Bring your child to school day (Teenage Pregancy)

Member Name: sympatic

Product:	Teenage Pregancy
Date:	15/06/08 (98 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Still young when they are grown up?

Disadvantages: Education can suffer

There was a programme on a few weeks ago which was about glamourous grannies, all of the women were in their thirties and were already Grandmothers meaning that no only had they had children in their teenage years but their daughters also had given birth as teengagers and in most cases this meant they were either fifteen or sixteen.

The show did not go into the whole issue in much detail as there were only four families featured so hardly a big sample size but the similarities were striking, in pretty much all of the cases no male role models were present in the grandmothers lives or their daughters and where a male role model did exist the couple were no longer together just that for now the teenage father was around and on the scene taking an interest but you do wonder for how much longer before he gets someone else pregnant.

Now I'm not saying single mothers or teenage mothers are a bad thing just that I cannot see it is as being ideal, and there is a difference between being wrong and being ideal, one of my friends is a single mother and does a great job raising her daughter however even she admits it is not ideal and ensures that there are plenty of male influences in her daughters life from parents, brothers and friends.

The other common thread with teenage pregnanacy is the impact it has on the young mothers careers, in the TV show all of the so called glamourous grannies expressed regret at the fact that they had only ever had basic level jobs on low pay and high boredom levels, the only one who had managed to rise above this and secure an education felt like she had been so busy doing this she had failed to educate her own daughter on the impact of teenage pregnancy resulting in another teenage mother in the family.

A benefits culture is often blamed as well and certainly this can be seen in some areas but in this case all of those featured did some form of work and none of them blamed a lack of sex education, all took the decision to get pregnant even if they were assisted along the way by men who took no responsibility for birth control themselves.

On an invented commercial day where we are all supposed to say thanks to our Dads it is just a shame that for many of these children that is not an option or will not be one in the future.

Summary: Views on teenage pregnancy.