Enhancing school sex education programs to decrease adolescent pregnancy.

Enhancing school sex education programs to decrease adolescent pregnancy.

This paper is addressing the media’s rise teen pregnancy and it’s accidental glamorization of the situation. The average American teenager is easily influenced by what they see in the media, and as a result a trend in teen pregnancy has risen. Schools need to enhance their sex education programs to help prevent teen pregnancy.

Teen Mom, 16 and Pregnant, and Secret Life of the American Teenager are all shows that are said to educate teens about the difficulties of becoming a teen mother. The media is going through a sudden boom of teen moms and not only on TV, but in big screen movies like Juno. With lines like “That ain't no Etch-A-Sketch. This is one doodle that can't be un-did, Homeskillet” Juno adds humor to a not so funny situation. For the average American teenager the trend is difficult to not notice. With this boom came a bang of teens getting pregnant because of what they saw in the media, which they perceived as not only acceptable, but fun. This all may have been acceptable in the 50s and before where girls were often trying to get married off while still in their “prime”, today it is acceptable for women to have successful careers. Having a baby so early can often set back that process. Adolescents are at a very crucial, sensitive, and awkward time in life, and it’s safe to say that a lot of them are easily influenced by what they see, especially if it’s in the media. Schools need to react to the recent acceptance trend of teen pregnancy and enhance education programs on sexual activities and its consequences.

All TV shows have one common goal, which is to make money through entertainment. It can be argued that shows want to send out a message or educate, but to get the message out they must first grab the audience’s attention and keep it. Reality shows glamorize the issue of teen pregnancy and editing plays a big part in primping up the cycle of teen pregnancy. The message of “Teen pregnancy is 100% preventable” gets lost when trying to keep up with the ratings. On Teen Mom at the end it was always says, “Teen pregnancy is 100% preventable go here:______ for more information.” But not many teens will actually go to the website after viewing the show for more information. Also teens who do most likely will go for the entertainment segment of the website, like pictures, blogs, and gossip about what’s going on in the characters life.
Since they don’t show the full process of what the mothers go through, easily influenced girls will only take in what they directly saw. One might argue that only an ignorant teenager will believe all of what they see in these shows, but statistics show that there is a significant amount of teens who do exactly that.

Despite the fact that the objective of most of these shows is to educate teens, the exact opposite effect seems to be happening. 90 girls at a school in Memphis, Tennessee are pregnant all at once and 17 girls said they were inspired by Juno to get pregnant.

In a few blog sites women who had their children at an early age say the shows do a great job of portraying the difficulties of being a younger mom. One woman argued “The shows are real and they aren’t crap”. This may be true about the reality shows, but both Juno and The Secret Life of the American Teenager (Secret Life) are made up situations. Although Secret Life is a more serious and family orientated show as opposed to Juno, which is more, slapstick, both portray of very unrealistic version of the situation. With Secret Life they are very open with their parents who are very accepting of the teens decisions. The teens also openly talk about sex, and protection with almost everyone who they come into contact with. In the real world that does not happen because most people just aren’t that comfortable about the topic. All the shows also only focus on people who have decided to have the baby. Juno promptly makes the decision to have her child after a protester informs her that from the beginning babies are born with fingernails, Secret Life is very Christian based and frowns upon abortion, and to get on Teen Mom and 16 and Pregnant you have to have had the baby. The media doesn’t make abortion an option for teen moms.

On a more positive note, with this trend has come another one of educating teens. Some people choose to go the abstinence is key route, but more and more people are arguing that being honest and giving facts to teens is more effective. Teens will often do what they want to do which includes sexual activities, but if they have the right information they are less likely to become pregnant or get someone pregnant. Today parents are very busy and more often then ever before both parents are out of the house and working most of the time. Not only is it a difficult conversation to have but also time and patience is always necessary.

To ensure that all teens are getting the proper education and facts on sexual activities schools should improve their sex education programs. I propose a study is done on several different schools in different environments: cities, suburbs, west coast, and east coast on a improve sex education program to see if teens take more information then from the usual health class. Teens will get pregnant it’s not 100% preventable but if they have the knowledge they need and the right facts the numbers are likely to decrease.