Military Wives

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1815845,00.html

What do you think?  There seem to be a few different issues brought up in the article.

I think that is a very sad story. It is a shame that all those girls thought there best chance at love was to have a child at age 16.

What jumps out at me is that the only answer they have is to hand out contraceptives in the school. Now don't misunderstand me, I think kids should have access to contraceptives and I know they will not all go to mom or dad and ask for them. I imagine most of them won't. However, it seems to me that the problem at that particular school has nothing to do with a lack of sex education or contraceptives. Those girls wanted to get pregnant. Are they proposing slipping birth control into the girls lunches or something? Sounds to me like they need some sort of support system to help identify kids that are feeling that alone. JMO

Wow, I am speechless...

From the look of things parenting reality classes need to be taught alongside sex-ed and birth control. It is so sad that they have such a distorted view. And while some teen mothers are lucky enough to create a good future for themselves and their babies, it seems most of these girls are headed for minimum wage or welfare dependency.

There's also a question of whether any of the fathers were willing or tricked into it which isn't fair to them. I truly can't imagine a teenaged boy willingly fathering a child, most of them are too self-absorbed.

The final thing that gets me is the birth control issue. If educating on birth control and offering it will help decrease teen pregnancies and give these girls a chance at a better future and to be kids themselves why deny them that? It seems like the school board is encouraging this stuff.

I'm from a small town in New England similar to Gloucester, a little more white collar though, where teen pregnancy was discouraged I can't imagine that going on in a school. I think if I were a parent I would remove my child from school and relocate.

I was saddened/upset by this... I can't believe that there are that many girls out there that think this way.  To think that the only way "someone will love you forever" is to get pregnant.  I think they have a lot of self esteem issues to sort out.  I found it disgusting that many of the girls got pregnant by a homeless 24 year old... I don't know if they told him what they were doing (if they did and he agreed to it that's a whole other issue!).  I don't agree with the school providing birth control - only because the girls are obviously TRYING to get pregnant... do officials think they will actually USE the pill?

I dunno, I just think it's really sad... I think someone needs to shake them.........

It really saddens me that these girls are doing this intentionally.  It seems we have an entire generation of young women in this country who have not been given a sense of self respect or value.  That starts at home.

I'm on the fence about whether birth control should be made available at schools.  In this example it doesn't sound like it would do much good.

I have a friend who volunteers at the crisis pregnancy center.  The majority of pregnancy tests they preform are on teenage girls who are trying to have a baby.  The usual response they give when asked why is either "to have someone to love" or "so my boyfriend won't leave me".  It makes you want to hit them over the head with a two-by-four.

~Allie~