Prenatal preoccupation: Parents fear Hollywood makes pregnancy look a little too cool / LJWorld.com

Archive for Tuesday, July 1, 2008

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Actresses Ellen Page, second left, Olivia Thirlby, second right, and Allison Janney, right, are shown in a scene from the film "Juno," which revolves around teen pregnancy.

By Megan Scott - Associated Press

July 1, 2008

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News that 17 girls at a Massachusetts high school became pregnant this year is raising questions about whether pregnancy has become something alluring to teens.

Many teen pregnancies still take place against a backdrop of economic distress or a search for love, experts say - that's been the case for years.

But counselors say they now are also concerned about a combination of factors that may make it easier for teens to become sexually active without fully understanding the potential consequences: Glamour shots of pregnant celebs are featured in magazines and on TV alongside increasingly sexualized fashions and images of younger girls.

Nationwide, the teen birth rate rose 3 percent from 2005 to 2006, the most recent year with data available, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That was the first increase recorded since 1991, though federal officials said it might be a one-year statistical blip.

Some say teens' understanding of pregnancy and parenthood may be skewed by real-life celebrity pregnancies as well as some recent fictional movies.

While there have always been celebrities who had babies, today's teen girls absorb coverage of their favorite actresses and singers voraciously: A report issued by Experian Consumer Research found that that 23 percent of teen girls surveyed in 2004 had read Us Weekly in the last six months, compared with 6 percent in 2000, for example.

Front and center in those celebrity magazines: Babies and their fashionable mamas.

Barely a week goes by without some kind of celebrity baby coverage - speculation about "baby bumps," coverage of swanky celebrity baby showers, and, of course, loving pictures of the babies themselves, often with their adoring, perfectly styled moms.

Carol Weston, who writes an advice column for Girls' Life magazine, says the glamorous images of pregnant celebrities can inspire young girls to become mothers. Teens get the idea that pregnancy is fun, says Weston, author of "Girltalk: All the Stuff Your Sister Never Told You."

Kimberly Hughes, a 16-year-old from Glen Rock, N.J., who reads US Weekly, People and CosmoGIRL!, agrees.

"I like reading the stories. It's really interesting seeing the lives of celebrities. It seems to be so easy for them, but in reality, it's not like that for them at all," she says. Baby pictures in particular send a certain message, she says. "It's like look at what you can do if you have a baby. Look at these cool perks you get out of it."

Magazine editors say celebrity pregnancy has always been news.

"People has been covering and celebrating celebrity babies for over 34 years from Cher and Greg Allman's son to Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony's twins," the magazine said in a statement. "Our readers have come to expect these kinds of intimate family moments in the pages of the magazine, and we plan to continue to deliver this inside access."

Us Weekly declined to comment.

Movies can also influence teens, Weston said. After "Juno," an Oscar-winning 2007 movie about a regular high school student who becomes pregnant, came out, Weston received lots of letters from teens who wanted to have babies, she said.

Weston said girls may not realize that most stories don't end like Juno's, who found a beautiful, rich woman to take care of her baby and still kept her boyfriend.

"It's not that pretty, especially if you have no degree, no job and no mate," she says.

The Hollywood endings suggest that the U.S. is not taking pregnancy seriously enough, says Bill Albert, spokesman for the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy.

"To me, it just seems like another choice in life," he says. "Like, 'What color clothes am I going to wear on Friday? What movie am I going to go to? Should I have a baby?"'

Tierra Townsend, 18, of Tampa, Fla., who has a 1-year-old son, says there's no glamour to being a teen mom. She thought the baby's father was going to be there for her, but he is no longer part of her or his son's life. She never finished high school and is working at McDonald's to make ends meet.

"I would say to any young female who is trying to have a child at a young age, 'Don't,"' she says. "Stay in shool, get a good education, save kids until later when you are married."

Sex also seems to be everywhere: The number of sexual scenes on television has nearly doubled since 1998, according to Sex on TV 4, a biennial study by the Kaiser Family Foundation. And there are plenty of children's dolls and characters - not to mention teen stars - who wear skimpy clothes or have exaggerated, sensual shapes.

Of course, no one thinks teens are running out to have babies because they saw a pretty big-bellied woman in a magazine or a cartoon character with cleavage.

But for girls searching for direction or low on self-esteem or parental support, the combinations of these factors may make it easier for teens to have sex and figure the consequences won't be such a big deal. Girls from poor homes are especially vulnerable, experts say.

