Blog Challenge Day 2

Blog Challenge Day 2: Something You Feel Strongly About

     This took me a while to decide on. My default subject was to write about Sex Trafficking because I feel so passionately about that, that I want to dedicate my life to fighting it. However, sometimes that seem to be all I talk about so I wanted to give something else a shot. The next thing I automatically thought about was the current treatment of law enforcement but I also don't feel like I can adequately keep a level head when presenting my case. There are many other things I could discuss abortion, education, guns, religion, etc. Yes, I have strong feelings about all of these things but it's not what I wanted to write about. I'm going to talk about teen pregnancy, at least in a sense. I'm not going to talk about how it's bad and should be prevented. Yes, I think it's a mistake for teenagers to get pregnant. I want to prevent teen pregnancy, and yada yada yada. But, I'm not going to harp on that. I want to talk about what schools should be doing to help pregnant teens and teen moms stay involved in school and help get them to college.
     When I was in the High School my school was one of the highest in the nation for teen pregnancies percentage wise, at least that's what I was told. I don't know if that is accurate, but it sure felt that way. It was not be any stretch of the truth to say that the majority of the girls in my class had a pregnancy scare and some a pregnancy that ended with either a miscarriage, an abortion, or a baby. (Duh those are your options when it comes to being pregnant.) I knew of a lot of girls that had babies and dropped out of school, or had babies and graduated but didn't go to college, etc. I knew of a lot of them. It's always sad, like "awe she dropped out of school bummer." I never really thought about what was actually happening, and then my friend got pregnant.
     For the sake of this blog we will rename her and her boyfriend Abigail and Samuel. In reality I was closer friends with Samuel and Abigail and I became friends by default. Let me tell you this is not one of those stories where she gets pregnant, drops out of school, and her life is ruined. I don't know how she handled college with a baby because I graduated and moved before she did. She did however stay in school and didn't just get by, she participated. She stayed involved. She remained in her clubs, and kicked butt in them I might add. She won competitions. Despite becoming a mother at such a young age she thrived in school. As opposed to many of her peers who, after getting pregnant, let that completely take away their education and experiences. I have never been pregnant and so I don't know how difficult it can be. I do know that a child completely alter and changes your life and honestly, when you're a teenager it isn't exactly a good thing. I imagine being kid and mother is extremely difficult and that is why many teen moms completely drop out of school and lose sight of their bright futures.
     A comment was made to me while I was still in high school in regards to Abigail and it left me speechless out of anger. There was mention of Abigail still participating in various activities that put her in front of a large portion of the student body. The third party member of this conversation said something along the lines of how Abigail should basically be removed from any extra curricular activities and not allowed to participate in such things because it's glorifying teen pregnancy. (Samuel of course was never mentioned as being removed form such activities...but whatever.) I was so angry. Glorifying teen pregnancy?!? Yes because every girl watched her hobble out onto the field, visibly miserable, three times her normal size, struggling to carry an instrument, and thought, "I want that!" No, no one thought that.
     Again, I am not encouraging teens to go out and get pregnant. I'm not. I am saying that these activities were the only thing Abigail had in the midst of this that made her stay involved and want to continue her education. She was already facing a huge life altering thing, something that set her apart from her responsibility free peers. Kicking her out of extracurricular activities would have humiliated her and ostracized her even more. Very probably would have pushed her to drop out or decide since high school was so difficult college and anything more than a minimum wage job. How many other girls had dropped out because they were ostracized just like third party person was suggesting should be done with Abigail.
     This blog doesn't provide any real solutions and isn't very well put together and eloquent but it is something I feel strongly about. I think when teenagers make a mistake and end up becoming parents we shouldn't shun them and make it harder for them to do things we should encourage them and help them. Heck, put those pregnant girls in the school play and let them march across the field with a trumpet. Babysit so those dads can play football or sing in the choir, whatever. Yes make them take responsibility and stay home with the baby when they used to go out, but there's a balance. I think we should do what it takes to make these kids stay engaged and reach their potential despite what happened and not discount them because of it. Maybe if we would get over the initial shock and disappointment of what happened and focused on the fact that they need help and support to move forward and then provide it we would see things in society as a whole begin to change for the better.