The Baby Blues

binky says:

Interesting article, but I don’t get baby blues…shrugs…yes I do want children when I am ready for it and do gush over the little cute things for babies but why stress and make yourself miserable over something you don’t have yet, there are plenty of things you can do to cure your blues such as volunteer and working with children such as big brother or big sister programs, after school programs, at a foster care, etc. to curb your urge to mother something. There is no such thing as perfect timing to have a child, because we are not perfect people, all you can do is get into the right situation that allows you to be ready for said bundle of joy because waiting on prefection is stupid because it never comes things and circumstances can always happen.

As for the debate with family and marriage….um…I think it is a situation of to each there own. There are plenty of different family structures that work and benefits the child without harming them in anyway but giving them a proper upbringing and raising ranging from traditonal families, extended families, single parent families, gay and lesbian famiileis, etc., not everybody is traditional with mom, dad, children, dog and cat, yes being traditional with an nuclear family would be IDEAL in a perfect world but let’s be honest with the times we are living in everything don’t work out perfectly or pan out that way for x, y or z reasons mostly due to lack of education on things like birth control, commitment between two individuals and emphasis on child rearing and raising (NOT just making a baby). Personally, if I don’t get married and when I’ am at a point in my life where I want to be a mother than I would adopt a child and I don’t feel like I would be doing the child a disservice because I don’t have a hubby yet…shrugs…

Beef Bacon says:

Statistics: Abstinence
54% of high school students are virgins.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2002). Youth risk behavior surveillance.

58% on teens surveyed recently said sexual activity for high school-age teens is not acceptable, even if precautions are taken against pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.
National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy. (2000). The Cautious Generation? Teens Tell Us About Sex, Virginity, and “The Talk”. Washington, DC: Author.

82% of teens desire to have one marriage partner for life.
Barna Research, 1998

63 percent of teens who have had sexual intercourse said they wish they had waited.
National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy. (2000). Not Just Another Thing to Do: Teens Talk About Sex, Regret, and the Influence of Their Parents. Washington, DC: Author.

87% of teens do not think it is embarrassing for teens to say that they are virgins.
National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy. (2000). The cautious generation? Teens tell us about sex, virginity and “the talk.” Washington, DC: Author.

Beef Bacon says:

Maybe putting some numbers to this conversation will help. Mathematical thinking can not be argued with. 2+2=4. You do the math.

Children with involved Fathers are more confident, better able to deal with frustration, better able to gain independence and their own identity, more likely to mature into compassionate adults, more likely to have a high self esteem, more sociable, more secure as infants, less likely to show signs of depression, less likely to commit suicide, more empathetic, boys have been shown to be less aggressive and adolescent girls are less likely to engage in sex.

63% of teen suicides come from fatherless homes. That’s 5 times the national average.
SOURCE: U.S. Dept of Health

90% of all runaways and homeless children are from fatherless homes. That’s 32 times the national average.

80% of rapists with anger problems come from fatherless homes. 14 times the national average.
SOURCE: Justice and Behavior

85% of children with behavioral problems come from fatherless homes. 20 times the national average.
SOURCE: Center for Disease Control

71% of all high school dropouts come from fatherless homes. 9 times the national average.
SOURCE: National Principals Association Report

75% of all adolescent patients in chemical abuse centers come from fatherless homes. 10 times the national average.
SOURCE: Rainbow’s for all God’s Children

85% of all youths in prison come from fatherless homes. 20 times the national average.
SOURCE: U.S. Dept. of Justice

Daughters of single parents without a Father involved are 53% more likely to marry as teenagers, 711% more likely to have children as teenagers, 164% more likely to have a pre-marital birth and 92% more likely to get divorced themselves.

91% of 701 fathers surveyed by the University of Texas at Austin agreed that there is a “father-absence crisis in America.” What were the 4 major obstacles for fathers to overcome? 1) Work demands 2) The media 3) Pop Culture 4) Finances

Researchers of Columbia University found that children living in two-parent households with a poor relationship with their father are 68% more likely to smoke, drink or use drugs compared to all teens in two-parent households. Moreover, teens in single-mother households fared much worse. They had a 30% higher risk than those in all two-parent households.

“Without two parents, working together as a team, the child has more difficulty learning the combination of empathy, reciprocity, fairness and self-command that people ordinarily take for granted. If the child does not learn this at home, society will have to manage his behavior in some other way. He may have to be rehabilitated, incarcerated, or otherwise restrained. In this case, prisons will substitute for parents.”
SOURCE: Morse, Jennifer Roback. “Parents or Prisons.” Policy Review, 2003

Children with Fathers who are involved are 40% less likely to repeat a grade in school.
SOURCE: National Household Education Survey

Children with Fathers who are involved are 70% less likely to drop out of school.

Children with Fathers who are involved are more likely to get A’s in school.