"When communities are stressed and families are stressed, it's very difficult for parents to be providing the kind of love and nurturing that adolescents need," says Ellen deLara, an assistant professor in the School of Social Work at Syracuse. "When that happens, adolescents will try to come up with something that will meet their needs for love and support."

If the problem is pop culture, perhaps part of the answer is, too. A new NBC reality series, "The Baby Borrowers," features five couples, ages 18-20, tasked with taking care of babies, toddlers, pre-teens, teens and senior citizens. The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy worked with NBC on the show and created a special discussion guide.

Next week, ABC Family is airing "The Secret Life of an American Teenager," with "good-girl band geek Amy" who is "smart, talented ... and pregnant."

Most teens are certainly not longing to have babies, says Nadine Kaslow, a professor in the department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Emory University School of Medicine. Parents can use the images of pregnancy in pop culture, and the pregnancy outbreak in Gloucester, Mass., to talk to their children about their attitudes toward sex and pregnancy.

"Parents and schools really need to be open in talking about all sorts of topics including premarital sex, having babies and contraception," says Kaslow. "We need to really help kids think through this."

Discussion

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1 July 2008
at 8:59 a.m.

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geniusmannumber1 (Anonymous) says…

If you believe your daughter gets pregnant because she saw it in a movie, then I believe your daughter got pregnant because you passed your idiot genes on to her.
1 July 2008
at 9:04 a.m.

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Kookamooka (Anonymous) says…

Statistically teen mothers live in poverty but….if social programs exist to give them a chance, if they have parental support, if they take classes on children and childrearing when they get back to high school, does this make a difference? Teen pregnancy has been with us all along and never goes away. Didn't God know, girls aren't mature enough to have babies? Why are their bodies betraying them?
1 July 2008
at 10:06 a.m.

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Jaminrawk (Anonymous) says…

Yeah, any young girl who wants to get pregnant after watching a movie, should probably not be allowed to reproduce. I love that there is a TV show (The Baby Borrowers) that makes teen couples take a baby for a period of time to see what it's like. No sleep, messes galore, no social life and constant bickering caused by kids that won't stop crying. Really glamourous.
1 July 2008
at 10:28 a.m.

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lawrencian (Anonymous) says…

Having just watched “Waitress” last night, I don't agree that all the movies are glorifying being pregnant. Hmmm, maybe that's why this film isn't mentioned in this article at all!
1 July 2008
at 12:02 p.m.

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Multidisciplinary (Anonymous) says…

Jaminrawk (Anonymous) says: Yeah, any young girl who wants to get pregnant after watching a movie, should probably not be allowed to reproduce. –—I think girls should just avoid drive-ins all together.:)_________Hey Das..I knew you'd love to know this..last night while sorting things, I FOUND my big sunglasses!Woo Hoo!And I read big hair is coming back too. Not as big as the 80's but compared to the recent flat styles, this will be a change. More high-maintenance too.Everyone got their Aqua Net Maxi Hold and Dippity Do?
1 July 2008
at 12:17 p.m.

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belle (Anonymous) says…

Just another way for parents to blame someone/something else. The solution used to be to marry them off, problem solved. Now there's no quick solution because the teen girl should not get married, and has to go to college in order to get a decent job. Same problem, just different times. Oh and don't say protection, it'll only make them want to have sex, they have no hormones otherwise.
1 July 2008
at 12:55 p.m.

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Starness34 (Anonymous) says…

I don't think that movies like Juno or Knocked Up make teenage girls want to have kids. I think parents not talking to their kids regularly about the subject is more to blame. The movie Juno is about a teenage girl that gets pregnant who decided to give the baby up for adoption. She wants a closed adoption, and throughout the movie she talks about how horrible she feels and how she is made fun of at school. I don't see how that is glamorous……and Knocked Up is about two people in their twenties and is more of a cautionary tale about what happens when you drink too much and have a one night stand. Being a woman in my early twenties I remember the pressures of high school and having a baby was not something I wanted. Why would a teen want to gain weight, feel sick, get stretch marks, give birth, give up free time? I just do not see how at a young age that would be something a teen would want. Now I do think celebrity teen stars who get pregnant could be more to blame because they are seen by these teen girls are role models. The one thing these teen girls needs to remember is for example Jamie Lynn Spears is a celebrity and therefore she is better off financially so she can afford to have a nanny take care of her child, and can afford a trainer to get her back in shape..etc. Bottom line parents need to be more involved with their kids and talk about sex, and babies and not rely on the school system to do it.

1 July 2008
at 2:58 p.m.

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madameX (Anonymous) says…

I worked at a day care center in high school. Excellent birth control, I highly recommend it to any teenage girl who thinks she is ready to have a baby.
1 July 2008
at 3:18 p.m.

