Argument

Mrs. Fidler

English 1301

2013 JUL 25

Final Exam: Argumentation Essay Although the rate of teenage pregnancies in America has dropped in recent years, it is still significantly higher than our counterparts in the world. Do teenagers in America have more sexually active lives than teens in other countries? No, in fact, studies show that teenagers in Europe have more active sex lives than teens in America. So what is the root cause of this epidemic? There are many; ones that society can and cannot control. Some of these problems are a no-brainer fix, while others stem from more complex backgrounds. These root causes vary from popularizing teen pregnancy through modern pop culture, all the way to socio-economic classes the teen mothers in question grow up in. Some may even argue pure teenage rebellion and irresponsibility on the teen’s part, but often forget the contributing factors to this behavior. I would argue that modern pop culture has played one of the biggest roles in high teenage pregnancy. If you flip your television set to the popular channel MTV on a Tuesday night, you will see the wildly popular reality series Teen Mom. Basically, this show is exactly what the title entails; the daily lives of teenage mothers. I imagine the original purpose and concept of this reality series was to show the hardships and true realities of being a teenage mother, but the end result was more or less “glorifying” the lives of single teenage mothers. If anything, the show not only not serve the intent in which it was made, but it puts these mothers at almost a celebrity type status in the eyes of the viewers who are teenagers themselves. This could very well prompt a teenage girl to get pregnant in hopes of being on this type of show as well. This could be a simple no-brainer fix to the high teenage pregnancy rate we face in America. In addition to the influence modern pop culture has on teens, the socio-economic status in which they find themselves in also plays a major role on the rate of teen births. On average, three out of every ten girls in America will have a child before the age of twenty; most of these occurring in the lower bracket of the socio-economic scale. Many of these girls feel a sense of “despair”, or feel as if they have no place in the world due to the perceived social status they find themselves in. So, in order to fill the void they feel, they become pregnant in hopes that a child of their own will make them feel needed and wanted by someone. This problem is a not so easy fix. No amount of sexual education classes, or contraception used can fix the feeling of loneliness or socio-economic status. In fact, if these girls were to stay abstinent and obtain a high school education and higher, they could potentially change their socio-economic status; giving themselves and their children a better opportunity to succeed in the world. I would also argue that a better foundation built by the teenager’s parents or family on this subject could possibly alter the rate of teenage pregnancy in the lower bracket of the socio-economic scale. Although there are many contributing factors to high teenage pregnancy in America, I would argue that the influence of modern pop culture and socio-economic status are the major factors to be concerned with. The influence media outlets such as MTV have on America’s youth is large, and should be questioned when shows such as Teenage Mom are aired on a weekly basis. Socio-economic status is a tough issue to deal with, and I would argue that only the teenager themselves can change that for a better future.

Works Cited http://www.thenationalcampaign.org/resources/pdf/teen-preg-hs-dropout.pdf http://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/Family/Modern-Parenthood/2012/0522/Teenage-pregnancy-High-US-rates-due-to-poverty-not-promiscuity http://www.mtv.com/search/?q=teen+mom

Cited: http://www.thenationalcampaign.org/resources/pdf/teen-preg-hs-dropout.pdf http://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/Family/Modern-Parenthood/2012/0522/Teenage-pregnancy-High-US-rates-due-to-poverty-not-promiscuity http://www.mtv.com/search/?q=teen+mom