Comments on: The Pregnant Teenage Girl Club

By: Jenni

Jenni — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 22:14:32 +0000

“if they anchor their self worth in looks, designer clothes, popularity, friends, or “young love” what is going to happen to them when those things go away? Believe me they will go away!”

- great line - I’m totally there with you.

I’m mixed on the parent thing. Yes, as parents we do need to teach our kids a lot of stuff. But now that I have a 13 year old, I’m finding that it’s very difficult to talk about anything — especially when it has to do with sex.

I got so frustrated at being shut down that I enrolled my teen in a comprehensive sexuality class at the Unitarian Church. She didn’t want to go, but I took a cue from some of the parents and said, “Hey, you can go to the class, or you can learn it from me” — she chose to go to the class.

My current view is that as a parent, you have a very limited time to really affect what your kid does or doesn’t do — and by the teens it’s generally too late. Not to say that teens learn nothing from parents, just that you have no idea what they’ve learned from you in those years until well into their adult years, and by then the feedback is too late.

I think we need to work on kids from all angles: at home, at school, church if you have one, and trying to give your kids good opportunities to find peers that will have a positive effect (very hard to manage, and still a crapshoot).

By: Dignin

Dignin — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 15:06:09 +0000

I somewhat disagree with Rachel Lucas when she says, “I’m judging the parents, too, though not so much. Even the most well intentioned parents can’t control everything their kid does, particularly in this day and age, but still, it would have been nice of them to teach their daughters some damn sense.”
I think that the parents are perhaps the most at fault in this case, or at least as at fault as the girls themselves. I can’t pretend that 17 girls were taught good moral values in their homes and felt love and acceptance from their parents and yet decided to throw all of that teaching, love, and acceptance aside to be so reckless and stupid. I agree Jeremy, even when teaching correct principles there are no guarantees, however with correct principles taught from home I believe the odds would have been far better that there would have been less girls so willing to be stupid.
A friend of mine with a house full of five daughters taught me something very important yesterday about all kids. He said that he has strived very hard throughout his years as a parent to teach his girls that they need to anchor their self worth in something immovable. I won’t get into what he considers to be immovable but he made a good point by saying, “if they anchor their self worth in looks, designer clothes, popularity, friends, or “young love” what is going to happen to them when those things go away? Believe me they will go away!” Why have we as a society forgotten to teach our children where to find their own personal self worth?
Jenni, I agree with you completely, I felt the same way as a young LDS missionary. I had been told all of my life about the great things that can happen on a mission but everyone forgot to tell me that it would be the hardest, most lonely days of my life as well as the best! I was a little underprepared for that. I also felt the same way about being a father myself. But I do agree with you that in today’s society I think girls get misled a lot worse then boys do!

By: jasonthe

jasonthe — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 06:02:56 +0000

Possibly the most poignant quote I have ever read on a blog in that link:

I think everyone has completely lost touch with some of the positive effects of ostracizing people who do stupid, dangerous things.

By: cody

cody — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 01:41:35 +0000

Jenni,

Agreed.
Couldn’t have said it better.

By: Jeremy Manning

Jeremy Manning — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 22:23:59 +0000

Jenni,

I agree. This is a topic I’m very mindful of as I have three daughters who need to be taught the correct principles that will help them understand how to make sure things go well…even then…there are rarely any guarantees.

By: Jenni

Jenni — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 22:01:18 +0000

As a society we’ve really failed girls — we keep talking about how wonderful motherhood it and then we wonder why some people could be so naiive. If we were more honest, we would say that motherhood is not only one of the hardest things a woman can do, but it’s only wonderful when things go well and more often than not things don’t go well (especially in the teen years).