Flap over terminology could deflect attention from the real issues
When the Gloucester High School principal told Time that his school's pregnancy boom was due to a "pact" between 7 or 8 pregnant girls to raise their babies together, he couldn't have known how explosive the idea would prove.
As media converged on the town in the following days, Gloucester found itself the center of decidedly unwelcome attention. On Monday the town's Mayor finally held a press conference denying the existence of a pact and sparking a media discussion about reporting ethics. Reporters, it has been said, shouldn't have repeated the principal's comments without verifying them as fact.
Gloucester may now rest in peace. Attention has been successfully deflected from the real issue and thrown onto the school principal and the reporters who publicized his remark.
No one is denying some of the pregnancies were intentional. (The principal never claimed all of the school's 18 current pregnancies were planned). So whether the mothers who did plan their pregnancies shared a pact, a tacit agreement, or a mere common intention is worthy of very little discussion. When you're high-fiving each other for positive test results, you're implying awareness of each other's hopes. And mutual congratulation is not the response one would ordinarily expect from teens whose lives have just been changed so drastically.
In any case, the questions remain the same—and they are important not to shame anyone or blame anyone—but to learn from the past and shape the future. The most important questions raised by the evidently intentional nature of some of these pregnancies would be: Why would a fifteen- or sixteen-year-old girl with the whole world before her not be horrified to find herself pregnant and tied to an uncertain future—not only for herself but also for her child? What could be missing in a young teen's life that would suggest to her that becoming a single mother at such an age was an exciting option?
This fact also remains the same: for those (however many there may have been) who intentionally chose pregnancy, (pact or no pact) the fact that they would have had to travel 20 miles for confidential birth control was not the underlying problem. When a woman is trying to get pregnant, she doesn't use birth control even if she finds it lying conveniently under her pillow.
What is the underlying problem then? Some have suggested that perhaps as a society we fail to educate our children about the responsibilities of parenthood. Others characterize such statements as 'blame and shame' tactics. Is it blaming and shaming to search objectively for answers that may help reduce what is certainly a situation that is not healthy for communities? If so, as a society our hands are tied. No solution to any problem can ever be proposed for fear someone may end up feeling blamed or shamed because of a suggestion that their behavior may need to change.
Where have we gotten the idea that it is shameful to admit we have room for change and growth, whether as individuals or communities? Is it not more shameful to become so complacent that we see no need to make course corrections as we navigate these issues?
In my high school classes, the pregnant moms are all aglow before, but shell-shocked after, the birth of their child. I haven't had a single one of them recommend the experience afterwards. Even so, many of the other girls envy them. I try, within the constraints of district policy, to help the girls find the self-esteem to want more of a future than such early parenthood ensures them, but it is an uphill battle.
