30% of Girls Get Pregnant by 20

Today is Teen Pregnancy Prevention Day.

For the first time in 15 years teen pregnancy is on the rise. In 2006 it rose by 3%.

It’s probably not that complex – the same parents who voted for Abstinence Only Education let their little girls wear Perfect Ass shorts and don’t talk to their kids about sex. Hello!

Kids aren’t stupid, they know there is a cultural conflict between what we say we believe and how we behave, what kind of media we allow and what we will tolerate from corporations as a people.

I finally got to watch the Oprah about teen sex where Laura Berman, author of Real Sex for Real Women talked to some 14 year olds about their pending decision to have sex.

Her interaction with those kids was brilliantly done.

Two 14-year-old kids are in love and say they are “ready.”

How long are you going to be together? Berman asks.
A long time, they both agree.
How long is a long time? Berman asks again.
Like six months to a year, the teenage boy says to which the audience bursts out laughing.  His girlfriend literally thinks he’s joking.
What do you want? I’m in high school, he tells the audience.
Laura gets the girl to admit that when she’s saying “a long time” she’s fantasizing about forever. That poor girl has been naming their babies and practicing writing his last name behind hers on the back of her math homework for months. She’s in love.
Do you still want to do it if you know he’s only planning on being with you for six months to a year? Berman asks his girlfriend.
No, smart 14-year-old girl says.

It was so enlightening. I plan to keep that strategy in my back pocket. The thing is, it’s the different beliefs about what the relationship means and how long it will last that ends up breaking a girl’s heart.

Laura proceeded with her questioning and by the end the boy – who won’t be pregnant, go through labor, have an abortion or suffer heartbreak when he’s ready to move on – still wanted to have sex.

But the girl said, I’m slowly getting talked out of it.

Standing ovation.

On the other hand, I’ve been asking teenage mothers,

What could your parents have done to keep you from having sex?

Nothing, is the answer every time. They could have locked me up in a padded room with no connection to civilization, but that would be considered child abuse.

I hate that answer. My parents even tried that and it wasn’t effective.

Perhaps we’re fighting a losing battle with nature and hormones.
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