Pregnancy: A New Issue or an Old Problem

Lately there has been nation wide coverage on the teen parenting dilemma namely at Frazier High School located in North Memphis.  The news casters address this situation conveniently at the same time as the big battle of merging the Memphis City School and the Shelby County school systems together.  During this fiasco of an ordeal, the issue appears that if you merge both school systems together then the burden of teen pregnancy will affect funding and the reputation of their schools in Shelby County.  There is said to be over 90 pregnant girls out at Frazier alone and the number is rising.

People from all over the world have decided to not only bring light to this situation, but to also pin point a specific school, location, and even stand of living of these vulnerable youth.  Where these city leaders and community voices stating clear facts on this situation or is it merely a situation that is being used as an example to sway the community into identifying what is possibly going to be a problematic issue.  Is the media suggesting that the county schools are going to soon inherit all of these issues and for that very reason they can’t afford to merge the school system or are they trying to find help for these young scholars?

Going out into the school system as a volunteer I have discovered that there has been an enormous amount of people who want to go into the schools to help without first finding out what the needs of these young people are.  For example, you have Girls, Inc going out to the school to offer their service in offering the youth various skills.  Their program teaches young ladies empowerment and abstinence.  My first question to this is what about the young boys and men who are out there at the school and how is abstinence going to be a solution with already sexually active girls that have babies or are currently pregnant.  It will be good if they were planning to collaborate with Planned Parenthood in reference to the reproductive system and sexual transmitted diseases and the like. 

Also, I am Concerned about the negative publicity that has circulated without the straight facts.  Just from volunteering with Memphis City School’s Family Resource Center, namely at Frazier off and on, this is one of four schools that actually accommodate these teen moms.  They actually have a clinic on-site where the moms can actually make appoints to get the baby checked out.  Also, there is childcare nearby where the mothers can drop the babies off and go to class and back home almost stress-free.  This has been an issue obviously for so many years not to mention this is not the only school pregnancy issues.  Not to mention these girls come from all over North Memphis to attend this school for the convenience and acceptance.  There is a school located in Mid-Town Memphis called the Adolescent Parenting Program (APP) which does the same thing and accommodates the teen parents if you can get to it.  It has over 60 young ladies who are either pregnant or have young children who attend.  Several of them have more than one child who attends the childcare program but no one talks about this situation.  The interesting thing about the scholars is that if they are about to graduate, they finish up at APP and then they go to the home school to graduate.  So if it is Frazier then you are counted as a part of their statistics.  Is this a true count of these young individuals?

The entire issue of teen pregnancy needs to be addressed city wide through mandatory curriculum.  This way if students are required to   take this class early on, it may be more beneficial later on with our youth as they know what they are facing in life.  Keep in mind that many of these teens get caught up in situations they are raped, forced incest, or even generation and/or situational prostitution whether it be to feed the family or just plain recreational.  Sometimes sex becomes an everyday time pass.  I have many clients who tell me that they wanted to see how it felt or they just felt like doing “it.”  If this is what they are doing when they have too much time on their hands I can’t imagine some of the other things that they are doing out there that may soon become an epidemic.

Through teaching our youth about sex and many different situations that may surround them like STD’s, rape, and so forth, just maybe the pregnancy numbers may lower at some point.  No one wants to be exposed to illnesses when they know what they look like and after they talk about it repeatedly.

I think that the school system should implement some free extra curricular activities that may be able to reach out to everyone on in some way or another.  Everyone is not actively able to play sports nor is everyone mentally strong enough to participate in debate clubs and the like.  However, by offering clubs and organizations like fraternities, sororities, student government, poetry club, cooking club, along with the band and sports activities it can add a variety of things our scholars can partake in while keeping their minds from unnecessary idling.  I have not forgotten about parental involvement and how it has plummeted downward affecting our youth.  Parents of these scholars are forced to work jobs that have not so convenient hours in efforts to provide for their families.  Of course there are some deadbeat parents but for the ones that are out there doing what they have to do I commend them.  For our youth that are out in the elements fending for themselves the community should be able to offer something positive for them to do instead of telling them what they have done wrong.  We are so quick to point fingers at issues that are not savory, why can’t we use the same energy to find appropriate solutions to current issues other then putting our communities on blast in front of the world?  Maybe the answer will circulate at another time.