So it’s no secret that I love junk TV. I think it started with Trading Spaces, and since then I’ve been hooked. Extreme Couponing? I’m all over that. 19 Kids and Counting? Please, I remember when they only had 16. And don’t think I didn’t watch Sister Wives, for the purely anthropological analysis of modern day polygyny of course.
So several months ago, I was at my in-laws house and my sister-in-law was watching this show called “Teen Mom.” Apparently there was a show on MTV that showed teenage girls navigating the new world of parenthood and messy relationships, all while texting simultaneously. It was some of the lowest of the low in reality TV. I was hooked.
When we got back home, I didn’t tune into the show regularly, but if it was on while I was browsing through the channels, I would stop and watch. It was just too easy to laugh at. Overly dramatic breakups, petty screaming fights with parents, new boyfriends/girlfriends while the kid was still in diapers.
http://media.mtvnservices.com/mgid:uma:video:mtv.com:644438
Last night, John and I caught the last twenty minutes of an episode. A young girl had just given birth to two darling boys. They showed her parents crying as she gave the boys their father’s last name, a decision I never understood. If I had babies out of wedlock, they’d have my last name until I had the dad’s last name. Just saying.
Within a day of bringing the babies home, the boyfriend got in a huge fight with the girl’s parents and left. A few days later, the new mom and dad are driving down the road with the two matching car seats in the back. The couple begins to fight, and the girl breaks up with him and demands that he take her home.
You know what he does then?
Pulls over and demands that she gets out of the car. He then leaves her stranded on the side of the road in the rain, and speeds off down the road.
My heart broke.
The next clip is of her yelling at the car saying something along the lines of “I’m calling the cops!! That’s kidnapping!” (Note to anyone who might find themselves in this situation: yes it is. Call the cops.)
She calls her mom instead to come pick her up. In the meantime, the boyfriend returns to leave the kids on the side of the road with her, perhaps aware of the jail time for kidnapping. Her mom shows up, and there is all sorts of yelling and pushing. It was not a pretty sight. The cops show up and arrest the dad, though the mom decides not to press charges.
What sort of father leaves his newborn children on the side of the road?
It gave me a new appreciation for the show Teen Moms. Not because it’s cinema at its finest, groundbreaking journalism, or really even something that I think should be filmed. But it shows with honesty the pain and the complexity of the lives of these women. Sure, we can judge. We can think “well, if the parents had been around…” or “why didn’t they just use a condom?” But that doesn’t do anyone any good.
You always hear that teenage parents are ostracized because people are worried that if they befriend them, they condone their behavior, and in our post-puritanical society that wouldn’t be acceptable. But we never have an excuse not to love somebody, not to care for somebody, not to accept somebody.
Seeing those babies on the side of the road broke my heart. (This is twice in a week that I’ve posted about babies. Just FYI, there is no bun in the oven. There isn’t even dough rising on the counter. Heck, we haven’t even bought the flour).
Today, I picked up a shift at the family transitional housing facility the organization I work for runs. Last time I worked here was back in December. Fun fact – it was snowing then too, just like it is today. A couple with a little baby stopped by to ask if we had a place to stay. It was my job to tell them that because we were a transitional facility, we had no emergency shelter. They were more than welcome to fill out an application, but it would likely be a few months before they could get in. I gave them directions to the homeless shelter downtown and told them it doesn’t allow children to spend the night. The only advice I had was to call the police, which they had already tried. So they left.
It was about a week before Christmas, and I had just turned this new little family out back into the cold. Just like the innkeeper, I thought.
It’s so easy to turn people away. To think, “it’s okay if I judge them, they shouldn’t have gotten themselves into that mess anyway.” But there’s no need for that.
I remember when I was stuck in San Antonio the summer after my volunteer year (long story) at kept watching Teen Mom marathons in my hotel. All the girls on the show reminded me of the clients I had been working to help in St. Louis. I hope a couple teenagers who watch this show decide to make better life choices than the ones they see there.
PS That dough rising on the counter line cracked me up.
What a wonderful and thoughtful post! I completely agree with you – no one should judge teen moms. I wish there were more services for young people in need. I used to work at a crisis line for runaway and homeless youth finding shelters for youth in need so I can really relate to your experience of having to turn people away. It is such a heart breaking situation
One of the things that really strikes me about this show is that most of the teen parents had an obvious lack of knowledge about birth control. I wish there was less of an emphasis on abstinence only education and more of an emphasis on having safe sex. I could go on and on about this because it is an issue I care deeply about, but I’ll stop myself from rambling. Thanks for the wonderful post!
I feel like teaching teens about birth control only encourages abstinence. “Wait, so I have to chart my period? Use a condom? Go on a prescription? And that’s only how effective? Um, too much work, I’ll just sit it out.” I think we need to be realistic about the idea that sex isn’t all glamorous, and waiting isn’t exactly easy either.
I do feel like teenagers just shouldn’t have sex, period. Not even so much cause of the pregnancy risk, but think of those first relationships in high school end. It’s usually an ugly sight. I want to be honest with my kids that breakups after sex make things way more complicated. And that pregnancy is always a possibility. You know how you always hear “is this the person you want to be having breakfast with when you’re 50?” when people talk about getting married? I think a way more important question is “is this someone you are willing to raise a kid with? Is this someone who would be willing to pay child support? etc” before we jump in the sack!
I don’t watch any of those reality shows, I so tire of bad behavior, adults and children alike. I do know that pregnancy outside marriage always has happened and always will but I think many parents have found teaching their children through their own actions and the lens of God too demanding so they hand their kids birth control. I also think that people fail to realize that there is a difference between discernment and judgement. God gives us the right to discern bad behavior, just not judge the person behaving badly.
Shame is now something that is not practiced in our society anymore and shame was a big deterent to premarital sex. I don’t have answers to the questions to solve the issue but I do believe we enable children with day care in our schools for teenage mothers, baby showers thrown by family to “celebrate” the birth of a baby to a child and on and on.
I think the issue is a huge one and there are answers to a lot of it and those answers start at home with the parents. But as I see in my own family this issue first hand, most people don’t want to be hindered by the shackels of morals and values, hence the problem. No solutions will be found until we all accept our responsibilities in our own lives to lead by example.
Thanks for your thoughts!
I don’t think that we are enabling kids, mainly because I don’t think having daycare or not is a factor that goes into whether teens decide to have sex or not (I mean it should be, but I just don’t think it is). I think providing things like daycare, baby showers, etc. is helping to provide a good life for the child who had no say in the matter. If I have a daughter or son who has a baby while in high school, I will definitely plan on helping them out with daycare, or finding daycare, and celebrating the new life of a baby. I want to respect their decision to have the baby and not focus on the mistake of getting pregnant. I can’t really picture any good coming of shaming a child.
I do agree that focusing on our own actions and responsibilities is the most important thing we can do.