The Secret Life of the American Teenager

[mothwing]

Lessons learned from the show:

1. If you have unprotected sex, you WILL get pregnant.

2. If you have protected sex, you WILL get pregnant.
3. If you use condoms, they WILL break.
4. If you are on the pill AND use a condom AND have lots of sex, you WILL get pregnant.
5. Girls don't know what masturbation is until they're fifteen.
6. Having an abortion at fifteen is a HORRIBLE HORRIBLE THING.
7. Having a baby at fifteen will make you SO HAPPY. 
8. Being a teenage mother will totally unite your fighting parents AND attract lots of cute guys! 
9. Women belong into the kitchen because they're just GOOD at it.
10. Having a baby at fifteen means your friends will be dying to spend more time with you.   
11. Divorce is WRONG and you WILL get back together. And the best thing about this: you'll have another child! 
12. You cannot keep a secret in High School, EVERYBODY KNOWS EVERYTHING.
13. Teenage dudes will fight tooth and nail to keep their children and get custody, so don't worry, you won't end up raising the kid alone. 
14. It is less likely for people to have a baby if they are married adults taking the same steps to avoid pregancy as teenagers. 
15. If you sleep around a lot before you have a child, your child will be a stillborn preemie. 

Who is funding this show?

I suppose it's good that there is a show that focuses on how having a baby at fifteen is NOT the end of the world and that there are teenage boys who really enjoy fatherhood, but seriously? Having an abortion at fifteen is fine, too, if you don't feel you can handle the responsibility of raising a child just yet and want to focus on, you know, not being a child yourself. 

In the real worlds, babies are not magical plot devices who can fix everything that's wrong in your life story. 

Comments

[dstroyrofworlds.livejournal.com]

There is such a show at all?

[mothwing.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, there is. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_Life_of_the_American_Teenager)

[dstroyrofworlds.livejournal.com]

Oh well. Hopefully most people who watched that only watched it but did not 'learn' anything from it.

[dstroyrofworlds.livejournal.com]

Additionally: I find the points 7, 8, 10 and 13 very dangerous.
The other points are dangerous and bullshit too but, well, quite obviously so and are a matter of values and morals and such. Even if you believe in them, you usually have already heard that there are other points of view.
However, as I have noticed amongst friends who have kids, hardly anybody thinks about what happens to friendships or their own relationship beforehand, no matter if the child was planed or not. And suddenly the young parents wonder what might have happened that could have changed their world so dramaticly that they hardly see their friends anymore or hardly ever go out or that they never hear from the father/mother of the child or, if they are together, why the other person is not so keen on looking after the little one as one expected them to be. And, some find out, that being happy with a child does not rule out that it's also quite boring, straining and frustrating.

These are issues that have to be taken as seriously as questions of abortion etc. because they concern everyday matters, no matter what values one's got.
A TV show that tells you that a child is the grand solution to (excuse my being so gruff) problems originally 'caused' by it's birth AND maybe even problems that already existed before is not only nutters, it is dangerous.

[mothwing.livejournal.com]

I agree, it is VERY dangerous, especially for the very young target audience. IDGI, either, do they WANT teenaged parents? The syrupy harmony of the scenarios in spite of all the conflicts makes drives me crazy. They gloss over every problem, too. Sure, we HEAR that the teenage father has to get a job and work after school, but do we ever see him struggle with the stress? No. He quite happily gets a job, works with a pal, has a wacky and likeable boss, no stress. We HEAR the teenage mother complaining about never getting to do anything with her friends, which, at the time in the series, is perplexing, because she hangs out with her friends every day and doesn't seem to have any such problems.

However, as I have noticed amongst friends who have kids, hardly anybody thinks about what happens to friendships or their own relationship beforehand, no matter if the child was planed or not.
I noticed the same trend. Also, people tend to arrange things in such a way that you wind up with two mentally and physically exhausted, tired parents because both sleep where they can hear the baby. I read about couples taking turns co-sleeping in a separate room, and that works, too, why not do that?

In the series? We rarely ever see the very real and the very annoying parts of parenting. It's all carrying a perfectly well-behaved, cute baby around for short trips to the car or to a stroller while everybody lights up at his or her sight.

Babies fix everything.

[cranky--crocus.livejournal.com]

The only one I find to be true is 12. But that may also be because I went to a high school of probably 600, staff and animals included.

[mothwing.livejournal.com]

12 MAY be true, but I doubt that if my "best friends" were two people who told EVERYTHING I told them in strictest confidence to everybody they ever met, we'd soon cease to be friends at all. Not so the heroine of this show, she's all wide-eyed and wondering, "However did you find out about THAT?? NO ONE KNEW!!!".

[rizardofoz.livejournal.com]

Wow, and what planet does this play take place?

[mothwing.livejournal.com]

Awesome, isn't it? And it gets worse, too - the baby the person who was ~sleeping around~ had was stillborn. She didn't do anything wrong, but WHO KNOWS. Again with the horrible, horrible consequences of having sex as a teenager. It's sickening.

[andelendir.livejournal.com]

If this squicks you, you might want to read some Sarah Dessen (there condoms break on first ever sex, the boy gets killed the next day and the girl gets pregnant, or the thought of having sex alone causes car crashes), Judy Blume, Daria Snadowsky (HS love never lasts, keep your virginity for when you marry), David Belbin (all men are pigs, all teachers are potential child groomers, older men want sex only, if you are a week due you don't test, you assume you are pregnant even if intelligent) or Kody Keplinger (sex is not exactly a good idea, or a weapon against men, 15 year-olds all talk and think like sarcastic centenarians).

I have yet to read any halfway recent YA novel which is even close to positive about youths and sex. The tables have irretrievably turned, we are already quite deep into a new age of puritanism and sexual repression and it won't leave us any time soon. It goes to tell that one of the best ever visually driven books on sex education for children and youths these days is considered being childporn. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Show_Me!)

BTW, #5 is not out of the world at all. There are girls who still believe that they can't get pregnant when they do it standing up, loads of girls who enter (and leave) college still virginal, and not exactly few who know so little about their own anatomy, that they try (and do!) insert tampons anally or into their urethra. Talk to any British A & E surgeon, or a few of the nurses of sex education centres, or read up on scarleteen.com.