8. Lack of Competing Choices- Instead of looking at teen pregnancy as something teens do unwittingly, accidentally, carelessly, or stupidly, we need to look at it instead as a type of choice.

A teen who sees her parents stay married for her entire lifetime and seem to enjoy it might unconsciously wish to do the same. She will tend to go in that direction. If she sees her mom get abused, she will unconsciously think it must be part of marriage, or think it’s ok to have this done to her, an unconscious decision, even if she articulates it different. Seeing her role models in a certain behavior will unconsciously wire her brain to follow- hence her following the Adult Birth Rate. Even if she can’t articulate why, and she can’t. Even Adults take years in therapy to figure out why they do what they do.

To have a young girl see the world in terms of choices isn’t hard to imagine. There’s all sorts of choices- every day. Friends, clothing, music, food, sports, classes, and so on.

Them there’s harder choices. College, jobs, drugs, booze, sex, boys, girls, driving, the list is endless. She is going to make many bad choices. We should be forgiving, considering we as adults screw up all the time.

As long as she sees herself going forward, she will probably be ok. As long as she feels her life is improving, she will probably make fairly sound decisions. But when she sees her life stop, when it appears to her that it’s ground to a halt, then she sees things different.

It’s a simple matter of a thing called hope. When things are bad, but she still has hope, ok, we can ride out this cold streak. But when things are bad and she senses hope to be slipping away, then things are going to be ugly. And her choices, which looked like poor and desperate choices when hope was around, start to look like better choices when hope is gone.

Going into the service, for many, might seem to be a bad or desperate choice when things were going smoothly- good grades, friends, money, a future. But pretty soon it doesn’t look so bad when the things that seemed so sure start being not so sure- being priced out of college, only minimum-wage jobs, a crumbling economy, a sad, depressed set of or single parent, poor grades, poor schools, increasing drug or alcohol use, minor brushes with the law. Suddenly you don’t have the really good choices anymore- they’re gone.

Now you have harder choices to make. Most of them aren’t good. Watching your parent(s) work poorly paying jobs. Will I go to the local JC, scrape up some cash, but you hated high school. Look for illegal ways to make some more cash?  Join the service. Booze or pot to ease the pain.  Stick with the current boyfriend, have sex, break up, get married? No insurance. No real money. No good job prospects, no good schooling prospects, mostly bad parenting, she feels herself drifting.

To may teens, the state of our world and country don’t give many a lot of hope. Read the front page of the paper. It’s unbelievably worrisome to to even the most hopeful adults. Surely we can see teens being as or more worried, and see their hope crumbling.

A teen girl will see pregnancy as just another in a long list of choices. A big one, to be sure, but it is just another choice. She sees pregnancy as a way to increase and restore her hope. She may not be able to always articulate it, but she sees it as joyful and a happy time in a not very happy world.

And remember, it’s not about the sex. It’s the child she wants for her happiness, not the sex. 15 and 16 year old girls are most likely not having good sex. Sex isn’t but a very small or nonexistent part of the happiness. It’s the child that’s going to make her happy. Being pregnant as a young teen is about everything BUT the sex.

Remember, she’s most likely poor, most likely been sexualized and/or sexually abused. She’s not planning on college, not because she doesn’t want to go, but because she can’t afford it.  She’s around violence, chaos, an unhappy upbringing. She has role models who became pregnant, most likely young. This is one way to keep her hope. Listen to Elizabeth Schroeder, PhD, long time Sexuality Educator explain how complex yet simple the reasoning is-

We should all raise a skeptical eyebrow whenever any research claims that there’s a direct cause-and-effect relationship between one thing, such as television viewing, and something as complex as teenage pregnancy. Doing so betrays an inherent ignorance of the world in which young people are living today. Teens with whom I have worked directly have given a wide range of reasons for why they became parents as teens:

“I wanted someone who would love me unconditionally.”

“I wanted my girl to have my baby.”

“I thought having a baby would make our relationship better.”

Not once in my 15 years as a sexuality educator, however, has a teenager ever said to me, “I was watching TV/a movie with sex in it, and it made me think that now might be a good time to become a parent.”

Sexuality and teen pregnancy are huge, multifaceted, complicated issues that involve very abstract, difficult-to-measure factors such as self-esteem, family involvement, socioeconomic status, racism and ethnocentrism, homophobia and much, much more. The bottom line is, if every television in America were shut off tomorrow, teen pregnancy would not go away. And rates of sexually transmitted diseases would not plummet.

Getting pregnant as a teen allows her to “stop” her world. a la Jamie Lynn Spears. The sex abuse usually stops. The young girl is seen as an adult. She’s fussed over, she’s give social services denied to her as an un-pregnant girl. She has happiness, she has something to look forward to. I would easily say that the level of happiness she might have as a pregnant teen is inversely associated with how much happiness she had before she got pregnant. A really, really un-happy teen before pregnancy? A very very happy pregnant teen. A mildly un-happy teen? She may be upset to horrified that she choose pregnancy, and may vacillate between thinking about keeping the child and trying to seek an abortion.

