life changes, but it's not over! A child, for me, enhanced my life in some ways. Some 30-40 year old parents aren't fit to be parents! Age has nothing to do with your skills as a parent.
Yeah, the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy is really awful. They don't do anything to actively "prevent" teen pregnancy (like work for better sex ed classes in schools, or promote/distribute birth control, for example). Instead, it pushes abstinence-only ideas and runs campaigns that do little to prevent teen pregnancy, but add to the stigmas and stereotypes that teens who are already pregnant or parenting face. They ran some really disgusting ads a couple of years ago, with pictures of teen parents with words like "DIRTY" and "CHEAP" across them. They are just icky and awful all around. A lot of their statistics are skewed negatively towards teen parents, and the only stories of teen parents they feature are the negative ones (and I am fairly certain that most of them are made up).
The National Day to Empower Teen Parents was created as a response to all this negativity by Alli, the former editor/mod at Girl-Mom. She and Julie, with the help of some other GMs and allies who wrote essays, put out a zine called EMPOWER, with resources and articles to help teen parents, and several Girl-Moms set up events for teen parents on the day they set for the NDTETP. (I'm not sure if any of the events were successful, though.) There was a website too, but it was too expensive to keep paying for, I think. There's a forum here, although there's not much info in it:
http://www.girl-mom.com/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=24
You can see the awful NDTPTP ads here, along with the AWESOME response ads that a branch of Planned Parenthood created. Instead of girls with "CHEAP" etc written on them, they say things like "EDUCATED," "PROUD," etc. The response ads are sooo awesome--check them out. :)
http://www.ppcw.org/teens/responseAds.asp
What I hate is when you do a search on google these sites come up and not girl-mom. It gets me mad
actually ive found gilmom on google a few times. its just so awful this shit is out there. poluting the minds of the general public
Hehe... guess I'm out of the loop. Alli isn't around anymore, or what?
I'm not a mom, but I know a lot of young moms and THAT IS some bullshit.
I'm totally appauled by the propoganda that lies around thes days.
Did you know that the statistics concerning abortion are false too? In school they told us, it was teens that had the highest numbers which is false, it's middle aged women! Middle age and teens are far far apart. Funny how politics warp everything huh?
puke puke puke puke puke.
not terribly articulate tonight, sorry. sometimes I hate living in this fucking country.
I've always hated the national day to prevent teen pregnancy. I think it's awful and stigmatized teen moms in a way that no one should ever be stigmatized. I've seen ads done for this, and was completly appalled by the nerve of the people who believe in this. It makes me want to just....blech!
next time your at their site (lol like you would actually WANT to be there!) take a look at their supporters. there are quite a few large corps that support them that i wouldn't have thought...
Reading that exerpt made me feel like a fucken disease! Like I was something in a test tube that needed to be studied because of the age I was when I became pregnant. Did it make anyone else feel like that? Its strange because research like that totally seems to dehumanize teen moms like we are some sort of research, like we don't really matter...
"In fact, over half of foster care placements of children with these young mothers could be averted by delaying child-bearing, thereby saving taxpayers nearly $1 billion annually in foster care costs alone."
...Oh Im sorry, I didn't know that when I was staring at my positive pregnancy test deciding whether or not to keep my baby I should have chosen NOT to because I would be effecting TAXPAYERS, who I, and I'm pretty sure a lot of us here at Girl Mom are. I mean isnt that what welfare and foster care and adoption are for? I thought that was what the great USA was about... so why do I hear so many damn complaints when we actually use those systems that were put in place for us in the first place? Any thoughts? I just needed to post something after I read that. Peace!
i just cant even look at crap like this anymore... it actually brings me to tears how NEGATIVE this country is and the LACK of support! i guess maybe im just really sensitive but why do we never here of things that NOW does or planned parenthood does or anything... nothingg.... the news everywhere just seems to be all anti-choice, anti-SUPPORT OF ANYBODY
just today looking at the news sites and stuff... its all what the anti-choicer's did on the anniversary of roe v. wade... not one word on the big rally NOW held for it.... accept on the NOW site...
and no wonder teen parents get treated so shitty. i know at my school which is full of ignorance treats me like im some kind of freak. they will do absolutly nothing to even acknowledge the fact i hate a child, i know a lot of schools are supportive, but so many arent... and no wonder, look at the CRAP people get fed
ooooops
i typed "the fact i hate a child"
that should be "the fact i HAVE a child"
:oops: whooops