What role do grandparents play?

After reading some of the articles due for today I started to wonder how influential the parents of the teen parents are. In one of the readings it talked about the pressure that mothers of the teen mothers receive when their child is pregnant. These mothers feel like they failed society by their child getting pregnant young. When, they did not have that much control in the situation. I do see that parents do have an impact and their parenting or behaviors can lead to their children adopting that behavior or not. But I don’t know to what extent parents actually can influence their child to do/not do certain things. I think there are so many environmental factors that it is very hard to tell what really allowed or caused children to do drugs, drink, get pregnant, drop out of school, etc. What do you think? Do parents have a clear cut ability to create little angels instead of devils? What other factors do you think play a role in influencing kids in their behavior? The problem is even though there are social influences, parents, mom’s especially, are blamed for their child’s behavior. Mom’s then have to pick up the slack when their children continue to go down a different path. Take Janelle’s mom for example. Now, I haven’t seen all the episodes but correct me if I am wrong she takes custody of the baby since Janelle doesn’t want to become responsible. Do you think that her mom just felt like she had to do that since her daughter didn’t want to? What if she told Janelle that she needed to put the child up for adoption or foster care? Would that have been as acceptable or would that be skipping out of her responsibilities as a grandma? I mean I see her being responsible in the sense that she is totally taking care of the kid, but I would almost tell my daughter she needs to move out of the house if she is going to continue to live an irresponsible life. Because the baby is still going to watch his mom go out and party if she is in the house. What do you think you would do? Don’t get me wrong I don’t think that women should have to be mothers if they don’t want to, but do the responsible thing and choose another option. I mean legally, there are 3 options when a woman/girl gets pregnant. Pregnancy isn’t just some thing that is flippantly thrown around. I know I have been focusing on mothers and daughters mainly but now I want to switch to fathers.

What influence do you think fathers could play in teaching their daughters or sons about pregnancy, sexual health, etc? The hard part from the shows I have watched in 16 & Pregnant most of the dads are absent or don’t saying anything. In the article about fatherhood in South Africa most of the time the fathers, uncles, grandfathers, were there as financial support or negotiating power for damages toward the girls family. This falls into the whole patriarchal standard of financially supporting and nothing else. Similar to what Jennifer Beggs Weber was saying masculinity and fatherhood are dichotomous entities and they don’t work well together. Boys, men, don’t get training on how to be good fathers or what the best thing to do when their partner is pregnant. I would say that masculinity has been so engrained in out culture that good representations of fatherhood are very slowly rising to be visible. But I think there is a lot more progress that needs to be made. What do you think could change to make fatherhood more acceptable? I don’t really know what fathers actually tell their boys about fatherhood but I remember boys in high school saying their dads would say “always wear a condom, because you never know” or when the girl was pregnant “step up be a man”. But what does “step up be a man” even really mean? I still think that men think as long as they financially take care of their child then everything is ok. But people need emotional, physical, financial support when parenting. As the old saying goes “it is the hardest job you will ever have.” Do you think fathers of the young fathers could do better in teaching their boys how to be better dads? Or do you think that society needs to start somewhere else? Do you think more pressure needs to be put on the men of the world to change the difficulty these, grandparents, mothers, etc. have in taking care of these children. Do think that the only way things will change is if more women just simply say “I do not want to take care of this child, you take her/him!” Will men then finally realize how hard parenting is?


Maegen Hahn

Sexually Educated Household or Not?

Every parent is well aware of what sex is. But not all parents go about educating  their children about it growing up so they could be instilled with this information to prevent them from becoming sexually unhealthy and or pregnant. Every household is different and people come from different backgrounds such as a household communicating sex openly or where you have a household who uphold religious morals. In this type of household chances are sex may or may not be discussed because of the morals this particular household value. What type of upbringing did you experience? Was your home open about sex education or did you experience a very religious lifestyle where sex was unacceptable? How or who was your source of becoming sexually educated? Either way having that “sex talk” with your child and or teen still comes off to being one of those awkward conversations some parents still struggle with today.

            Growing up in my household my parents basically spoiled me with any and everything I wanted and now that I think I about it, I think it had something to do with preventing me from thinking about boys. Honestly I have to say it worked. My mom nor dad though still didn’t sit me down and decided to talk to me about til much later in life. This conversation did not come up til my older sister surprisingly became pregnant. I think back now and realize if they could get around the awkwardness and wanted to prepare my sister and I things would have went differently. If my parents discussed all the different types of consequences from having sex and statistics of pregnancy among teens, im sure my sister’s pregnancy may have been prevented. How old were you when your parents decided to have the “talk” with you? How early of age were you when you felt like you wanted to know? If your parents didn’t have a struggle having the sex talk with you at an early age do you find it useful today and or in your teen years?

