What Are the Causes of Teen Pregnancy?

What are the causes of teen pregnancy?

There are many different situations that teenagers get themselves involved in that can lead to teen pregnancy. Many teenagers do not understand the risks that are involved with having sex. Teenagers today are growing up in a culture in which peers, TV and motion pictures, music, and magazines often transmit either covert or overt messages that unmarried sexual relationships (specifically those involving teenagers) are common, accepted, and at times expected, behaviors. To find out what the real causes of teen pregnancy are, I interviewed a few teenagers about their experiences and encounters with pregnancy. If teens were more educated and less influenced by the media teen pregnancy would decrease.

One of the biggest issues in teenage relationships today is trust. The issue is not about the lack of trust but instead too much trust. Many teenage girls tend to trust their boyfriends/sexual partners way too much. I interviewed Kaci and 18 year old college student and she had a lot to say about trust issues.

"My boyfriend Scott and I had not been going out very long but we had known each other for five years. Because we had known each other so long, I completely trusted him. After all he had never really done anything significant enough to break my trust. We started having sex about four months into our relationship, but we always made sure we had a condom because I was not going to have unprotected sex. One night he came over and we started fooling around, almost immediately I got up and grabbed a condom and gave it to him and I thought he had put it on. Then we started fooling around a little bit more and eventually had sex. Later that night after he left I went back in my room and on my bed was sitting and unopened condom. I couldn't believe that we had just had unprotected sex and I didn't even realize it. I thought that I was pregnant and that was the worst feeling that I have ever had. My period was late and for two weeks I thought I was going to have a baby, I didn't know what I was going to do. I decided to go get a pregnancy test and it turned out I was fine and my period started. I haven't talked to Scott since all of this happened and I don't think I will ever talk to him again."

The worst part about relationships like this is most girls eventually will go out with their boyfriends again and trust them all over again and just forget about what happened in the past. Teenage girls need to realize that no matter how much the trust a boy, they can still get pregnant if no protection is used.

Education about responsible sexual behavior and specific, clear information about the consequences of sexual intercourse (including pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, and psychosocial effects) are frequently not offered in the home, at school, or in other community settings. Therefore, much of the "sex education" that adolescents receive filters through misinformed or uninformed peers. Schools used to have projects and programs for the students to participate in to learn how hard it is to take care of a child. I interviewed my friend Jess a 17 year old high school student on what she learned from a school project about taking care of a child.

"When I was in 7th grade we were given a male partner and an egg. The assignment was that each pair of students had to take care of the egg for a week. We had to keep the egg by our side at all times and if we left it anywhere the other groups could steal it. We also had to be very careful with it because it could break so easily. It was one of the hardest assignments that I have ever had to do. I definitely

learned how hard it is to take care of a child and that it requires a lot of responsibility."

If activities like this one were still around today many young teenagers would realize how much time and effort a baby requires and therefore have safer sex.

Today teenagers are trying to grow up way too fast, some even think they are mature enough to have a child, when in reality they have no idea how difficult it is to have a child. There have been many cases where teenage girls lie to their boyfriends and tell them they are on birth control when they really aren't. I interviewed Alyssa, an 18 year old college student, who lied to her boyfriend because she wanted to get pregnant.

"I have always thought that I am more mature for my age, so I decided that I wanted to have a baby. I thought that having a baby would make my life so much better. My boyfriend and I had been going out for about a year and we had been sexually active since the beginning, but I was always on birth control. I decided that I would just stop taking my birth control and not tell my boyfriend and see if I could get pregnant. After a couple of months of having sex without birth control I got pregnant, I decided not to tell anyone for a while. I honestly did not know how my boyfriend would react. After a month a being pregnant I decided to tell my boyfriend, he could not understand why I did such a terrible thing. He said I was trying to ruin his life and then threatened to tell my parents if I didn't get an abortion. Sure enough the next day he told them, my parents flipped out. They were so angry with me and told me I was way too young to be a mother. My parents told me that I had to get an abortion. I was devastated, but my parents made me realize how hard it would be to have a child at such a young age."

Teenage girls need to learn that having a child is a huge deal and their lives will be changed forever. They will have to grow up so fast that they will miss out on the rest of their teenage years and spend most of their time working to provide for their child. Also many teenage mothers never finish school. Teen mothers are less likely to complete high school (only one-third receive a high school diploma) and only 1.5% have