Yesterday I showed you the first of this semester’s Sex in the Media projects – and now here is the second! As part of their Sex in the Media project, my students often investigate how teen parents are represented in the media. It’s a mixed bag, frankly, with sometimes glassy-eyed-approval of the beauty and sweetness […]
Archives for teen parenting
On deviancy and teenage pregnancy
We have some old friends staying with us right now with their granddaughter, who is almost one year old. We’ll call our friends the Sullivans, their daughter Hannah, and their granddaughter Beth. Here is the startling story of the Beth’s birth: Hannah was 18, and a senior in high school. The Sullivans thought she might […]
Teenagers who…want to have a baby…WTF??
Yes, Virginia, there ARE teenagers who want to have a baby. Yesterday Mommy B sent me to this story about Gloucester High, where the fad last year was to try and get pregnant. Is this a new trend? Nope. Is it surprising? Maybe, if you haven’t been paying attention. And will the school’s attempts to […]
Books for Pregnant/Parenting Teens
Last week I wrote about a book for pregnant teens, and said I wish I had something iron clad to recommend instead. I’ve thought about that over the ensuing week, and realized that while I don’t have one single book to recommend, I do have several that when put together I think might cover all […]
Hope…Joy (and a Few Little Thoughts) for Pregnant Teens
Rachel Brignoni set out to write a book to help pregnant teenagers and teenage mothers think through what they want in life and then go out and get it. And she stayed true to that goal throughout this little blue-covered book. I really like Brignoni’s premise, her goal. Pregnant and parening teenagers need all the […]
Biology
(Written by guest blogger Wendy Harlowe.) First, again, please feel free to e-mail me privately at wendyharlowe@gmail.com if you don’t want to post comments here. I look forward to hearing from you. I’ve been gratified by the response to my first post, including comments and private e-mail correspondence. (Over the years I’ve worried about being […]
On teenage moms
I have been thinking a lot recently about teenage moms. I wasn’t a teenage mom myself – I was 21 when I got pregnant – but I looked like a teenager, and was often treated like a teenage mom. In other words, strangers felt they could make derisive comments about (a) my assumed inability to […]
Your questions, my answers! (Part 2)
(Written by guest blogger JustAnotherTeen.) “You seem very open, honest, and liberal, but you depict your parents as fairly rigid and conservative. How much do you think your parents impacted who you are and how did they do that? I like the person you present yourself as and I sense that you like yourself as […]
My review of Juno
I loved Juno. I thought it was a smart, interesting, and real portrayal of teenage pregnancy. What struck me as surprising was that Juno is really a movie for adults about a teenager. It’s more common to see movies about teenagers for teenagers. There are plenty of positive, even rave reviews of Juno. Mostly the praise centers around fully-formed portrayals […]
Britney Spears’s sister’s teenage pregnancy
So Jamie Lynn Spears is pregnant. At sixteen. She announced this apparently news-worthy information through OK! Magazine, and everyone from the Huffington Post to MTV feels compelled to weigh in on this one. So, I figured, why not me too? I mean, this is clearly the biggest teenage sex scandal of 2007 (given how close […]