Where are her competing choices? Where have they gone? Down the rabbit hole of Adult Actions- greed, fiscal irresponsibility, sex abuse, poverty, bad role models, wars, crime, lack of educational purpose, religious zealotry and bigotry, ignorance, fear, leaving behind a trail of destruction for the young to navigate around and clean up.

Bottom line?  The better the the future for teens, the better the choices they have, the better the choices they’ll make.  That’s our goal as adults- to give them a future to look forward to.

Grade- Adult

Hello, it’s good to be back. I have a break in the action on the farm, and so I will continue with this manifesto on teens, adults, sex, pregnancy, society, and how it all fits.

By the way- President Obama- I hope to never get tired of hearing those words. President Barack Obama. Barack My World Mr. President. And let’s all shake the dust of that crummy little boy who went before him  off our feet once and for all.

We are talking about the Reality of why young girls choose pregnancy over a different future. It’s a social problem, not a teen behavioral problem. It’s a problem created by and carried out by Straight Adult Males, who then scapegoat teens into accepting blame for a problem they had no part in creating. The teens become a perfect villan, a patsy, someone to throw social rocks at, while the men behind the screen get a free pass.

We have covered 6 of the Dynamics. Let’s go on to #7.

 7. Lack of Reproductive Health Care- It’s no secret that the USA has no Universal Health Care. Everyone knows this. But how many countries actually have some sort of universal health care?

Afghanistan*( paid with war $), Argentina, Austria, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Cuba, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iraq*(paid with war $), Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Oman, Portugal, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Sweden, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Ukraine and the United Kingdom. That’s who.

Now, everyone of those countries has a lower rate of teen births than the USA. Every one.

So who’s left with no universal health care besides the USA? Think all of Africa (South Africa trying), poorer Asian Countries, add poor countries like India, Pakistan, breakaway old Soviet Countries, a scattering of others, Burma, Indonesia.

All these countries who are politically stable enough to get information from have Teen Birth Rates that rival the USA, or are higher. Especially Africa, which has rates 4 times higher than the USA.

The lack of access to free and universal reproductive health care for women and teens is unforgivable, especially for a country who brags about itself as stridently as we do. Other countries see it as  basic human right. We don’t seem to see it that way.  Our words and actions don’t meet at all.

When a teen girl gets access to health care, she opens a dialogue with a trusted professional. He or she may become a role model. Her health is placed first, not the mom’s, not the younger sisters. Hers. We are starting on the path to PREVENTION of pregnancy. We are ACTING, not REACTING. PROACTIVE.

Look at all the things discussed- eating right, exercise, drugs, vaccines, stress, sleep, disease, viruses, contraception, all this can be discussed BEFORE she becomes sexually active. She should have free and unfettered access to any and all contraceptives whenever she and her doctor decide. It’s NOT the parents decision, nor is it the teachers, the politicians, or the City Council. It’s a decision between her and her doctor.

Here is a recent statement put out by Aboutkidshealth, an on-line site devoted to keeping kids and adults healthy and smart

Recent and alarming American statistics about the rates of pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in teenage girls have re-ignited the highly charged debate about access to health care and sex education in the United States. A Centers for Disease Control (CDC) report showed that about 25% of all girls between the ages of 14 and 19 in the US were infected with at least one of the most common STIs. These included human papillomavirus (HPV), chlamydia, herpes simplex virus, and trichomoniasis. The spread of all these diseases, some of which cannot be cured with antibiotics, can be reduced with safer sex practices. 

“The problem isn’t promiscuity,” says Kim Martyn, a Toronto-based sex educator. “It comes down to poverty and access to health care and education.” The report also showed black teen girls had much higher rates of infection than white girls, which Martyn says proves her point. “In the US, there is a huge gap in terms of health care access between the white and black population.”

Martyn says opportunity, or lack thereof, also has an influence on behaviour. “If you have a vision of yourself going to university, you are more motivated to not get pregnant. You are more likely to be responsible,” adding that these attitudes are reflected in statistics about the age at which teens first have sex. 

 I’m not the only one who sees the dynamics behind the TBR as Adult-influenced. Ms. Martyn cleary shows the link between social causes, including poverty, lack of clear, non-biased sexual information, freedom to reproductive based health care, a vision of a better future, and who will and won’t get pregnant as a teen.

Now, George Bush has left us, thankfully, but cleaning up his debris and hubris will take years. Read what Martin Donohoe, Professor of Medicine and and Ethics Scholar writes about some of the crap Bush has forced us to deal with.

Recently ( written in 2003), the Bush administration drafted a policy that would let states define unborn children as persons eligible for medical coverage. The current Administration has also introduced bills to increase the $3 million per year already spent on so-called “Crisis Pregnancy Centers,” in which pregnant women are given non-factual information regarding abortion, refused information about contraception, shown an ultrasound of their fetus, and watch a slide show depicting bloody aborted fetuses in which it is claimed that abortion is a leading cause of sterility, deformed children and death. In fact, it is 30 times more dangerous to carry a fetus to term than to undergo a legal abortion. The availability of mifepristone (RU-486) for medical pregnancy termination has the potential to improve women’s access to safe abortion. 

