16 and Pregnant. Really?

"16 and Pregnant" Really?

 



 

 

 

 

   16 and pregnant, sounds more like an oxymoron than a title to a reality show for teen moms.  The world or should I say society has definitely changed since I was 16.  I can remember when MTV was nothing more than music videos, good videos and music, now it’s a bunch of crap.  Reality shows like the Jersey Shore, the Real World, and the Hills have taken over primetime MTV and also taken over the covers of popular magazines.  When I was a teenager, the words sixteen and pregnant were never put into the same sentence, it was just unheard of.  Of course, I went to Catholic school where we were taught not to have sex before marriage and if you did you were going to burn in the fires of hell.  My own belief is that if people followed that teaching of no sex before marriage then we wouldn’t have reality shows about single teenage moms, but who am I, just another hypocrite.

 

 

     We want to see the hype, the weird, the strange, the unconscionable, the Jersey boy’s fist pump, and the young unwed mothers from the bible belt of the U.S.A. We don’t want normal…we want abnormal and that’s what sells.  MTV would have us believe this human spectacle is a public service program, a “cautionary tale” for young girls not to get pregnant akin to the “after school specials” of the past.  When “Teen Moms” jockey for space with J-Lo and Jolie on the covers of People and Us Magazine, it’s hard to say the shows aren’t glamorizing teen motherhood.  “Our problem is that children are inundated by ‘screens’ from birth.  The content of the screen becomes more and more important in their lives as they get older. This is taking away from other, real experiences and shaping their perceptions of reality,” says Susan Linn, a fierce critic of commercial culture and author of Consuming Kids: the Hostile Takeover of Childhood.  Soon they aspire to be like the people on the TV and extreme behavior becomes normal.  Melissa Henson from the conservative Parents Television Council, says, “Television is the “sexual super peer”.  I think the consensus is in, the data speaks for itself, kids are being influenced by a box with a screen on it and reality shows are one of the biggest perpetrators.  HERE IS A SIMPLE SOLUTION…..TURN OFF THE TV, UNPLUG IT, AND THROW IT OUT THE WINDOW.  We don’t need TV to live; kids should be learning about life through their parents, church, community, and school.  Take a book out and read to your children, stop sticking them in front of the TV for entertainment.