Pregnancy Rate Astounding at Chicago High School
Imagine your daughter and her seven friends came over and you knew that one of them would definitely be pregnant. If your daughter went to Robeson High School in Chicago, this would be the case: of 800 girls, 115 of them are pregnant or have had a child. The one in seven rate is astounding, and there are hundreds of factors that may contribute to the school's pregnancy numbers.
These factors include a lack of access to sexual health education and pregnancy prevention and a lack of access to reproductive health resources. The school's students are largely from poor communities of color where teenage pregnancies can be high. The Principal of Robeson adds that absentee fathers may also be a factor.
At least Robeson is a school in which young women are not being thrown out or transferred to other schools. Principal Morrow notes, "We're looking at how we can get them to the next phase, how can we still get them thinking about graduation?"
So often we may be quick to blame or judge the pregnant girls in the situation, their parents, or other individuals.
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I don't understand all the talk about increased spending on pregnancy prevention education: "if you have unprotected intercourse, you stand a good chance of becoming pregnant". Is that so hard to teach? Does that require significant public funding? Haven't kids learned that from their parents by the time they are able to reproduce? I mean really, we're talking about a 1 minute conversation here.
I would suggest the problem is much deeper. More likely factors are young women whose maternal instincts are kicking in too early and they haven't been educated IN GENERAL enough yet, leaving them stupid enough to think they are capable of raising a child. Or more stupidity in the vein of not taking the risks seriously. And of course the fathers brushing off the risk since they know they can pretty much just walk away unscathed (as opposed to being required to contribute and participate heavily, rightfully sharing the mammoth task of raising a child).
Took the words right out of my mouth.
No, they haven't learned from their parents. Most of their parents aren't around. Very middle-class white thing of you to say though...
There you have it, the solution. Just get these kids to buddy up with a middle-class white role model and the problem is solved.
Coming from the mouth of an apparent racist...