Teenage Father's

Having a child when you are still considered a child yourself can be very overwhelming.  Let’s face it, women carry the physical aspect of childbearing entirely.  When a woman becomes pregnant, they can feel and sense their body changing, which in turn helps them be more nurturing when the baby actually arrives.  On the other hand, teenage fathers do not undergo physical changes in preparing for their child’s birth.  My belief is that since teen fathers are not the ones physically going through the changes, the reality of a baby does not set in until the baby is actually born.  Furthermore, when a child is actually born, the teen father is more than likely not mentally mature enough to comprehend; therefore it takes longer for them to actually realize the need to take responsibility for their actions. 

There are not many guys out there that really think about the consequences of having sex.  The term, “men think with their penis instead of their head,” really hits on this because a lot of guys, especially in their teen years, are looking for the physical aspect of sex rather than the commitment and emotional aspects.

Because teen fathers are not physically tied to their child, they are more likely to run away from it when things get hard.  In reality, it is more common to see a single mom than a single dad.  I have seen happily married couples that have children and their lives gets hectic very quick.  Raising a baby is a lot of work, and teenage boys are looking for their next girlfriend, or concentrated on their weekend drinking activities, or sports games.  The last thing a teenage boy thinks about is taking on the responsibility for another human being. 

In this video clip, the reporter asks the boy what he plans to do financially, and his response is “what is financially?”  This just proves that children do not have the mental capacity to effectively raise another child. 

Do you think MTV’s Teen Mom or 16 and Pregnant gives an accurate depiction of modern teenage Fathers? Or do you disagree and think a teenage father will step up to the plate and take on the responsibilities of raising a child no matter the situation?

Amanda Armfield

Pregnancy Pact

I'm sure many of you have heard of the pregnancy pact made at a public high school in Massachusetts, or maybe you have just heard of the Lifetime movie The Pregnancy Pact. Either way, the story is disturbing and raises a lot of concern. The actual high school that the pact was made at (Gloucester High School) offers a clinic to get pregnancy tests and a free daycare for teen mothers to use while they are attending class. Here is an article to read to learn more about what exactly happened at the school and what issues began to rise when the spike in pregnancies happened:
http://www.time.com/world/article/0,8599,1815845,00.html

Do you think the high school (and other schools) should stop sex education after freshman year? Do you think an on-site daycare encourages teenage pregnancies? What do you think schools can do to discourage the intentional and wanted pregnancies in teens? Will offering birth control help this issue? It seems to be more an issue of the girls being uninformed of how hard it actually is to be a young mother than the availability of birth control.

We talked a lot about sexuality this week. Do you think the movie Juno encourages sexual activity as a young teen? Maybe all of the movies (and TV shows) about young moms are glamorizing teen pregnancy a little too much. Here is a video with another perspective on why teens are wanting to get pregnant instead of hoping they won't.

Jessie Pietroburgo

Legit Sex Ed.

As of 2007, the birth rate of sexually active 15-19-year-olds in the U.S. was almost ten times that of the Netherlands. Also, contraceptive use among the same group was nearly six times higher in the Netherlands than in the U.S., which is falling far behind other modern nations in contraceptive use as seen in this graph.

A crucial factor in whether or not teens use contraceptives is if they are taught how to get them and how to use them. This is where sexual education comes into play. The easiest way to teach teens the information they need to know to make intelligent decisions pertaining to sex is to teach it in schools so that they are required to learn it. Unfortunately, many Americans oppose education related to contraceptives because they think that teens will use them to have crazy sex all the time. That or they have religious views that tell them that it is not okay to have sex before marriage, so teaching how to have sex in a safe way would be wrong. Here's a video briefly explaining the debate in the U.S. over how schools should teach sexual education.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyqqndsHPEM

In contrast, the Netherlands has a much more informative sexual education program which not only teaches teens how to use contraceptives, but also tells them how to deal with difficult sexual situations and feelings. It's amazing how far a little useful knowledge will go. This video on sexual education in Holland shows sexual education as a normal, informative, and shameless process where children are encouraged to ask questions and, as far as I can tell, are given all the necessary resources to make informed sexual decisions.

http://www.teachers.tv/videos/holland-sex-education-2

In Holland, as pointed out in the video, not only is sex a less taboo topic in school, but it also seems to be talked about more at home between children and their parents.

With such a stark contrast between the teen birth rates of the U.S. and the Netherlands, when will the U.S. finally reform its public sexual education system to teach children what they need to know to make healthy decisions? When will the U.S. take a more modern view on sex as a nation? Sex is a natural part of life, and trying to contain teen's raging hormones instead of equipping them to make safe decisions hasn't worked in the past.

-Ryan Cuscaden

Representation and the media

In cross cultural journalism, we learned how ad companies can appeal to an audience and send the same message with different pictures depending on who the audience is. Marketers create ads to trigger a certain emotional reaction in people, so they must use a certain representation to appeal to different groups. However, it's important to distinguish the message sent as an advertising strategy, not the message the makers stand behind, as illustrated in the Dove v Axe controversy. While the makers of Dove were hailing themselves accepting of all women in their true beauty campaign, ax, owned by the same people, featured sexy models, adhering them to sexist stereotypes and physical idolization.

Look at these two campaigns:

Dove Ad Campiagn:  http://thesituationist.files.wordpress.com/2007/10/dove-models-real-beauty.jpg

Axe Campaign:  http://blog.lib.umn.edu/raim0007/gwss3307_fall2007/axe.jpg

How does this company represent itself?