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?

[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.

[rizardofoz.livejournal.com]

Wow, and what planet does this play take place?

[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.