Pregnancy should not be mistaken as a trend
By: Amicia Ramsey
-Staff Writer-
Becoming a single mother is the hottest new trend this season. Young women across the nation are trading in their Prada bags for diaper bags, stilettos for baby strollers, highlights for stretch marks, and dream cars for minivans.
Teenage girls are dying to sport the new look. The “baby on the hip” fashion statement is a growing popular trend among today’s youth.
Fashion experts like MTV’s “Teen Mom” are persuading girls to be the hottest mothers on the block. To achieve the latest “teen mom” role successfully, the directions are as follows: it is strongly suggested that pregnancy be unplanned; the parents, ideally, should not have graduated from college; and for the final touch, a teen must follow a strict fashion-sense diet.
The media idolize young women on shows like “Teen Mom” and ”Teen Mom 2” as celebrities. These so-called “role models” are put in the spotlight to make pregnancy look trendy.
Lets take a look at the reality. According to Hollywood Gossip, MTV’s “Teen Mom” Amber Portwood admitted she was not a good mother. Portwood appeared at a child protective custody hearing in late January 2011 and admitted she’s been an “unfit mom” to her daughter Leah, 2.
People fail to realize that when the cameras stop rolling, parenting isn’t as glamorous as it seems in an hour long clip. Pregnancy is very real and this trend has turned into a growing epidemic.
Reality star, fashionista and media socialite Kim Kardashin also falls ill to the idea of young pregnancy becoming a trend. After seeing a headline about a high school in Memphis, Tenn. that had over 90 students pregnant in one school year alone, she tweeted to inform her fans that being pregnant at a young age is nothing to aspire to be.
Onhttp://kimkardashian.celebuzz.com, she said, “Having a baby is one of the biggest, and most life-changing decisions a person can make and while I’m not saying that no teen is in the position to raise a child, having a baby so young shouldn’t be seen as the trendy thing to do.”
While MTV reality stars like Amber Portwood earn a whopping $280,000 a year, the reality is that the current state of our economy leaves most people living from paycheck to paycheck and deep in debt just to survive.
Young women need to be informed that they will be required to make ends meet and be held accountable for another life besides their own. Girls that take the initiative to take care of their responsibilities are making their first step towards motherhood, but without proper education, there is a very slim possibility of finding a job that pays well with good benefits.
According to The National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, one-third of teenage mothers have a high school diploma.
Even though it is easy to point the finger at the media, they are not all to blame. Young women are accountable for their own actions. This is not to condemn anyone, but more seriously to draw attention to the issues that babies are having babies.
It is safe to say that some young women have been hurt in their life one way or another. There may be a case of sexual molestation, absent mother or bad run-ins with their father, neglect, and a number of other reasons to contribute to such decision-making, but it just seems as if some young girls are getting pregnant because they want to feel needed, wanted and loved.
There is probably a young woman out there right now thinking, “If I have a baby, there will finally be someone in this world that loves me for me.” There is nothing wrong with pouring love into the heart of a child, but if it is under the wrong circumstances, then it is not a good idea. A young woman with an unstable life can not expect to see different results just because a child is brought into her world. She can expect her life to become even more unstable.
It is sad to think that young women are having kids to keep men around. They figure if they have a man’s baby, then they are entitled to the man as well. Many women are naive enough to believe just because a man says, “I love you” that it is okay to have a baby with him. He might not even be fit to have a child but young women looking to be loved get caught up in their emotions. All of a sudden a young teenager is stuck with a baby and there is no man to be found but possibly a teenage boy. There are plenty of single mothers who can testify to the tails of a deadbeat father.
To add to it, a lot of women get pregnant for a meal ticket. That’s when women are exploiting their pregnancy to benefit from welfare, child support checks and tax claims.
According to http://www.familyfirstaid.org, “The United States has the highest rates of teen pregnancy and births in the western industrialized world. Teen pregnancy costs the United States at least $7 billion annually.”
Very realistically, women have the potential for life. Choices for pregnancy should depend on how prepared a woman is to care for another life.
