16 and Pregnant

My sister and I have this addiction to Lifetime movies.  We can't get enough.  It's kind of sad, really, but try as we might to fight this addiction we keep getting sucked back in.  Awhile back I literally went months without watching anything on Lifetime, and then the network came out with "The Fab Five: The Texas Cheerleader Scandal", and that was it for me.  One year as a joke, I bought my sister a classic Lifetime Movie titled "16 and Pregnant".  Some of you may have seen it, a sordid tale of teen pregnancy and the effects it has on the young mother and her family.  Kirsten Dunst gives a stellar performance as Tina, the young soon-to-be-mother whose loser of a boyfriend knocks her up then ditches her for a less fat girl, leaving Tina and her family to raise the baby.  I'm telling you, this is drama at its best.

Okay, but all joking aside, I think we are all aware of how big an issue teen pregnancy has become in this day and age.  I'm not an expert, I don't have a huge number of statistics to throw out for you....although I did see a report the other day that noted teen pregnancy was once again on the rise after several years of decline.  Overall I think it's sad that we now are accepting teen pregnancy as "just one of those things."  It's no longer taboo, in fact in a lot of places it's more or less the norm.  I think there are a lot of tangents that go along with discussing teen pregnancy, such as the involvement of schools, parents, and even the lack of morals seen in a lot of today's youths.    

Which leads me to the bulk of this post.  In keeping with the theme of guilty TV pleasures, I will admit that from time to time I find myself indulging in the somewhat new MTV series titled......16 and Pregnant!  I'm sure the title to this show gives it away.  MTV follows around a 16 year old girl during her final weeks of pregnancy, highlights her relationship with the baby's dad and her own family, then shows a bit of the aftermath in what happens after the baby is born.  I can't always stand to watch this show.  Especially the one where the 16 year old girl AND her mother were pregnant at the same time.  Nope, sorry, just couldn't go there.  Here's the deal kids.  I have many beefs with MTV and not just because of the fact that they hardly showcase music anymore.  But does a show like this help to make a case against teenage pregnancy, or is the network in a sense glorifying it?

True enough, movies just like the one I described above are produced all the time showcasing teenage pregnancy.  But I feel like on a network like MTV, a network that is frequented by teens probably more than any other audience, maybe a show like this is a little dangerous.  I realize that most kids today are probably not so desperate to get on TV that they would go out and get knocked up....but isn't that kind of the message MTV is sending?  And while I haven't yet seen an episode that could be deemed "happy," and while almost every girl on the show ends up saying she wishes she had never gotten pregnant, isn't there something kind of screwed up in the fact that MTV needs pregnant teens to apply to be on this show, meaning that they actually need people that young to get pregnant? 

I could be reading too much into this.  And if any of you out there have seen the show, maybe you feel that in some sort of reverse-psychology way MTV is actually trying to tell teens that having a baby that young is just not cool.  But I just cannot get behind the notion of putting these girls on TV for thousands of people (including me, at times) to gawk at.  It almost seems obscene.  But I guess this is where reality TV has gotten us.  It's not enough that we simply know the statistics on teen pregnancy and recognize that it's a growing problem, now we have to watch these young, immature girls experience it firsthand.  

Maybe there isn't a right or wrong answer to this pondering.  And maybe the fact that 1/3 of all girls in the United States will get pregnant during their teenage years means that a silly reality show is the least of our worries (thanks for the stat, Google).  But is the show just that, a silly reality show?  Is there something wrong with the fact that we are turning these soon-to-be mothers into nothing more than an hour of entertainment value?  These days everything eventually gets made into a "reality" show, but I just can't quite get behind the enjoyment of watching two young, immature kids, talk about how excited they are to have a baby, and how they plan on being wonderful parents.  Some people are calling this show a wake up call.  I think it's just sad.