Abortions cost approximately $350; most patients pay out of pocket. Only one out of three patients has insurance coverage, and only one out of three insurance companies cover the procedure after the deductible is met. Thirty- four states provide no Medicaid funding for abortion; of the 16 that provide coverage, most make it available only in cases of fetal abnormality, rape, or when the pregnant woman’s life is endangered or health at risk because of the pregnancy (see “Georgia’s Abortion Bill,” Z Magazine, January 2003). Often patients are reluctant to file claims due to confidentiality concerns. 

Other obstacles to abortion include bans on specific methods, mandated waiting periods, parental and spousal notification laws, regulation of abortion facility locations, zoning ordinances designed to keep abortion clinics from being built in certain areas, and TRAP (Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers) laws. Bills already approved by the House of Representatives, and headed for the Republican-majority Senate, include: the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, which gives legal status to a fetus hurt or killed during the commission of a federal crime; the Child Custody Protection Act, which makes it a crime in some cases to transport a minor across state lines for an abortion; and the Abortion Non-Discrimination Act, forbidding state and local government actions against hospitals or health care to workers who refuse to participate in abortions. Three recent appointments to the Food and Drug Administration’s Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Committee, Drs. David Hager, Susan Crockett and Joseph Stanford, are avowed foes of abortion rights. Obstetrician-gynecologist Hager, who has advocated Scripture reading and prayer for premenstrual syndrome, reportedly refuses to provide contraceptives to unmarried woman.

More from Dr. Martin-

Lack of access to contraception facilitates teen pregnancy. Only 8 percent of U.S. high schools provide condoms, despite the fact that promotion and distribution of condoms does not increase teen sexual activity. Access to contraception of all types is particularly burdensome for rural teens. Recently, legislation that would prohibit prescribed contraceptives for adolescents without parental involvement was introduced in ten states and the U.S. Congress. A survey of girls younger than 18 seeking services at Planned Parenthood found that mandatory notification for prescribed contraceptives would impede girls’ use of sexual health care services, potentially increasing teen pregnancies and the spread of STDs. 

Across the U.S., many health plans fail to cover all contraceptive methods, even though all methods are more effective and less costly than no method. Many fewer plans cover abortion than cover sterilization, leaving poor women in the unenviable position of having to choose sterilization if they lack the resources for adequate contraception or for an abortion (which may become necessary even when accepted contraceptive methods are used as directed). On a positive note, the U.S. House of Representatives recently voted to reinstate the contraceptive coverage for federal employees that President Bush omitted in his 2002 budget proposal. 

It can’t be any clearer- Having little or no reproductive health care is a shameless, hypocritical way to treat our young women, and without it, we cannot cut down on the number of teen pregnancies. Where the hell are the condoms that every school in America should be distributing freely? Where the hell is the Universal Heath Care? Where the hell is our money? Why do we tell adults they are happy, healthy, normal and right for wanting and having sex, but we tell our teens they are wrong, dirty, immoral, unethical for wanting the same?

We’ll talk about this strange phenomena at the end when we discuss the abstinence crockery. But now, let’s move on to the next dynamic.

Grade- Adult

I continue to describe the ten dynamics behind the TBR (Teen Birth Rate).

4. Violence- It’s no secret that it’s a violent country we live in. But most people don’t seem to realize just how violence, poverty, and the TBR are all interconnected.

In 1996, Bill Clinton, immature, ignorant piece of slime that he was, drafted a plan to have teen pregnancy as the bedrock front and center plan to get re-elected. Absurdly calling teen pregnancy an “issue of character and personal responsibility”,  they blamed teen pregnancy for the nations’s crime rate, poverty, and the failing war on drugs.

Further, they said that aid be prohibited from  ” any teen that qualifies receiving it unless they lived with a parent or other responsible adult”.

This cruel, illogical, and ignorant policy was oblivious to the fact the most teen pregnancy is borne out of the very households they grew up with, and are now  being forced to live with. We know most sex abuse happens within the family unit, or someone the family knows. We know that sexualization is a long term process that happens within a young, trusting adolescent and an older predator, usually a male, again, within the family circle, be it immediate family, friends of the family, or relatives of the family

Apparently,  no one in Clinton’s administration thought of the violence of the household. A 1992 study that Mike Males points out in Scapegoat Generation looked at 535 teen mothers. Here’s the figures.

