A Lesson Not Learned: Teen Pregnancies | Teen Ink

A Lesson Not Learned: Teen Pregnancies

September 30, 2013
By Beautiful GOLD, Houston, Texas
Beautiful GOLD, Houston, Texas
19 articles 0 photos 8 comments

Favorite Quote:
"You betta recognize, cause I ain't apologizin'."
"If you wanna be with me, you betta pull your pants up."


Bobbi Thomas is a 15-year-old teenage girl, who had a dream of becoming the state of Arizona’s best prosecutor. On the night of her birthday, her boyfriend took her out on a date to celebrate her 16th birthday. A few days later, Bobbi started feeling really sick and she noticed that her craving for food had gotten stronger. Her best friend, Jessica Douglas, had noticed how Bobbi’s been acting lately. One day during lunch, Jessica and Bobbi went into the bathroom, gave Bobbi a pregnancy test, told her it was just a precaution, and pushed Bobbi into a stall, telling her to check and make sure that nothing is wrong. Five minutes later, Bobbi came out the stall and ran to hug her best friend, crying her eyes out and tossed the pregnancy test in the sink. Jessica looked, while trying to calm down Bobbi, and saw that the pregnancy test was positive!

Situations like these are very frightening to teenage girls around the ages of 15-18 years old. It’s normal for a married couple to have a baby because of the fact that they both have a job and they have a house where they can raise their child or children. But for a teenage girl to get pregnant, is not a really good thing because they don’t have a job, they still live with their parents, not only that, but they are still in school. When a teenage girl gets pregnant, she had to walk through school campus looking like she is about to pop. What’s even worse for the teenage girl—and studies have shown—that the guy that has gotten them pregnant won’t even help to take care of the baby. Without a job and no help from the baby’s father, the teenage girl is so embarrassed because she has to walk everywhere with another human being inside of her for nine months. The problem with teenage girls getting pregnant—another topic that studies have shown—is that teenage girls are getting pregnant for attention. They don’t feel loved by their family, they want to be popular, or because they think that if they get pregnant by the guy that “loves” them, they will get closer to them. But according to statistics, the man that has gotten the teenage girl pregnant, abandon the mother of their soon-to-be-child or simply give them money to have an abortion. Even if it’s really wise to get married at such a young age?

Another situation that happens to be worse for a pregnant teen, is the fact that they feel so embarrassed because of how big their stomach’s are getting. Not only that, but as they are walking around school, there will be one teacher who has to report that pregnant teen to the social worker, and that pregnant teen may be transferred to a high school for other pregnant teens just like them. But that teen has a choice: either stay at the high school they go to or go to the high school for pregnant teens just like them. Studies have shown that a majority of those pregnant teens choose to get transferred to a different school where there are other girls like them because then they will feel as if they are not alone in this world.

Nevertheless, but one of the main things that the pregnant teen has to give up; is their dreams. There are so many teenage girls who dream of being doctors, lawyers, firefighters, teachers, and some of them even dream of being the first woman President of the United States; then all of a sudden, BOOM!!! they are pregnant.

Another main probably for them is money. They don’t understand how much it costs to have a baby. Here is a chart for what the pregnant teen has to buy and how much it will cost her to pay for everything:
Item
Cost

Prenatal Care
$2,000
30-day supply of prenatal vitamin
$15
Maternity clothes
Free
Crib
$200
A box of 400 wipes
$10
A box of 250 diapers
$40
Monitor
$25
Changing table and pad
$125
Baby clothes
Free
Car seat
$125
Childbirth classes
$200
Hospital costs
$15,000
Total:
$17,740

A very good example of a teenager who regrets having sex and getting pregnant is Amy from The American Life of a Teenage Girl. In this very popular teenage show, Amy gets pregnant but she is still in high school. It took her a while to figure out how to tell her parents that she was pregnant and how to convince herself that everything was going to be all right and that things will go back to normal after she has the baby. Not only that, but throughout the first episode or two, she’s having self-conflict as to whether or not have the baby or just the baby up for adoption. Then on top of that, she’s been having self-conflict about whether she should be with the guy who got her pregnant or should she be with another guy who, says that he loves her with a passion and that he wants to help her take care of the baby and make the baby his own child just so that he can help take care o f her.

This basically happens to most pregnant teenage girls in real life. They get pregnant by one person, but they find somebody else who volunteers to help them take care of the baby that’s about to come. But then they end up having problems with that person that promised to take care of them, because of the fact that they have to spend so much time changing the baby’s diaper, feeding the baby, and then making sure that the baby and the family have enough food in the house to eat so that they won’t starve to death. Then both the mother and the boyfriend that volunteered to help, have to get a job so that they can pay for a babysitter for whenever they want to go out and money for whenever the baby gets sick and they don’t have the proper medicine that they need in order the cure the baby’s sickness.

Now, back to Bobbi Thomas, she is now 17 years old, and her baby just turned one. Her parents are doing what they can to help their daughter out with the baby and her boyfriend has been staying with her and keeping up a good job in order to help take care of his child. Now, Bobbi and I want to implore you, if you are thinking about having sex, make sure that you have protection. Not just the guy you want to have sex with, but make sure that you are protected as well. We would also want to implore the girls and boys that you need to really think about the consequences of what would happen if you had to raise a child. Do you think you are really ready for that? Do you have the money? Do you have a job? Think before you act!!!!!



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