Anyone watch this show? It's my guilty pleasure, my secret indulgence. I can't get enough of the show. It comes on Wednesday or Thursday nights on MTV. This is the second season where they follow around 16 and 17 year old high school girls who are pregnant. After last seasons series, they did a show called Teen Mom that basically followed 4 of the girls around from that first season. Like I said I can not get enough of it.
However! This season has been a bit of a disappointment until this week. I would have thought the purpose of the show was to call out teenage pregnancy and the real impact it has on a young girls life by having unprotected sex and becoming pregnant. But this season I don't think the point is coming across - well unless you consider the point that all of these girls date real jerks and they never stick around or grow up like each young girl has to. Last weeks show the girl was extremely lucky. Her parents supported her, provided for her and the baby and the girl actually showed interest in taking care of her baby rather than being disrespectful and verbally abusive to her parents.
This week I think they finally captured the real emotional turmoil that will most likely happen. A rising senior at an All Girls Catholic School becomes pregnant. She wants to keep it because she was adopted herself and she wants to keep something that is of her own blood. Her parents tell her she can't keep it, she has to give it up for adoption. Her ex-boyfriend/baby's father think they'll move in together, then he changes his mind. She eventually finds an adoptive family who is willing to have an open adoption. It was THE most heart wrenching episode I have watched to date, I cried most of the way through it. It was so hard to watch her want to keep the baby and her parents not willing to help in the least.
Matt and I talk a lot about what would happen if one of the girls came home pregnant at 16 - what would we do? Hopefully we will have raised them to wait but I'm pretty positive that is what this girl learned with Catholic parents and a Catholic schooling. It scares me to think of having to even just teach the girls about abstinence yet know how to introduce contraception while promoting abstinence. I am pretty positive I would do what lasts parents did and support my daughters decision to keep her baby if that was the decision and do everything in my power to make sure that the baby is loved, cared for and provided for while seeing that my daughter is able to finish school and hopefully attend college (locally, of course!).
I admit I have a hard time watching this show...even though my struggle with fertility is way over, it still "gets" to me when young girls and boys are careless and get pregnant so easily (too easily). It's a real issue though- and something we (you and I) need to be mindful of as our girls grow. A lot of people tend to blame the parents when young people mess up, but I think at 16, some kids are going to do what they want- no matter how they are raised! So I can never assume Ellie will grow to the the person I hope her to be...and that's a scary thought. But we do our best, and pray for the best!
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