1. 66% sexually abused
2. 44% raped
3. 59% hit with belt or strap
4. 31% hit with sticks or other objects
5. 26% thrown against walls
6. 18% hit with closed fist
7. 5% burned with cigarette or hot water

Overall, two thirds had been sexually abused, 70% physically abused. Most of the abusers had been family members. The report concluded ” sexual victimization may account for …consistently high teenage pregnancy rates”. Wow. Really? What gave you the first clue? And you’re forcing these teens back home? Why?  ( Males, The Scapegoat Generation, p.90 )

Violence and the TBR has been linked in several studies. The best I could find was where Kate Pickett,  Jessica Mookherjee, and Richard Wilkinson did a study about the link between Adolescent Birth Rates, Total Homicides, and Income Inequality in 2005. The report starts off-

“Income inequality has been associated with both homicides and birth to adolescents in the United States…These results…suggest that violence and births to adolescents may reflect gender differentiated responses to low social status and could be reduced by reducing income inequality”.

The conclusion of the report again states what I have saying throughout this article-

“Our findings suggested that the links between deprivation and both violence and adolescent births reflect the destructive psychosocial and behavioral effects of inequality. ….Interestingly, the decline in US homicide and adolescent birth rates since the 1990’s was accompanied by declining unemployment and improved relative income amongst the poorest individuals”.

Teens that live around violence want it to end, or they want to leave. A young girl, who has no way to leave, may opt to “leave” by getting pregnant. It is leaving, you know. She simply uses her body, as women have been doing since the dawn of time, to change their circumstances for what they see as benefical for them.

If you want to know why Jamie Lynn Spears got pregnant, ask the drug addicted, alcoholic, often unemployed father who kept the family in poverty for much of her young life. Or ask Sarah and Todd Palin why their kids want to leave so quickly. Or the Gloucester Girls. The answer is in the family dynamics, not in the “personal character” of the teen.

Grade- Adult

5. Economic Attraction to Older Males- Let’s lay it out for everyone who thinks the majority of these pregnancies are from teen-teen sex. 80% of teen mothers under 18 have partners over 18. And if you are under 17, your male partner is most likely to be over 22 than under 18 (Males, Framing Youth 1999, p.189 ).The average we talk about is this- the younger the mother, the older the father. Orange County California, that bastion of conservative Republicans, had 2/3 of junior high schools girls impregnanted by men too old to be in high school in the early 1990’s.(Males, P.190 )

The resoning behind this is simple, despite Bristol Palin and her same age partner, Levi. An older partner can take a poor, abused, girl, living in violent and chaotic households, out of her present circumstances, and socially and economically improve her lot. He is an immature, exploitive man, under educated, problems with addiction, and has no interest in staying for the long run. He may be 21 or 22 chronologically, but realistically he’s more like 18. And she may be 15 or 16, but circumstances have made her grow up faster, and she’s closer to 18. So they can connect.

The problems  with this are many. Attraction of young girls to older men  who want out of a bad situation is so acute, she’ll give up anything to have him, including school. In California, approximately 50% of all girls drop out of school before they get pregnant. When Mr. Older Man comes along, school becomes irrelevant. Besides, schools don’t talk about this type thing. They are too busy trying to get girls to abstain or sign chastity pledges, or virginity pledges, none of which do anything to address the reality behind the problem. It’s not about sex. It never was about sex. It’s about the social corners teens are forced into.

There is also the problem of a 22 year old man with a 15 year old girl. We call that either Statutory Rape, or Sex Abuse, so why are all these adults wagging their finger at the girl, for shame, for shame, for shame? And are our public policies helping lift young girls out of poverty, so that the lure of an older man matters less than school? Or are we so frightened that they may actually have sex, that all reason flies out the window?

Oh, and if you want a prototype for the immature, exploitive, emotionally vacuous, addictive personality-type male, look no further than the afore mentioned slimeball Bill Clinton. Regarding women, he sets the standard for lies, falsehoods, and shameless pandering to anyone stupid enough to believe him on anything.

Grade - Adult

6. School and Educational Failure- As I pointed out earlier, 50% of all girls drop out of school before they become pregnant. Thus, academic failure is seen as the first sign of an impending pregnancy for a young girl.

Following this logic, it is in everybodies interest to keep young girls in school as long as possible. The longer they stay, the less likely it is they will succumb to the advances of an older man. When someone asks’” What is the role of schools in this teen problem? “, the answer is simple.

Focus on educating women first.

Nick Kristof, OP-Ed columnist for the New York Times says it quite clearly- when schools in poorer areas concentrate on educating girls first, the girls are less likely to drop out, less likely to be trafficked, less likely to get pregnant, more likely to restrain their sons. Education makes them less dependent on men for money, makes them more productive with their own endeavors, and less susceptible to men and men’s whim’s.

They have fewer children. They have healthier children. They are more likely to go on to college. They wait to have their first sexual experience. They have fewer STD’s. They have fewer abortions. Mr. Kristof’s statement (paraphrased) says that” the most bang for your educational buck in poor countries comes in educating girls first”. A poor country is no different than a poor city, or poor town. Educating women first pays off richly for society.

Countries who have the highest number of women in power have the highest literacy rates, least amount of war, the highest GDP’s per capita. They tend to have free schooling, free health care, with basic rights guaranteed.

