Schools Can Help To Prevent Teen Pregnancy example essay topic

Even though teenage pregnancy keeps increase with a rate of multiplying factor, the responsible companies (parents, schools, professionals, government... ) didn't seem to have any solution that can stop, or at least reduce the rate of that epidemic. In the early 1970's the phrase "teen pregnancy" was just not part of the public lexicon. By 1978, however, a dozen articles per year were being published on the topic; by the mid-1980's the number had increased to two dozen; and by 1990 there were more than two hundred, including cover stories in both Time and Newsweek. (Kristin Luker, Constructing an Epidemic, Dialogues (656). Everybody in the nation can see and criticize that, but how many of them, including parents and the professionals pay enough attention to find out why it getting worse year after year, and who's at fault?

Answering that question is not an easy task. It need time and a lot of researches to somewhat satisfy the quest. First, let's take a look at the parents who, in my opinion, have the biggest responsibility for that problem. Most parents, including my spouse, and myself hesitated to teach or discuss about sex with their children. They didn't really know when it will be the appropriate time for that matter.

Especially in my country, sex before the wedding was unacceptable and having children out of wedlock was punished as a criminal (before 1950). The bride and the groom, most of the time, never know each other until the wedding day. All the matching was arranged by parents and sometimes by matchmaker. The procedure prolonged through many traditional steps and required a lot of conditions before the wedding day. With that heir from my ancestors mixed up with the freedom in the United States, I myself didn't know how to handle that matter properly.

We kept waiting for our kids to be old enough to talk about sex until it too late: we got a grand-child out of expectation; our son just turned 21 and his girl friend was only 19. This problem could be prevented if I know Kathy Sylvester's article Teenage Pregnancy: A Preventable Calamity, Dialogues (650) two years earlier. She said: "Now we must pay attention to the lives of real people and acknowledge our urgent and compelling national interest in preventing pregnancies by young women unprepared to be mothers. To do that, we must change both the culture of acceptance and the context in which teenagers make decisions about sex and childbearing. Only then can we begin to arrest the trend". Secondly, the teens themselves were lacking of sex education at school too.

As Martha Balash pointed out in Schools Can Help to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, Dialogues (133), she said: "The causes of teen pregnancy are numerous, but I feel that a major cause is a lack of education, not only for teens, but also for adults and parents as well. Teens are misinformed about many aspects of sex. They are not taught the importance of abstaining from sex nor, at the very least, the proper use of effective birth control and protection from sexual transmitted diseases". I totally agreed with her theory; I didn't really know what to tell my kids about sex; instead I scold them for knowing it too soon to avoid discussing that matter with them.

Just like Martha Balash wrote: "What makes this problem even worse is that often the adults who interact with teenagers are no better informed than the teens. They avoid discussing sexual issues with teens because they don't know what to advise or because they are uncomfortable with the subject. These adults need to be educated about correct information about sexual matters and about the importance of their role in their children's education. I think that the public schools could develop programs and services to help make this happen". (133).

Another thing we needed to discuss here was the parents didn't spend enough time with their kids due to too much work. The lifestyle in the United Stated forced both parents must go to work in order to have a better living. That meant less time to take care of the children. Everybody knew teens got a lot of questions and stresses from school, from friends... They wish to have their parents pay more attention to their lives. They wanted to share with their dads and moms what made them happy; what bothered them, and even their love lives.

But how many of us pay enough attention to these needs? We have good excuses to shut them down: "Let's talk about it later" or "I'm too tired to listen to your problem right now" or "Get help from somebody else; I don't have time". These kinds of reactions will widen the open trench between parents and children; and pushed the teens out of their reaches. Martha said: "It is essential for parents to remain involved in their children's lives throughout childhood and adolescence. Children need to know what their parents expect of them and how their parents feel about sex and dating". (134) Adding to these problems are overwhelming sex appeals on televisions, movies and even in commercial advertisements.

Children spent too much time in front of a TV set than any other things; they have seen sexual and violent behaviors on television countless time. These images would imprint in their innocent minds and without help and education, they would imitate these experiences as soon as they have good chances. They wouldn't feel guilty because they thought it would be OK that's why adults did it on televisions and movies! Therefore, we " re the parents can help to decrease the rate of teenage pregnancy by control the programs and times that allow children to watch television.

Moreover, wrote to producers or broadcast network administrators to ask them to cut or reduce the sexual scenes in the films and on the TV. Anyway, not all the parents and teens agreed with me, some of the young fathers have their own reason to have children at young age: "I don't want to be an eighty years old man to attend my first born graduated from high school". Some other said: "Hey man, you " re living in America, not in Viet Nam under the yoke of communism. Remember I can do whatever I want here as long as it's legal".

What can I say? Also due to freedom in America, early pregnancy is a good way to get out of the parents' control house. Some teens couldn't stand their conservative parents about almost anything; they just want to fly away in their own sky without any limits. They didn't care if they lost their virginity at the early age; they just followed their instincts and their satisfactory sex life without any hesitation and worrying about the consequences. This kind of freedom will bring them to poverty and lacking of education for whole their lives. Laziness also is a great factor in early childbearing.

Most of teenage moms lived on welfare; that's a good way to get money from the government. Some of them even plan the time line so they can have long run taxpayers' money without doing anything. Let's see what Martha talked about this situation: "Teenagers who became pregnant and have children are placing themselves at a high risk for dropping out of school and living in poverty on public assistance (Rolling and Burnett 142). This is a problem that affects us all, not just the individual teen mother and her family. The Center for Population Options reports that "53 percent of outlays for Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), food stamps, and Medicaid are attributable to households begun by teen births" (Sylvester). (133) For all the information we gathered above, the teenage pregnancy epidemic or calamity can be contained by cooperating between parents, teens themselves and all responsible companies to derive a strategy that can educate parents and children to understand more about sexuality through public schools and colleges.

Parents need to spend more time and be good and understanding friends to their teens; give them advices and supports to help them get through the adolescence without any incident in their sex lives. In addition, the government should take more action in controlling the moneys flowing through programs (like AFDC, food stamps, Medicaid... ) so that no one can take advantage and understand that these aids just for emergency only and not for prolong period.

Bibliography

Martha, Balash. "Schools Can Help to Prevent Teen Pregnancy" Dialogues. Ed. Gary Goshgarian, Kathleen Krueger and Janet Barnett Minc. Menlo Park, CA: Longman, 2000.
132-134. Kristin, Luker. "Constructing an Epidemic" Dialogues. Ed. Menlo Park, CA: Longman, 2000.
655-660. Kathy, Sylvester. "Teenage Pregnancy: A preventable Calamity" Dialogues. Ed. Menlo Park, CA: Longman, 2000.