Commentary Essay

Children Raising Children. When thinking about today’s generation, all that comes to mind is teen pregnancy. In almost every high school, in every state, there is at least one teen that is or has been pregnant. In 2006, a study was given to sum up the average number of pregnant teens in the US. Nevada and Arizona have the most, averaging at about 230,000 pregnant teens. Many years ago, youths were ashamed if they ended up pregnant, and most of the time changed schools to prevent the embarrassment. If a person was to walk down the hallways of any local high school, their chances of seeing a pregnant teen is about nine about of ten. Shows such as, ‘Teen Mom’, and ‘16 and Pregnant’, showcase teen pregnancy as if it is the new trend. In the three seasons that ‘16 and Pregnant’ has been running, they have shown roughly thirty five teens dealing with the “struggles” of being pregnant at a young age. Most of the episodes deal with the same issues for example, non-approving parents, boyfriends not wanting to be fathers, etc. Displaying the hardships these girls go through is supposed to stop other teens from going through with their pregnancies; however it seems to be having the opposite effect. Magazines such as ‘People’, ‘OK!’, and ‘In Touch Weekly’, aren’t helping the situation either, by displaying these random teen moms on their covers as if they are modern day celebrities. Who made these girls role models for other naive girls? Sex is a common venture for everyone to experience at some point in their lives, and it comes to no surprise that teenagers are the first ones to engage in it. Sex is not a bad thing and teenagers should not be punished for it, but unfortunately most parents do not know how react when their teens come to them with sexual questions. Since teens do not talk to their parents beforehand, and vice versa, they usually decide to have sex blindly. Subsequently teenagers have neither prior experience nor knowledge about sex and