Teenage pregnancy: Your thoughts?

Reducing the symptoms doesn't cure the disease. And if the pseudo-solution stops working, then you've let the problem entrench itself, and things can potentially wind up worse than ever. The underlying problem with using welfare to help people who mess up of their own accord is that it sends the message that it's okay to do stupid, irresponsible things because taxpayers or charities will always be there to support them. The pragmatic thing to do, if a part of society is seen as disagreeable, ranges from outright prohibition to non-intervention, depending on your philosophical view on the role of government and the freedom of the individual. It is never, ever pragmatic, by definition, to encourage something that you don't like.

edited 6th Sep '11 10:27:33 AM by ekuseruekuseru

You have a good point, and I agree that it is inherently impractical to encourage things you don't like, but I don't think that prohibition is a viable option, because there would be too many people involved to actually enforce it.

If a part of society has gotten so large and destructive that it needs to be prohibited, it usually has already become so widespread as to be impossible to remove; and to prohibit a lesser evil would be seen as a violation of rights by most people. But that's just my personal view, and your mileage may vary.

edited 6th Sep '11 10:38:47 AM by AlirozTheConfused

I'm opposed to all pregnancy, especially the pregnancies of people inadequately prepared to provide children a reasonable quality of life.

The fact that you think that not supporting people who have a hard life will somehow either help them raise themselves up, or trim the useless out of the population speaks volumes of how little you actually understand people and society.

People have a remarkable ability to avoid death by any means, so leaving people without support from society might lead to a lot of people starving, it would turn the survivors to crime. Which I assume from your attitude, you must have some ingenious plan for, too.

A perfect human society can not exist. Period. Doesn't mean any means to allievieate the non-perfect solution should be cut

Still, we shouldn't be fostering teenage pregnancy.

Today, the behaviour towards this societal problem is that it is viewed as "cool" and "courageous" to be 16 years old and "live like a real woman".

I don't know how big the problem is where you live, all I know is that, where I live, companies have cashed in on it as a way to promote baby showers, baby products and all these things so that teenage mothers can become active consumers. Because, when you come down to it, the two segments of population that generate the most consumerism are teenagers and babies.

Teenagers because we all want to identify ourselves to a group of persons, to transgress what our parents forbid us to do (cigarettes, alcohol, weed...) and wear as much "cool" stuff as we think will pass us off as "cool", "rebels" or whatever stuff we want to convey.

Babies because babies change constantly and always need new clothes, new toys and all that until they enter school.

You do the maths.

Penn and Teller's opinion is relevant here.

I don't think that teen pregnancy is cool. I don't think it's "cool" at any point in life. It is a hard, hard thing, probably the hardest chore that humans can choose, or not choose, to participate in. The problem is, that raising a child to be healthy and happy is a lifelong commitment. Sex is not.

Perhaps we could give the benefit of the doubt that Teen Mom will show young ladies what it's like to try to raise a kid young, and also what happens when you choose a loser for your mate.

On the contrary, I believe Teen Mom encourages young women to be mother at 14, 15 or 16 years old by showing that this behaviour is acceptable.

We'll never get rid of teenage pregnancy but since when has it become the general consensus that teenagers are mature and experienced enough to raise a baby and make it into a reasonable, fully-functional human being? Not to mention, the sheer number of said mothers proclaiming just how PROUD they are of being teenage mothers.

How come has it become something to be proud of, an achievement in an of itself?

Out of curiosity, have you actually watched the series? One episode I saw had one of the mom's kicked out from her parent's place, a broken relationship with one of the baby's father, and general drama.

Doesn't matter apparently.

There exist a creed that anything that is made to be a TV show is always believed to be "cool enough" to be on TV. Plus, it didn't stop many teenies from saying something like "well this won't happen to me, even if I do get pregnant". Or, worse still, "well it takes a very courageous girl to get pregnant at that age, I'm so gonna be like her!".

No matter what you do, there will still be people stupid enough to reproduce what is on TV, even if the message was clearly Do Not Try This at Home. People, especially teenagers, always emulate what they believe is "cool".

Which explains partly why this issue is still one.

"speaks volumes of how little you actually understand people and society."

No personal attacks, please.

"it would turn the survivors to crime. Which I assume from your attitude, you must have some ingenious plan for, too."

The solution to crime is law enforcement. Messing your own life up through deliberate action, and not having other peoples' money to help you, is not an excuse to break the law, and criminals are criminals. Pretty simple solution, isn't it?

"A perfect human society can not exist. Period. Doesn't mean any means to allievieate the non-perfect solution should be cut"

The closest to a "perfect society", for any given society, is that society which can most sustainably be, at any given point in time. An unsustainable society will inevitably collapse, and unsustainable behaviours bring about an unsustainable society. Welfare is, necessarily, allowing for unsustainable behaviour, and for basic compassionate reasons like severe disability, disaster relief, and undesired joblessness, it is usually understandable, but if the majority moral judgement is against a behaviour, and that behaviour is unsustainable, even when society as a whole can afford the costs of sustaining this behaviour through welfare, the majority moral opposition to such payments makes them unsustainable. Welfare to support teen-pregnancy is unsustainable and therefore not conducive to a sustainable, and that is "approaching perfect", society.

^ I'm not sure I'm following you—are you actually saying that teen pregnancy will cause the collapse of society?

Pretty much. His last paragraph, boiled down to three simple sentences:

• Unsustainable behaviors lead to social collapse.
• A behavior held to be immoral by the majority is automatically unsustainable, even if it would normally be financially sustainable via welfare.
• Supporting teenage pregnancy via welfare is unsustainable for some undefined reason.

The implication seems to be that the majority finds supporting teen pregnancy via welfare to be immoral welfare is immoral. My response? Statistics please Give me a break.

edited 7th Sep '11 4:24:58 PM by TotemicHero

I don't think that's what it means.