Children with Fathers who are involved are more likely to enjoy school and engage in extracurricular activities.

Even in high crime neighborhoods, 90% of children from stable 2 parent homes where the Father is involved do not become delinquents.
SOURCE: Development and Psychopathology 1993

Adolescent girls raised in a 2 parent home with involved Fathers are significantly less likely to be sexually active than girls raised without involved Fathers.
SOURCE: Journal of Marriage and Family, 1994

Akai* says:

@Beef Bacon: I find no value in engaging naysayers whose only ‘value’ – in between blazingly insecure and desperate antics i.e. trying to convince others of how educated they are and ‘of a certain class’ *snick* – is to constantly jump in and blab about why X, Y or Z can’t be done; they’re not a part of the solution and the very reason things remain the same.

I’m going to speak from the POV of my age group and younger (hope you don’t mind). It’s not enough to simply tell a teenager “Don’t do it!” without providing practical, workable tools and support to make it feasible. In addition to the things mentioned in my other comment, the dialogue has to go deeper as well as provide realistic suggestions on how to deal in certain situations.

In a lot of these housing complexes, inner cities etc., unfortunately another negative consequence of OOW children and unmarried mothers is a lack of parenting skills. One would be doing good to get some of them to attend PTA meetings, let alone demand accountability, and being ridiculously strict and unmoving is not the business but parents do have to always demand accountability; while I understand it now, back then I thought my parents were the devil and annoying, irritating and aggravating.

Teenagers should have to communicate about where they are, where they’re going, who is going to be there, give an address, deal with parents calling up and speaking to friends’ parents etc…and heaven help if we were not where we said we’d be or with whom we stated.

It’s been said (paraphrasing) “An idle mind is a playground for the devil” and often that’s true. So, it’s important for the girls to explore who they truly are, what they like, don’t like, and explore new interests/hobbies etc. There is so much to learn, see and do – beyond constantly fixating on boys – so regular group get-togethers, activities i.e. sports, dance, designing jewelry, volunteering at the local animal shelter, community service or whatever are crucial.

My first year of undergrad was the first time I’d witnessed people get so wasted to the point of puking, stumbling around, incoherent babbling, and any number of embarrassing and ridiculous antics. It is not a good look and several acquaintances got caught up, so in the group we talk frankly with the girls about how alcohol can make you feel arousal and lowers one’s inhibitions — almost setting a perfect scene for making an irresponsible and bad choice. Another thing is, though some may find it uncomfortable, conversations about self-pleasure or masturbation should also be had with teenagers as, no doubt about it, hormones are running mad wild.

Although the main push is to wait — my cousin’s group is inclusive, realistic, and includes virgins, non-virgins that have decided to wait (recommitment), those committed to celibacy for 1 year (or any timeframe they personally feel is attainable for them) — it’s important to meet each little sister where they are in their lives. One of the girls recently committed to abstinence for 1 year after having been active for 3 and an Auntie simply saying “Keep ya’ legs closed!” would have been useless and trite. What motivated the decision was connecting with her own feelings; we were lounging and making home-made veggie pizzas a while back and she shared how, though she enjoyed parts of it, she’d never ‘reached a peak’ then she got very quiet and started to cry. Through the tears, talk and laughter things became clearer and she realized what she craved was affection and being held but having sex with guys to get those things.

My parents are former hippies (father = moderate conservative, mother = Independent). They always stressed core values yet my mother was also very straightforward when it came time to talk about our maturing bodies and sex. I love love love sex and, though I’m an adult now, she still gets a kick out of mentioning something about sex (nothing inappropriate or vulgar) and seeing me want to crawl under a table to hide, or she does things like tell me I need to go get an “or-ga-siz-em” (her English is a trip) from my hubby if I happen to be a little grouchy.

Anyway, if a healthy and informed decision is made to have sex, cool. However, the hope is they’ll walk away with the strength to never play themselves cheap and just give it away willy nilly on a one night stand, to someone they’re not even in a relationship with and, especially, someone that treats them like crap and with no respect. The goal is for more young girls to begin to know and proudly own the fact that in various situations they’ve the right to be selfish. Selfish, selfish, friggin’ selfish! Selfish about placing the health of their own body first and above that of any partner. Selfish in demanding condom use. Selfish in deeming their own physical pleasure of equal value/importance and never lying there getting nothing out of it while some dude gets his.

Any insinuation that nothing can change simply because the OOW rate steadily rose from around 35% in the 30′s to the current 70% is a defeatist posture to me — and being defeatist, always poo poo’ing reasonable suggestions etc. is the very reason a lot of things never change or get worse. That’s almost like saying even though 80% of AA females are overweight and/or obese and suffering the ill effects in disease and death, nothing can be done about it and the trend can’t be reversed because people gon’ eat…so pass the greasy ribs, mac and cheese.