On the other hand, countries where women have only poverty and no power (think Africa ) are the poorest, most repressive countries in the world. They war more, have no basic right to education, no basic right to clean water, food, shelter. They have the highest illiteracy rates, have crumbling economies, have high rates of AIDS and other STD’s, poor health, no future, and all power is abused and in the hands of men.

When a young girl in the USA gets pregnant, she is silenced. She is voiceless. When a young girl gets an education in the USA, she is recognized. She is able to speak up. She can make a difference.

When schools take the cheap, lazy way out of sex ed by regurgitating up the old, tired, failed policies of abstinence, character assasinations, lectures on responsibility, they fail in every way possible. Teens don’t need lectures on right and wrong- they need a future. They need adults to protect them, and they need adults to educate them on the realities of sex abuse, poverty, rape, violence, on men. They need society’s help, and they need more effort by school districts to keep them in school.

Grade- Adult

Here I stop for a quick summary before we go on to Part 5.

1. What we call the Teen Pregnancy Problem is NOT a teen problem, it is an adult problem.  Teens as a group are not responsible for this problem, only adults, mostly males.

2. Teen responsibility, morals, values, ethics, play no part of this problem.

3. The media reflects society, it doesn’t create it. So don’t blame movies, books, the Internet, Playboy, Larry Flint, Juno, the Spears sisters, the Gloucester Girls, or anything else like this.

4. Blame Bill Clinton, ignorant, immature, emotionally lazy piece of crap human being for allowing his administration to create the myth. But look in your mirror for the perpetuation of the myth.

5. The TBR is a function of competing choices. That means the economy. That’s why the TBR is going up again, after dropping for years. Not because teens”got the message”. Not because of the religious right. Not because of better parenting, not hardly at all. But because when times are good, there’s money and jobs. There’s a reason to stay in school. There’s a better future in sight. And up until George Bush, times were better.

6. Pregnancy allows a young girl to “stop her world”. She can remake herself. Living in poor conditions, either physically or mentally, or both, pregnancy makes her an adult woman. Regardless of her chronological age, she is now a woman. The sex abuse stops. The sexualization stops. The poverty becomes less severe, because she now has social services denied her as a non-pregnant teen. She gets health care. She gets “fussed over”. She gets attention. She gets treated in the way she wanted before she got pregnant. She now has a clearer, more easily identifiable future. It’s called parent, mother, and adult.

Jesse Jackson was once on television during the LA riots, explaining why young black don’t fear going to prison.

He went on to say (paraphrasing now) that when a young black man goes to jail, they are safer than on the streets of their hometown. They get three meals a day. Supervised recreation. Exercise. School classes with low student/teacher ratios. Fighting is strictly prohibited. No drugs, at least they are not allowed, nor is alcohol. Counseling. Help with addictions. A chance to learn the law. Libraries. A chance to see they might actually have a better future. They are remade, if they let themselves be. They can be something different. They balance the competing choices. Life on a dead end street, vs life inside a penal institution, trading freedom for safety and an uncertain future. On the surface it seems crazy. What? But in reality, it may be the ONLY choice some have.

Teen pregnancy is no different. On the surface it seems crazy, who would a young girl do this? Why trade away your future, you might say to the Gloucester Girls, you might say to Bristol, you might say to Jamie, you might say to thousands of teen girls?

In the groundbreaking book, Dubious Conceptions, by Kristen Luker, she points out that it’s the “discouraged amongst the disadvantaged” that get pregnant. There’s plenty of disadvantaged teens in this country. But when the disadvantagement turns into discouragement, they see themselves forced into a social corner. They sense they have to act, to “leave” their current situation.

Luker goes on to criticize policies that stigmatize young women that have children outside of marraige, especially since they haven’t found to be effective. She rightly points out that teen sex and childbearing are logical results of the crumbling economic and social policies for the young, especially the decline in government funding and support for health and reproductive care, as well as comprehensive sex education. And, she lastly says, instead of preaching abstinence and trying to get them to lead chaste lives, they should spend that time and money on improving social policies that force disadvantaged teens into discouraged teens.

Another study by Bickel and McDonough, 1997, was recently reviewed, and the reviewer flatly states that “….the rates of teen pregnancy amongst girls aged 15-19 varied inversely with levels of economic opportunity, and with levels of-school and out-of-school community. As levels of economic opportunity increased, levels of teen pregnancy decreased. As levels of in-school and out-of-school comminity increased, teen pregnancy again declined.”

The reviewer finishes up with  “… it makes clear that absence of opportunities occasions behavior that seems reckless and self defeating. …In the absence of opportunities, seemingly reckless and self defeating behavior may, in fact, be interpretably rational. Why persist in school, for example, if future prospects are poor, with or without a diploma? Why be abstemious, determinedly law-abiding, and otherwise conventional, in …social circumstances where opportunity structures have been decimated?”

