Prom Babies... what a stupid, stupid life choice
JoeUser Forums
The Dear Abby column of the last several days touched upon a topic that I can only describe as a cross between ridicuously stupid and horrifying at the same time.
In certain circles it seems that there is now a life goal and plan for high school females to use their prom nights to be *the night* that they go out and get themselves 'knocked up' so they can experience the great thrill in life that is becoming mother of a 'Prom baby.'
For the original Dear Abby story, which I found some links to by googling around for 'dear abby prom baby', try this source: Houston Chronicle: Dear Abby Girls avoid college pressure with 'prom baby'
If you read the original question and Abby's answer, then you realize just how crazy this issue is. Young women, natch, young girls, are going out to their proms with the express intention of turning that night into the night that they put themselves well on the way to becoming a mother. Why? Because they are apparently too afraid of the pressures of going to college and continuing their education, and/or because they see life as a young mother as much more fun and fulfilling to them than life as a college student.
They don't think about what can come of the young man's (again, natch, the boy's) life. They don't think about the potential STDs they could contract. They don't think about HPV (which is discussed somewhat in Gideon's MacLeish's latest article here: Texas Legislature Does the Right Thing; Perry Caves). They don't think about what having a baby does to a woman's body. What the health issues are along the way for both mother and child. Nor what it may cost to raise the child throughout it's own life.
Nope, they are thinking of one thing. One goal. Eye on the prize. Get yourself knocked up by the end of prom night. Get that little bun in the oven so that college is no longer on the horizon.
What a screwed up generation we are producing. How can parents be letting this stuff happen? How indeed?
I can give you a big *clue* as to how -- they are letting it happen because they don't communicate with their children, and they've abdicated the role of a parent back to the state via public school education (or private school education for that matter). They haven't talked with their children about what the children want from life. What their goals are. About taking breaks from the pressures they've been under. They've just ignored the issue, assumed that someone else had it covered, and forgotten about it until it was too late and until they hear about things like 'prom babies' and they wake up to find that they are too late to do anything to stop their children from making what could be the biggest mistake of their young life.
I know I spoke up in Gid's article defending the state a bit, which seems counter and possibly hypocritical in view of my comments here, but that is not the case. I spoke about the state perhaps being right to require HPV vaccinations for school aged girls, and mentioned that it's because parents don't talk to their children about issues of a sexual nature. They don't counsel them in advance to help keep them from facing problems in their lives.
Perhaps it is because they fear talking about such things, perhaps it is because they are ignorant of such things themselves and don't want to be caught proving their ignorance to their children. Perhaps they really strongly believe that their child isn't one of the statistics we read about every day. Who knows for sure, but stories like the Dear Abby discussion referenced above should help show that we do have problems that *someone* has to be involved in fixing and helping to prevent. If not the parents, then most certainly the state, because if we don't stop it before it's reached epidemic proportions and critical mass/following, it'll be adding a huge burden to the benefit and entitlement stucture that is Welfare, Aid for Families with Dependent Children, Medicare and the likes thereof.
Once that happens then I will most certainly be crying foul over the mis-use of *my* tax money to pay for things that could have been prevented along the way if only a few parents didn't object on their own stubborn grounds or because of their own ignorance of what is going on with children today.
go on with his life as normal and maybe throw a few hours and a bit of cash at the baby every so often.