NEW YORK, June 20, 2008
Teen Pregnancy Pact: Celeb Culture Cited
Psychologist Says It Has Role In Mindset; Teen Mom Advises Other Teens Not To Get Pregnant
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Play CBS Video Video Teen Girls' Pregnancy Pact Officials in the economically depressed village of Gloucester, Mass. believe a group of girls, all under the age of 16, made a secret pact to get pregnant at the same time. Michelle Miller reports.
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Video Teen Mom Talks Pregnancy Amanda Ireland, a Gloucester, Mass. teen mother urges her peers against pregnancy; and psychologist Lisa Boesky tells Julie Chen about the social problems associated with teen pregnancy.
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(AP)
Seventeen Gloucester High students are now pregnant, more than four times as many as at this time last year, and almost half admitted to school officials that they agreed to the pact, according to Time magazine.
School Superintendent Christopher Farmer told CBS News correspondent Michelle Miller the teens feel, "Motherhood gives them status."
"It sort of gives you the impression of being an adult, an independent. It may give you an opportunity for unconditional love and attention from the baby and also that you give to the baby," Dr. Elisabeth Guthrie, a pediatric psychiatrist, observed to Miller.
On The Early Show Friday, Dr. Lisa Boesky, a psychologist and author of "When to Worry: How to Tell If Your Teen Needs Help-And What to Do About It," told co-anchor Julie Chen, "We're facing a new area in teen pregnancy than we haven't before. ... What we've always known (is) teens who are surprised and shocked (at getting pregnant). Now, instead of unplanned teen pregnancies, what we're seeing in this town (Gloucester) is actually planned teen pregnancies. We used to be up against, kind of, 'It won't happen to me.' Now, these girls are saying, 'I hope it happens to me.'
"And I think a part of it is this celebrity culture. If you look at all the celebrity magazines, celebrity TV shows, you can't turn a page without seeing more and more celebrities getting pregnant."
The recent movies "Juno," which won an Oscar, and "Knocked Up," both deal with teen pregnancy and ”appear to take away the stigma," correspondent Miller says.
And, "Teenage pop idols getting pregnant before matrimony appears to have given their celebrity a boost," Miller points out.
Jamie Lynn Spears, 17, sister of Britney Spears, just gave birth to a girl.
But, notes Boesky, "There's no talk of how -- about raising the kids. The celebrities have nannies, they have assistants. There's no reality, there's no consequences. It looks like fun. And it fills a void for some of these teens."
Amanda Ireland, 18 and the mother of three-year-old Haley, just graduated from Gloucester High. She was living in another state when she got pregnant.
She says she's tried to warn her peers about the tough road ahead.
"Don't, don't try to get pregnant," she says. "People say, 'I know what it's like because I have siblings.' But you really don't. No one knows until they actually go through it. And it's a lot of work."
Ireland told Chen Friday that her pregnancy was unintentional.
Of the students who are pregnant in Gloucester High now, Ireland speculated to Chen, "Maybe they felt lonely or something."
She agreed that Hollywood attaching glamour to teenage pregnancy may also have had something to do with the situation.
But Boesky warned, "All the research shows that (teenage pregnancy) is not good. They have a higher rate of dropping out of high school, they have a higher rate of low birth babies, they have a higher rate of premature babies. Kids of teen parents -- girls are more likely to be teen parents themselves, and boys twice as likely, if they're born to teen mothers, to end up in jail. So, it's not good for society, it's not good for these teens, and it's not good for the parents and grandparents who often have to raise these kids."
"Parents," Boesky continued, "are sending a very clear message -- 'Don't drink alcohol and don't do drugs,' but I don't think we're sending a clear message of, 'Don't get pregnant in your teenage years.' There's nothing wrong with saying, 'While you're in school, do not get pregnant.' Parents shouldn't be letting their girls date boys who are older than them, they shouldn't be letting their boys date girls who are younger than them, and parents have to stay involved."
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Best-selling author Mitch Albom on his first nonfiction work since "Tuesdays with Morrie."