Look at Bristol Palin, and read up on the person Sarah Palin and her husband are. They would sell their entire family for a chance for power. Pimping her daughter’s pregnancy as something good, something outside of her and Todd Palin, as though Bristol made the decision without any influence whatsoever from her mom and dad. Her brother left at 17 to join the service, and now Bristol Palin “leaves” the family at 17. Someone needs to ask that family why the kids are so eager to leave. Something is dreadfully wrong here, just as it is in the Spears family. The questions go to the parents, not the kids. It’s an adult problem- remember?

The time and money need to be spent on improving her future, not convincing her to abstain. A good future is the best contraception ever made.

Before we talk about the reality behind what everyone calls The Teen Pregnancy problem, let’s take a moment to sum up what we have learned.

First, there is no such thing as The Teen Pregnancy Problem. It was and is a myth, created by adult men, to scapegoat teens into accepting blame for a problem they had no part in creating. It is, instead, A Straight Adult Male Behavior Problem. Straight, as opposed to gay. Gay men play no part of this, get off their case completely. Haven’t they been dumped on long enough?

Second, Bill Clinton. With regard to his treatment of women, he was a walking contradiction, personally garbage, publicly quite agreeable. Whatever you think of him, he and his administration created almost the entire myth we are talking about, the myth of the Teen Mom.

Third, abstinence has become the answer to everybody’s questions- will it stop pregnancy? Yes! Will it stop AIDS? Yes! Will it stop STD’s? Yes! Will it stop the breakdown of the family? Yes! Will it restore morality? Yes!Will it………? Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! And Yes, Yes, Yes…!

The fact that it is all an illusion doesn’t matter. What matters is we are giving the people what they want. A one stop, one shot, one way ticket, a simple, morally certain, value laden, palatable, easy to swallow pill, a righteous way to view sex, pregnancy, and teens, and all they entail. Just abstain, Jr. Just say no, Mary. No No No. Hallalejuah. We have seen the mountain.

So now lets move on the the truth. There are 10 dynamics behind the SAMBP, 10 reasons why teens choose pregnancy over a different future. At the end of each dynamic, I will grade it either “Teen ” or “Adult”, for who is responsible for this dynamic.

1. The Adult Birth Rate- The Teen Birth rate has followed the Adult Birth Rate almost lockstep for 80 years. Adults have more children than teens, of course. But if the ABR goes up, so does the TBR. If the ABR falls, so does the TBR. And it does it almost at the same time- look at the chart:

We all follow our role models, but teens do it better than almost anyone. Which is why the ABR is so valuable. We can go to any city, town, community in the USA, and just by asking about the ABR, we can predict what the TBR will be in a few years. What looks good to an Adult, looks especially good to a teen. Grade- Adult Responsibility.

2. Poverty- Understand this- “Teen pregnancy does not cause poverty. Instead, poverty causes teens to begin bearing children at an earlier age.”( Kristen Luker, Dubious Conceptions, 1996).

Poverty is the greatest social ill of our times. And, maybe forever. Forced into poverty, anybody will do anything, at anytime, anywhere. A hungry stomach has no conscience. And teen pregnancy is no exception.

According to Mike Males, author of Framing Youth, 80-90% of all teens come from poverty. They come from poverty, they don’t become poor. Pregnancy doesn’t make you poor, young or old. Poverty precedes pregnancy. People born into poverty tend to stay poor, while people born into middle class or above wealth tend to stay that way.

Money gives you choices. You can choose from a variety of options for your future when you have even a modest amount of wealth. Poverty limits your choices. Your future, often times seen from a poverty stricken teen’s point of view, looks damn near just like the present. What future? College? Too expensive. Moving away from home? How? Job? Where? School? This crumbling pile of bricks? Adult Role Models? Where? Happiness? What’s that?

The zip code in California that is arguably the poorest is 93702, a dusty area near Fresno somewhere. Almost half of the residents live below the poverty line.  Average income well below the poverty line. In 2005 or there abouts, 20% of all births were to teen girls (200/1000 births 15-19), almost 4 times the state average of 41/1000.

On the other hand, the zip 90077 is arguably the wealthiest zip in the state of California. LA, Hollywood, mansions, movie stars. Wealth, not riches. Money passed down through generations. In 2005, or thereabout, 0% of all births were to teen girls. 0. None. It’s about how money gives you choices. You see a different type of future when you are not poor. Forced into poverty, as I said, a teen girl searches for a way to get out, to leave, she searches for a better future. Grade- Adult Responsibility.

3. Early Sexualization/Sex Abuse- Mike Males points out that over 60% of all teen mom’s have been abused. However, in his extraordinary expose “Scapegoat Generation”, he cites several studies in which up to 70% and higher reported abuse.

But the most breathtaking indictment of the ignorance of the role of sex abuse in teen pregnancy was his story about 14 year old junior high school students. Only 6% reported having had intercourse, which means that 94% did not. Of the 6% who said they did have intercourse, only 2% said they had voluntary intercourse. The other 98% said they had either been raped, or a combination of rape and voluntary sex. Why are we as a society lecturing teen girls about abstinence? Almost all girls don’t seem to want to have sex at such a young age.  They don’t need pontificating from adults,  they need from protection from adult men who are raping them.