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staff04 (Anonymous) says…

Abstinence only education has served us well, no?
1 July 2008
at 8:16 p.m.

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Hoots (Anonymous) says…

I hadn't really thought about the impact of some of these movies like Juno that I enjoyed so much as an adult but the article does have a point. Kids to mimic iconic movies, bands, people, in our culture.When I think back to my life as a teenager my peers often acted out what they saw in movies and popular culture. In one case this was fatal. I remember girls dressing spot on like Madonna or popular characters from movies like Breakfast Club. If you think movies, music, and TV have no power you aren't very observant. I guess the folks at Budweiser are all a bunch of idiots for spending hundreds of millions on TV ads every year to influence YOUR buying decisions.
1 July 2008
at 8:35 p.m.

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studentatku (Anonymous) says…

Parkay,I would like to know where you are getting your statistics because you are providing people with false, medically inaccurate information. For example, birth control, according to the Center for Disease control is 92 to 99.9% effective at preventing teen pregnancy.(http://www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealth/UnintendedPregnancy/Contraception.htm, unintended Pregnancy Prevention: Contraception) Similarly, your comment on how abortion posses more risks than birth is also extremely exagerated. For example, according to the Guttmacher institute, Fewer than 1% of all U.S. abortion patients experience a major complication. The risk of death associated with abortion in the United States is less than 0.6 per 100,000 procedures, which is less than one-tenth as large as the risk associated with childbirth. (http://www.guttmacher.org/in-the-know…). I do, however, want to note that though child birth poses a greater risk of death than abortion, it overall, is relatively safe. Moreover, the American Counsel of Obstrics and Gynecologists, states that in regards to the medication abortion that the safety of the RU486 pills do not warrent it's withdrawal from use and that stating that this method is dangerous is not grounded in medical fact. Not only is abortion a safe procedure medically but also pscologically. For example, the American psycological Foundation states that ” psycolgical responses to unwanted pregnancy terminated by abortion in the United States suggests that severe negative reactions are rare, and they parallel those following other life stress.” (http://oversight.house.gov/documents/…) As one can see, according to the evidence the claim that birth control pills and abortion is unsafe in unfounded and based solely on ideolgical dogma.
1 July 2008
at 8:40 p.m.

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Rationalanimal (Anonymous) says…

Glorifying teen pregnancy devestates lives. It makes young teenage girls think they can suddenly be an adult if they get knocked-up. The reality is, they have sentenced an innocent child to a life of poverty, welfare, abuse, neglect and hardship, all because of two selfish acts of their mother—the first to have recreational sex and the second compound the first bad mistake by not placing the child up for adoption. It is an instance where stupidity exceeds emotional nobility. Hollywood, sadly, doesn't put the price tag on the morals they market to naive kids. If we can go after tobacco companies for the healthcare issues they are responsible for, we certainly ought to sue Hollywood for the social ills their marketed morals inflict on the greater part of society.
1 July 2008
at 8:56 p.m.

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Multidisciplinary (Anonymous) says…

hoot…You should hve seen the Hillcrest Movie parking lot when the first showing of Smokey and the Bandit let out. Kids were backing out of the spaces at warp speed, screeching tires everywhere, including my date. I mean,kids trying to screech tires when they only got to move forward 4 ft, before having to stop again.I have no idea if there were any fender benders, but it was a zoo!
1 July 2008
at 9:02 p.m.

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abrain (Anonymous) says…

Parkay,If your inaccurate statistical regurg. was a ploy for attention I applaud your effort. I feel that America is way to preoccupied with others' reproductive choices and can't relate until it is too late.
1 July 2008
at 9:09 p.m.

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Kookamooka (Anonymous) says…

So…if what the article is saying…that teens mimic pop culture, is true I fear for the future, as most teenage boys are spending there summer playing first person killing games, like Halo. The words “killing” and “games” should never go together in a sentence.

2 July 2008
at 2:09 p.m.

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DevilKitty (Anonymous) says…

Of course, because everyone knows that teenage girls have no minds of their own. Heck, teenagers in general. Just as Juno makes girls want to be pregnant, Grand Theft Auto makes teens want to steal cars and shoot hookers, Marilyn Manson makes teenagers want to murder and commit suicide, and Harry Potter makes teens want to become wizards and got to Hogwarts. We can't trust our youth to their own imaginations, especially not in this day and age. Not when teen pregnancy is so rampant, not when it has never happened ever before. The absolute horror.