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See all 97 CommentsIt all boils down to the parents have no clue what is going on. And the stupid media needs to get it into its pocketbooks that it is not wise to broadcast this lame "news" to young kids all over the world. They only copy what they see and hear (look at the fast food pop throwing on YouTube), so if they didn''t see Jamie Lynn Spears pregnant, they wouldn''t be either.
There is the source of the problem - the media and parents. The kids are just too nieve and unintelligent to know any better.
Teens rebel. This rebellion is a statement that Abortion is wrong, fathers are "men without chest" emancipated live *** dupes, and the welfare system begs for more to enslave and oppress with public taxation and waste.
This is a rebellion to the hard line that babies born alive are shunned as bad! These girls are making a stand that birth and motherhood is something they cherish and want to embrace in spite of the surgical womb war going rampant in the world.
Go check your facts. Bonobos do not engage in *** all day long, only infrequently and casually. They do, however, use *** to resolve conflicts. The main reason they don''''t kill each other is because the females rule the communities.
Posted by Meg001 at 12:13 PM : Jun 21, 2008"
I have checked my facts. Leadership among the bonobos is SHARED between males and females. I wonder why they might be so relaxed that this might be possible without power struggles....
Hmmmmm I wonder if there''s some activity they regularly engage in that has a profound biochemical effect on their physiology and brain chemistry....
Good things celebrities don''t popularize hurling themselves off cliffs!
"If they only had a brain...!" (the pact girls)
Last time I bought weed it was off your mom. Good stuff.
Jeez, when I grow up I want to be just like you-- an uptight biccch
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Yah, you and your pothead friends can make a pact. You can vow to each other never to do things like learn to spell, practice morality, get a job, get married, live in a house, drive a car that isn''t stolen...
Hey, that''s what THESE GIRLS DID. Maybe someday you''ll get in the news.
And you can say, "IT''S ALL BECAUSE OF TXGROUCH2004!"
Then I''ll get in the news, too! I''ll be, like, famous man. Aaahhhuhuhuh!
That''d be CKHOOL!
Get off the crack pipe before it''''s too late.
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LOL! You''re a hopeless loser. (HINT: THIS IS AN EXAMPLE OF THE PROPER SPELLING)
Get off the crack pipe before it''s too late.
What did I not spell correctly?
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Take your previous message to school and show it to your English teacher. Ask the teacher what you spelled wrong.
What did I not spell correctly?
I bet your still a virgin.
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And you don''t know how to spell.
It shows what''s more important to YOU.
I bet your still a virgin.
So the bottom line is, she had a BAD TEACHER. That''s why she did it.
Give her a break. She''''s only 17 and made a mistake. You can tell that she is really sorry. Leave her and her baby alone.
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It was an accident. It wasn''t her, it was somebody else. Everyone else was doing it. Stop everyone else from doing it, then she won''t do it.
She didn''t realize it was wrong. She didn''t know anybody would mind. OK, now she knows it''s wrong, she promises she won''t do it again. She deserves a second chance. Maybe now she''s learned from her mistakes. She older and wiser now, punishing her for learning from her mistakes would only send the message that she shouldn''t learn.
She forgot she wasn''t supposed to get pregnant. She didn''t realize boys could make her pregnant. Nobody told her that getting pregnant would make her have a baby. We live in such a sexxually repressed society, teenagers are deprived of getting enough information about it to make an informed decision.
Maybe if grownups weren''t so uptight about the subject, teenagers wouldn''t feel the need to rebel by doing it against their parents'' wishes. Wouldn''t it be better if we didn''t have so many prohibitions that make it like the "forbidden fruit," which only encourages youths to experiment and explore?
These and many, many more ridiculous exuses can be heard EVERY DAY by the parents of any teenager...
Go check your facts. Bonobos do not engage in *** all day long, only infrequently and casually. They do, however, use *** to resolve conflicts. The main reason they don''t kill each other is because the females rule the communities.
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