The role of sexualization in teen pregnancy is often ignored and misunderstood. Look no further than Jamie LynnSpears, who sat by and watched her role model, Brittany Spears,  both sexualized and sexually abused for years. Sexualization is using sex to manipulate another person, and we see it constantly. The young girl, being leered at by fathers, stepfathers, brothers, cousins, family friends, uncles, almost always in the intimate family/friends circle. Touched, prodded, patted, petted, always with that sexual tone, that sexual manner. She becomes flattered, happy by the male attention, exploited but without her knowledge.  Sexually used without her knowledge simply to get men off, when asked if she had ever been abused would say no. But she wouldn’t understand how sexualization works. Slowly groomed over time, she becomes both a willing and unwilling participant.

To be sexually abused makes a girl rethink her admittedly few choices. It makes her want to get out of her current situation, but she lacks what society demands she needs- money. She starts to twist the abuse in her head into what she thinks sexual expression really is. She confuses it. She learns to like it, since she thinks it’s love. And then, she may go through periods where she understands it’s bad, it’s wrong. She is looking for a way to regain control, and she doesn’t have a lot of ways of doing it, except that which her abusers have taught her- using her body. Grade- Adult Responsibility.

We have seen so far just why the SAMBP is not a teen problem, but an adult problem. Teens can’t do a damn thing to solve it. Only adults can. And I haven’t mentioned words like teen irresponsibilty, teen immorality, teen ethical lapses- and I won’t, ever. There is no such thing in this world. There is only adult behavior. It’s a one man show- adult men only need apply.

Let’s all go back to 1976.

Watergate, Vietnam, Civil Rights, Acid, Long Hair, Bad Clothes, Disco, Pre-AIDS- Remember? We thought it would never end.

A fellow by the name of Joseph Califono, Jr., a Health Secretary under Jimmy Carter, stood up one day and said

“Teenage pregnancy….is one of the most serious problems today. The birth of a child can usher in a dismal future of unemployment, poverty, family breakdown, ….dependency on public agencies….Scarcely anyone…can read these figures without a sense of shock and melancholy”.

Although the term “teen pregnancy” had been tossed around a few times before, we can say that this is the first time it was ushered in, spoken aloud, and seared into the nation’s consciousness. Up until 1976, what did we call teens getting pregnant? We called it.,..pregnancy.

It didn’t matter that Mr. Califono Jr was wrong. That was beside the point. Even though the Teen Birth Rate (TBR) had dropped almost 40% from 1957 to 1975, that wasn’t the point. The point was, we finally had someone to blame for our breakdown of the family. We finally had a villain for our rising taxes. We had someone to point a finger at for all the free love 60’s, for crime, for poverty, for loosening of morals, for abandoned ethics- the teen mom. So now was born The Teen Pregnancy Epidemic.

Under mostly Republican rule from 1968 to 1993, this so-called epidemic was played out in back rooms and amongst religious traditionalists, who decried the “the great moral vacuum” that sex was playing out within our nations young. The beginning of the public crucifixion of the Teen Mom began with Ronald Reagan, decrying the “welfare mom”, who “sucked the system dry”. Remember?

But it wasn’t until Bill Clinton came into office that the teen mom was excoriated, savaged, destroyed, lied to and about, and held up as a sacrifice to the nation, exploited by the very people who said they would help. The liberals, Democrats, who thought nothing of sacrificing our nations young, at any time, whenever it suited them.

Building on the Welfare Mom myth,  Bill Clinton set out to create a version of the teen mom that even republicans didn’t believe in.  Like all shallow men who delighted in exploiting women, men who could only raise themselves up by pushing women down, Bill Clinton was without doubt one of the biggest pieces of shit who ever walked the corridors of power. The lies he and his administration created are still with us today. Teen mom’s are irresponsible. Teen pregnancy causes poverty. Teen pregnancy causes the crime rate to rise. Pregnant teens are immoral. Pregnant teens lack values. Pregnant teens aren’t thinking straight. Pregnant teens make bad choices. Pregnant teens are sexually promiscuous. Pregnant teens cause a rise in the  AIDS rate. Pregnant teens raise abortion rates. Pregnant teens cause a breakdown in the family. Pregnant teens are godless. Teens sexually lead men on. Teens are moral failures.  Pregnant teens are responsible for their own damn mess. And the greatest lie, told and retold again and again by the stupid, by the ignorant, by  humans with dirt clods for brains?

Abstinence. The golden calf. Abstinence. Say it again. Abstinence. The greatest lie- that by keeping teens from having sex, we can keep teen girls  from getting pregnant. So sayeth the Adults, those Paragons of Virtue.

