Yes, I know after making yet another promise to post more I haven't.
I'm not going to bother giving you all another petty excuse! I'm just a bad blogger haha :(
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Anyway, I've got a planned topic for this post and it's teenage (and young) pregnancy.
My parents mum has always told me not to get pregnant until I'm 30 something like she did with me because it was the best thing she ever did she was able to go and live her life, live away from home on her own, go on holiday with her friends and make mistakes and enjoy herself before she had the responsibility of children.
I know I won't be following in her footsteps because I've been in a long term relationship since I was 14 and I've been broody for about a year now- I don't plan on getting pregnant while I'm in my teens and I have the implant so I know I won't be getting pregnant any time soon. But, honestly, I think if I hadn't had a plan for life and I hadn't gone to university I probably would be considering having a baby now because I think that being a parent is going to be a big part of my life.
On the other hand, my sister is 4 years older than me and I know she probably won't have children until she's in or at least near her 30's. I suppose my mum's words of wisdom worked on one of us, eh?
Focusing more on what I wanted to post about.. this year the US government have tried a few different techniques to try and 'combat' teenage pregnancy. I'll show you a few ad's in their campaign...
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So, in March there was a few ads circulating stereotyping teenage mothers and how poor their child's lives would be.
Even Carly Rae Jepson decided to have a pop at teenage mothers along with Hillary Duff suggesting that every teenager should be 'changing the world' (doubtful) rather than mothering a child.
Frankly, if it wasn't for a teenage pregnancy she wouldn't even be bloody famous! (Justin Bieber is a product of teen pregnancy for those of you who don't know what I'm on about).
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The newest campaign, showing pregnant boys, it my least favourite. This ad is supposed to make boys take more responsibility for teen pregnancy rather than just blaming the girls who are living with the consequences (and if you take notice of the first ad, theses boys should have buggered off living their life to the full while the girls look after their child!).
It's a good job I don't live in america because the pictures of pregnant boys make me feel sick and a think seeing them frequently would give me nightmares! hahaha
So the point of this post isn't to jump on the bandwagon slating teenage parents and saying how much they've screwed up their lives - it's to say that I want to take back all of the stereotypical comments I've made in the past about teenage parents. Although I do not want to be a teenage parent and I have made sure that I won't have any 'surprises' while I'm in my teens and I still can't understand how teenagers are 'accidentally' getting pregnant because you're either being safe or your not (we wouldn't get this many teen pregnancy from the 0.1% of times that condoms don't work) and if you missed your pill, or have been sick maybe you should've thought to control your urges or even put a condom on, I do have to say that I have seen a few young people get pregnant recently (and yes when I found out I had my doubts and made comments saying 'their boyfriend will leave', 'they can't even look after themselves' and that their parents will have to do it all for them) I have to admit they're all doing pretty good jobs at being parents and I would like to eat my hat.
I don't think that it's necessarily the age that a mother conceives her baby that predicts whether they'd do well at school and in life or whether their child will end up in prison or even whether the parents will stay together, I think its about the situation in which the baby is conceived.
On my 16th birthday I had a pregnancy scare, I realised I had missed 4 periods and I had a freaking heart attack. If I'd have been pregnant it would have completely disappointed my parents and I think a lot of my 'friends' would have decided that they weren't my friends anymore, frankly if I'd have been pregnant my whole life would've changed. I wouldn't be at university, I wouldn't have got my a-levels when I did, I wouldn't have become friends with the people I'm friends with now and I wouldn't have had a plan for what I wanted to do with life anymore. Purely because I've known I want to go to university since I started high school and I didn't have a backup plan so to not go to university would have thrown my life off track. However, I don't think I would've been a bad parent. I was responsible and stable enough that if I had been pregnant and I would have stood up to my responsibility and changed my life plan to fit a child that I was my responsibility.
As well, there's people I know that have got pregnant during a levels and even during university and have continued to go onto university and are doing really well in their lives they've kept their life plan on track and they are also amazing parents.
Yet, nobody can deny there are some cases of teenage parents who a completely shit. they can't care for a baby and they don't want to care for a baby. They want to live the life that childless people their age are living and they leave it all to their parents (which I think is reasonably good of them because they've at least admitted they can't parent the child) or they just resent the child and bring up a complete yob. it's these cases that put a bad name of young and teenage parents but it's not that they're a teenage that makes them shit parents, its their attitude and frame of mind. I know 30 and 40 year old parents who are bring up yobs because they haven't got the right attitude to parenthood and I know yobs who are the children of both teenage and middle ages parents.
This isn't a new things and there will always been people who don't bring up their children how we would bring up our own and there will always be people who don't know how to live in society, don't blame teenagers for an inevitable fact. Maybe the best thing to do with teenage parents is help them? offer the support they need to keep their own life on track so they can still finish education and get a decent job and offer the support they need to bring up their child if they don't stay with their partner. don't just put money in their bank every week and expect them to do an amazing job (while slating them for living on benefits) teach and help teenage parents how to further their lives and help them progress so they can provide their child with a good upbringing and put them on track to having a good life them self!
Speak to you all soon
xx