It's not "immoral" but it's not the best way to fight it. As someone already said, it's not because you can mother a child at age 14 that you should do it.

On second read-through, you're right. He's just bashing welfare in general.

Edited my original post.

edited 7th Sep '11 4:24:19 PM by TotemicHero

To try to argue with Alrune: sooner or later, that teenage mother will grow up, and if possible, we should try to make her into a contributing member of society. The same goes for her kid. I don't know to what degree welfare makes the mother more likely to contribute, but I would think a kid would be more likely to contribute if he or she grew up in a stable environment. (Not that I have any statistics, mind you . . .)

Though we're also promoting the behavior ("it's ok because the government pays you if it happens, so obviously it's a good thing"), as well. It's a catch-22...

I think you just said something brilliant there. No really, I do.

Maybe we could use your words and ask a teenage mother: "How do you think you're contributing to society by being pregnant so early?" or something as "Do you believe yourself a role model for teens everywhere?"

Because it sure looks like most of these smug, uneducated, pretentious teenage moms consider themselves as role models nowadays...

I'm not bashing welfare. I'm saying, generally, that (democratic) society (being defined by the majority) will not support something deemed by the majority unfit for support, whether or not it is financially able to offer that support. The solutions to this are to withdraw support, or to reshape the views of the majority. I would think the dilemma here is now pretty obvious. In order to deal with this particular issue in a sustainable way (and therefore in a way which benefits society), you must either convince people that teenage pregnancy is acceptable, or else bring an end to welfare in support of teenage mothers. I had, earlier, dismissed the former as preposterous, but it seems that that caused some misunderstanding, so I hope I've cleared things up.

I'd also correct your summary of my view:

Unsustainable behaviours tend to naturally disappear as they cannot sustain themselves. Deliberately sustaining them by means of external support can result in other unsustainable behaviours, and if these are enforced by law, will detract from society.

Teenage pregnancy is an unsustainable behaviour (or else there wouldn't be a call for welfare) when taken in isolation.

When considered accounted for by welfare, teenage pregnancy becomes a financially sustainable behaviour.

If the majority of taxpayers (or more perhaps the payers of the majority of taxes) are morally opposed to the financially unsustainable behaviour that is being made sustainable through use of their money, the welfare scheme in question is morally unsustainable.

It seems to me, from observations, that the majority are morally opposed to teenage pregnancy. Therefore, welfare support for it is morally unsustainable. Therefore, welfare support for it is unacceptable. Without welfare support for it, the behaviour is financially unsustainable. Therefore, lack of financial intervention will naturally result in teenage pregnancy rates decreasing, and so society is let to define itself.

edited 8th Sep '11 7:10:38 AM by ekuseruekuseru

Alrune, it would be nice to see you acknowledge when your points have been debunked. Or at least provide actual facts to back up your rhetoric. This entire thread is based on a false premise and has only gone down from there.

Assuming that absence of financial support is going to reduce teenage pregnancies seems to me to be rather ignoring the fact that kind of teenagers who get pregnant in the first place are unlikely to be the sort to have thought ahead enough to worry about their finances in the event they get pregnant.

Can I know what exactly you're talking about? Is it such a bad thing for me to voice my opinions? I started this thread so i could know other tropers' opinion on the subject and maybe gain some info.

Why so hostile?

Oh, and about "proving my rhetoric" I could easily link to articles confirming my thesis but

a/I'm no American so what applies to my country might not apply to yours.

b/Most of the articles I read are written in my mother language. I gave many links to such articles in the thread about "hatred" between Europe and the US but since not so many people in here read French, I don't think it helps much.

c/What "points" are you talking about exactly?

edited 8th Sep '11 2:54:21 PM by Alrune

That, and teenagers got pregnant before the creation of any sort of social security system. Moreso, in fact.

A teenage mother without support will probably just get a job, which means they won't have time to be there for the baby as much. Which leads to kids going astray. This leads to more and more problems in the future. Welfare in the case of families with young children is primarily for the children, who can't and shouldn't nbe held responsible for their parents. So much as one can consider it "a problem", it's not one that can be solved with just cutting the lifeline.

@alrune: Show me some proof that Teen Mom has caused some epidemic of kids getting pregnant because "it's cool and on MTV", and kindly explain to me why today is somehow different from the decades previous when stories of teen mothers were no less prominent.

[ed.] On the faulty premise of this thread.

This statement is false. Not true. Opposite of fact.

edited 8th Sep '11 2:57:14 PM by JethroQWalrustitty

The reason I'm saying Teen Mom fosters teenage pregnancy is because of what I can read on the You Tube comments of the clips of the shows which are brimming with girls saying just how much they relate to the Teen Mom. Now, I understand that the reason there may be so many comments of Teenage Mothers is because of the nature of the show so it may not hold water as whether or not it sparked an "outbreak or teenage pregnancies".

But more seriously, I've been talking a lot with a lot of teenage mothers on You Tube and most of them do not accept any criticism or any questioning of their attitude, and proclaim themselves as proud to be teenage moms. I could give you the links to these many arguments but do you read French?

Opposite of fact in the US? Possibly. I don't look at the US figures for they do not concern me. In your country? Probably. I don't know either about Finland since I don't live there.

In my country? It's true. And another article that confirms this.

edited 8th Sep '11 3:22:53 PM by Alrune

Youtube comments are a rather unreliable source, to say the least. Even with thousands of them, they would be entirely anecdotal evidence and completely untrustworthy.

I'll take stats over youtube comments any day, and at least in America, teen pregnancies are decreasing. http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2011/04/05/teen-pregnancy-rate-lowest-in-two-decades/

edited 8th Sep '11 3:19:12 PM by YoungMachete