The Teen Pregnancy Epidemic is a social myth, created by politicians of the 90’s era, and is still carried on today. It is fiction, an illusion, used to hide the reality of who and why teens get pregnant. Mike Males, author of “The Scapegoat Generation”, and “Framing Youth”, said it best-

“[The so-called Teen Pregnany Epidemic ]…a damning indictment of liberals exploitation of a social problem they themselves manufactured. The grievous cost of two decades of myth making is evident as liberals now strive to rescue poorer, young mothers from the Clinton/rightist “welfare reform” napalming”.

First, let’s clear the air about the name of the problem- it is not the “teen pregnancy” problem. It is not now and never was. It is instead The Straight Adult Male Behavior Problem (SAMBP). Calling it the teen pregnancy problem infers that the teen is somehow responsible for this problem. They are not. No teen is responsible. Teen pregnancy is an Adult problem. Adult males created it, and only adults can solve it. Whether they want to or not is a different matter, but only they can solve it. Adult males simply found a gullible, weak enemy of the state, an earlier version of “the terrorists”, who,  unsure how it all went down,  silently and bravely accepted “blame” for a problem they had no part in creating. Once the public bought this story, adult males, with the help from females like Donna Shalala,  could go on doing what they have always been doing, abusing power and stealing your money, without worrying about changing anything or helping anyone.

Notice I say adult males. Yes I do. As I go through this manifesto, notice how males do the destroying and then entice many, not all, but many females to stupidly and blindly believe them, follow them,  and continue the same ignorant and destructive policies. Read over on the blog the links under “The Teen Pregnancy Fallacy” to see both very good articles and very stupid ones.

Next, We go through the 10 Dynamics by which the TBR works. If you’ve read this far, now is the time to see the truth. Dump the attitude, especially if you’re a guy. Dump the pride, dump the ego. I’m about to trample all over you.

( Many thanks to Mike Males “The Scapegoat Generation” and “Framing Youth”, and Kristen Luker “Dubious Conceptions” for the facts, and their sheer honesty,  courage, and integrity )

This is the big time for what everyone calls The Teen Pregnancy Problem.

Juno. Gloucester Girls. Jamie Lynn Spears. Bristol Palin. Not to mention George ( we wish his parents had practiced abstinence, too ) Bush, and his famous (I really want to eliminate sex) abstinence programs. Really, it’s everywhere in the news, in the TV, on the radio, on the web. You know this- I know this.  

People write about this great social problem, using words like teen values, morals, irresponsibility, mistakes, choices, consequences, all with a finger-wagging, lecturing, stern faced reproachful air of, shame, shame on you! As though somehow teens made a mistake, as though they didn’t quite think when they were doing what they were doing. They were irresponsible. They were stupid. They were lacking values and morals. In plain talk, they screwed up, and now, by Christ, they are going to have to just live with the consequences. So sayeth the Adults, those Paragons of Virtue.

So after listening to this crap for the better part of a year, I could not keep silent one day longer. If I have to listen to the public lionize Bristol Palin while excoriating Jamie Lynn one more day, one more second, I will scream. If I have to hear people talk about Juno, as though a fictional character in a fictional movie  somehow represents reality, I will scream. If I have to hear about how the Gloucester Girls are an example of the excess and crumbling morality of America, I will really, really scream. Loud.

So lets all take some time and revisit the truth, shall we? All together now, repeat after me:

1. There is no such thing as The Teen Pregnancy Problem.
2. Teen Values play no part in determining the  Teen Birth Rate.
3. Teen Morals have no place in determining the Teen Birth Rate.
4. Hormones don’t have anything to do with The Teen Birth Rate.
5. Most Pregnant teen girls are not irresponsible.
6. Teen Pregnancy does not cause poverty.
7. Teens are not making bad choices by getting pregnant young.
8. Contraception has nothing to do with Teen Pregnancy, except as sexual self defense.
9. Sex has nothing to do with determining the  Teen Birth Rate, anymore than rifles are the determinants of war.
10. Teens have absolutely nothing to do with determining the Teen Birth Rate.
11. Abstinence plays no part of The Teen Birth Rate. It’s only a cruel joke adults play on the young.

Ok, well done. Now look at what I just wrote. Please reread it. Take a deep breath. Reread it again. Ok. Feeling better?

In the next 4 parts, I will explain the truth. You need to leave your pride and prejudice at the door. You’re in for a wild ride.

It’s time for a subject that begs for understanding. Someone needs to explain how this all works.

The ignorance about this subject is making my head spin, giving me vertigo and brain drain, all at the same time. So much has been written about this social problem in today’s media that you would think we host a country of experts, or a country of morons.  I read newspapers, blogs, editorials, magazines, the front page, the back page and all pages inbetween. I listen to talk radio and music radio. I watch PBS, CNN, cable shows, news shows.

It’s not difficult to understand. What’s difficult is giving up both prejudice and pride, and accepting that things are not what they seem.  

Ok, almost no one gets it, I see that now. Especially the media. Particularly my local school district. No one seems to understand the Straight Adult Male Behavior Problem. Don’t recognize the name? Oh, sorry. Let’s call it by what you call it- The Teen Pregnancy Problem.