What were the parameters of this relationship? The young lady had dropped out of school and her boyfriend was a 16 year old high school dropout as well. The show's host asked the young lady if she really expected this young man to stick with her after she had the baby and she very confidently stated that she did expect him to do just that!
The backdrop to this entire scenario is the mother of the young lady who brought this to the show host's attention in the first place. She had made many of the same mistakes and had raised the young lady in a single parent family and could see where this young lady was heading.
What was discouraging was that the young lady was pompous and vulgar. She needed instruction so that she could move out of the parent's shadow and see clearly the lifestyle that she was leading was headed for personal and familial disaster.
I like a quote that Gina Stepp chronicles in her article "Teen Pregnancy: The Tangled Web". She is quoting Thomas Hoffman, one of the researchers who compiled a journal entitled, "Adolescence". Education seems to be the seminal ingredient in changing perceptions among teens and young adults regarding pregnancy.
“Sometimes after a teenager experiences one pregnancy, she ends up pregnant again within the next couple of years,” says Hoffman. “And then pregnant again after that—not necessarily marrying the father, or even setting up a household with the father or fathers. So the story isn’t over once a teen gets pregnant the first time. There is still a need for education.” Sometimes, perhaps, parents need to be educated as much as teens.
It appears that parents and teens both need to be educated. My question to parents is, "are we talking to our teens and giving them the information to make the right choices?" Are we making them feel secure in our home?
Most likely, if we are talking to our teens, what is important to us will be important to the teen i.e. reading, education, good language, careers and mature relationships.
Education is something that should never end in our lives. We should be on a constant quest to learn more as we mature in our lives. Knowledge properly understood brings wisdom and a life that is girded by supports that last a lifetime, withstanding the trials of the day.
Mike McKinney has listed 10 Leadership traits that we will need for the next decade. He brings this to us via a book by Bob Johansen, entitled "Leaders Make the Future." The second point is the need for clarity. Johansen states that clarity is:
The ability to see through messes and contradictions to a future that others cannot see. Leaders are very clear about what they are making, but very flexible about how it gets made. How can you as a leader, create and communicate with clarity in confusing times – without being simplistic?
You can read that on Mike's blog.
Finally, I hope that we will take our responsibilities as parents, leaders in our sphere of influence, or as teens seriously and remember that how we behave today will affect us and others well past the time of the behavior.
Ask questions today! Talk to each other today! Care for each other today and tomorrow will have a more secure foundation than today.
Until next time,
Jerry de Gier
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