If you had children how do you think you may go about educating your teen about sex? Would you discuss the various statistics of unhealthy diseases and pregnancy among teens? What type of household or upbringing will you allow your children and or teens to be raised?

Victoria Harrison

An Umbilical Cord's Length in Questions

So, lets lay out the facts.  I'm a white, blonde haired, green eyed, Christian woman.  I haven't been through the troubles of discrimination due to anything except, maybe, occasionally not being allowed to play with the boys growing up.  I didn't have a child at a young age nor do I have any facial deformity that makes people look at me when I'm in a crowd.  Yet, even though I'm so very BLAND I still fit into stereotypes; I'm a daddies girl, say like every other word, love mayonnaise and, like most white people, like to think of myself as unique and a "non-conformist".
So those are the facts.   I'm fine with those stereotypes but I have a HUGE issue when they are directed at other people.  Now let me tell you a story, one of my good friends is black and baby sits for her cousin.  She has baby sat for him since we were 15.  Ever since she started taking him to the park people would give her mean looks or ask how old her son is.  When she would tell them it's her cousin they were genuinely surprised.  I baby sit for kids all the time and I've only had someone give me a weird look probably one time and I've never had someone ask me if they were my kids.
Why do you think as a society we are so quick to jump to the conclusion that because someone is of a different race then just boring the Caucasian they would have a child?  Do your opinions change when you see a young Mexican mother versus a young white mother? Are you less surprised?
Who do you think is more "fit" to raise a child?  Or, does it depend on the person rather than their race?

This brings me to my second topic.  What environment do you typically expect the teenage mother was raised in?  Do you think that a supportive environment is more or less helpful to raise a child?  Jenelle's mother was very supportive taking the child completely out of her daughters care.  Jenelle stop expecting to have any responsibility even when her mom asked for help with Jace.  On the other hand when Kailyn went to talk about schooling in her episode she talked to a fellow teen mother who said her parents had disowned her when she was pregnant but Kailyn's tour guide said it was for the best.  Is there a middle ground where the teen can still be a child but be a parent too?  What would this look like?   How much freedom should the young mother get?
If it was your child who was pregnant what type of support, if any, would you give if able?
As a teen what type of support would you want from your parents? From your friends? From the father? Most importantly what do you expect from yourself? Would you chose to keep the child?

Jean Carr

Dead beat dads and Autonomy

Although we touched on this last week i want to take time to discuss more about the fathers role in a childs life. The present phrase "Dead-beat dad" dates  back as far as during Puritan times. Around this time period it was a complete moral disgrace to have a child out of wedlock, so as a result many fathers denied their children. These children were then seen as illegitimate and bastards. In the Puritan society there was punishments for two people who produced bastard children but mainly for the mother. the result of having a child out of wedlock was hasty forced marriages. This reminds me of the case involving Macy and Ryan except they weren't forced. Why is it that in American society after a girl/woman is pregnant people automatically feel that marriage is the next option?

Although Puritans didn't condone the idea of "dead beat dads" they still existed. According to Luker, women were sometimes forced to tell the names of their child's father because Puritans wanted the man to live up to their responsibilities a father. They did this by inciting a form of modern day child support on them. They would make the father contribute financially to help in the upkeep of the child if a marriage could not be arranged. This is the same thing that court officials mandate in the case when one parent is ordered to help the other by providing monetary contributions.

In my life i am a testament to having a "dead-beat dad" and i would be considered a bastard. This is why this subject is important to me. When speaking of this subject and knowing the background, i wonder how would i be affected if i were living during the Puritan time period. Technically i would belong to no one and would have no kin. How would you feel if you lived back then as a bastard child? What problems do you think bastard/ illegitimate children faced? How do you think this effected the mother?

On to another subject, the most important and controversial issue discussed in chapter 3 of Luker's book was a woman's autonomy over her own body. This also dates back to the early 1900's with the introduction of contraceptives and abortions. The question raised is whether or not all women should have access to contraceptives and abortions. The problem posed was that married women of much wealthier statuses were the ones who took advantage of these options instead of the poor women who were not in a financially stable situations.  How do you feel about married women receiving abortions?This is controversial today because women argue that it is their body and they should be able to do with it as they please, Back in the early 1900's this was a problem because people felt as though the wealthy people weren't reproducing at a rate to replace themselves. This gives me the idea that contraceptives; such as condoms were only legalized for poor women.

In regards to 16 and pregnant, they never mention abortion as even being an option. I think this portrays a false reality to viewers and is deceiving. Today more than half of the people you encounter has had and abortion, and many more contemplate it. Do you think abortions should be just limited to poor people or people of lower economic statuses? Or, should all women be allowed to make a decision to receive and abortion and why? Do you think that contraceptives are being used by teen moms? Or, does the condom really break? What do you think are some ways to alleviate the social problem of teen pregnancy?