Teen Pregnancy And Television

According to Professor David Paton, all the sex education in the world hasn't cut into the teen pregnancy rate.

It's a serious issue, given the fact that most teen mothers are more likely to end up in poverty, and their fatherless children more likely to end up in trouble.

Historically, teens got pregnant, but there was usually a shotgun nearby and that took care of the problem of the child having a father to provide for it. If mom and dad were miserable together, well, that was the consequence of their actions.

But Professor Paton is interested in finding a way to prevent teen pregnancy in the first place, to avoid either the modern option or the historical disaster.

Using data from his home base in England, Mr. Paton has determined that teen pregnancy rates peaked in 1996 and coincided with a big push by the British national health care service to warn the kiddies about the dangers of unprotected sex.

Since then, he's found a decline, but he can't put a a finger on the reason.

Groups that promote sex education and contraception providers all insist that he hasn't taken his study out enough years, because these initiatives take time. That means they're worried that his findings might have merit and they'll lose their funding from a government that's looking for expenses to pare, and if a program ain't working, it's gone.

Both sides are wrong.

The recent drop in teen pregnancy is because of MTV.

Hey kids, want to know what it's really like to have a baby at sixteen? How about watching a couple of seasons of Sixteen and Pregnant?

Think you'll take home that bundle of joy and it will be all happy and sweet and loving? For your viewing pleasure, try Teen Mom.

Forget classroom instruction and abstinence lectures. The teen pregnancy rate is falling these past few years, and those years coincide with MTV's presentations of real life with real teens that any teen could relate to.

Sit the students down in front of a television and instead of a lecture, let them hear the words of girls who believed the baby daddy would be there to change a diaper or mind the infant, only to find that he's AWOL. Watch the fights, the cruel words, the exhaustion, the frustration and the regret.

Now if someone would just run a statistical analysis and the family planning groups could request additional funds to obtain the DVDs......