16 and Pregnant...

... A Review

It would probably come as a shock to most people I know to have me admit that I’ve been watching a lot of MTV lately… Heck, it kind of comes as a shock to me. But I have… and this is why…

Near the end of my pregnancy with Miah, I was keeping a ridiculous sleep schedule, and I logged a lot of late night hours on facebook (even more than usual). During this time, I started seeing a lot of references to the show, “16 and Pregnant”. Many of these references were coming from teenagers we work with who are in the 13-16 age range, so it piqued my interest, and I was concerned enough about them, and bored enough at 2:00 in the morning, to check it out…

My main interest in the show, at that point, was that I wanted to know what these kids were watching. I wondered if this show was portraying a realistic view on teenage pregnancy or if it was glorifying the trend of teenagers getting pregnant on purpose (and if this is a new concept to you, I’m not kidding… that’s how it works now)…

So, I opened up an Amazon widow and paid $1.99 for the first episode. Thus began an interesting education for me in 21st century television… and life…

*Note: I later found out that you can watch the show for free at MTV’s website… uh… I found this out after I’d purchased the full first season, I think. This is one case in which my self proclaimed title of “cultural moron” didn’t really serve me well. I didn’t even know I was watching MTV at first…

Overall, I’m not sure I can recommend this show. I certainly can’t recommend every episode or recommend it without caution. But I will probably be able to use clips from it in certain teaching situations. The show does not, in any way, meet my standards for entertainment (although I would be lying to say that it’s not entertaining at times). I’m not sure that entertainment is the purpose of the show, however… And truthfully, I have had a bit of difficulty deciphering what the purpose of the show really is…

As a basic rundown, the show comes on with a girl introducing herself and giving the viewers an idea about what her life is like… what she is involved in at school… what kind of family she has… what her relationship with her boyfriend is like… Then, at the end of this mini introduction, she says something to the effect of, “but that’s all going to change, because I’m pregnant”… she turns… the camera gives us a profile view of her growing belly… and then the show begins…

Over the course of the next 40 minutes or so (if you buy from Amazon, it’s 40 minutes… if you watch on MTV, you have to endure commercials, so it’s longer), we follow the pregnancy. For the most part, I think MTV has done a good job of making this real. Generally speaking, the girl has to give up a lot of the things that she loves to do. Many of them drop out of school. A lot of the guys disappear. The reactions of the families have ranged from supportive to irate, but an awful lot of these families are just really sad to begin with. I have certainly had the most difficulty sorting through the parents who cuss their kids out or even physically harm their pregnant daughters. But there are subtleties, too, that I think sometimes go unnoticed.

For example... It took until the 12th episode I watched to hear a parent say, “I taught you not to have sex!” Uh… duh… if you never bother to teach your kids to wait to have sex, it is probably pretty reasonable to assume they just might make you a grandparent earlier than you’d imagined. Even so, the parent who finally proclaimed this was pregnant, herself, with her live in boyfriend, so perhaps there is something to learning from examples that are set… Still, she was one of the more reasonable mothers on the show. Episode after episode, though, I heard parents telling their teens, “We taught you about protection”! Seriously, think this through… Are 15 and 16 year old kids really thinking, “Hey, let’s slap a condom on it,” when they are in the heat of the moment? Uh… no… they’re not! It’s ironic, but I have heard time and time again that kids who are taught abstinence are more likely to get pregnant, because they are all having sex, so the kids who haven’t learned about “protection” are more at risk. Maybe this is true, statistically speaking. I don’t really know. But based on the sampling from this show, I would say that the kids who are taught abstinence are less likely to get pregnant, because they aren’t having sex… just a thought, of course…

Perhaps one of the most shocking quotes came from one of the pregnant teenager’s friends who informed her that you really can’t do anything to prevent pregnancy. I was glad the pregnant girl looked back at her and informed her that you can not have sex. Unfortunately, all of the girls in the room kind of looked around nervously, as if that was the most ridiculous thing they’d ever heard of, and giggled… wonder how many of them will be sporting bellies of their own soon…

I think that one of the most intriguing things, for me, is to watch the relationship between the parents to be as it unfolds. For the most part, either the guy or the girl (sometimes both) has been severely immature or just plain nasty. A lot of the guys walk out early on. And the ones who stick around are often treated pretty badly by the girls. The guys who make it (still in the relationship) all the way to the delivery room often check out once nighttime feedings and diapers become a reality. And in a lot of cases, grandmas and grandpas are left raising babies they didn’t really want to deal with to begin with. This is not always the case, and a few of the girls have done a pretty remarkable job.

I have followed the stories beyond “16 and Pregnant” to the spin off series, “Teen Mom”. I am not going to take the time to run down what I think of every participant in these series, but I am going to say that the one couple, of all of them I have observed, who seemed to be the most mature and capable of making adult decisions, gave their child up for adoption.

Now, I have had several friends and family members who have been on either the giving or receiving side of adoption, and I do not think that adoption is the best choice for everyone. However, I do think that it is a beautiful alternative to trying to raise a child that you do not have the capacity to raise, and there are so many couples out there who dream of children and are amazingly blessed by the gift of adoption. The fact that many people have commented on how selfish this couple was to give up their child is just astounding to me. True, by giving their child up for adoption, they have been able to retain some normalcy in their teenage lives, but in reality, I think it was the most unselfish choice possible, because they have given their child a chance to have everything they could not provide. It has been obvious that they have suffered emotional distress over this decision, and they will never really be “normal” teenagers again, but they made a loving choice, nonetheless.

I have to admit that I’ve gotten kind of “hooked” on the shows. I find myself wanting to know how things turn out for these kids… and their kids. I have always had a soft heart for teenage parents, and I find myself rooting for them to make the right choices for their babies… and for themselves.

And then I stop and take a step back and try to remember why I started watching in the first place… I know a lot of teenagers. In fact, I know a pretty good number of teenage parents. And what we really need to do here is to provide a support network for them and a means of prevention for those who are headed in that direction.

I never would have thought that MTV would come up with something productive. And, again, I can’t really wholeheartedly recommend the show (especially not for preteens, who are often the ones watching). But I can recommend putting your arms around a hurting kid and steering them in the right direction…

Lisa