Recently I watched a film on the Lifetime channel called “The Pregnancy Pact.” I can honestly say that the film disturbed me in many ways; it also triggered a lot of my thinking about young women in society.
The film is about a reporter who returns to her old hometown to document why the pregnancy rate has gone up in her previous community. She meets some of the pregnant teen girls who are all around the ages of 15 and 16, and attend high school while pregnant. After following the lives of the young girls the reporter finds out the disturbing news that the girls made a pact with one another to get pregnant at the same time. The film is based on a true story and that’s what affected me the most.
The idea of young girls deciding to make babies just to keep up with their friends is one of the most brainless things I ever heard of. Sometimes I watch talk shows like Maury and Jerry Springer and see girls claiming to be pregnant by numerous men and having extremely promiscuous sex but I always thought it was bogus and just for ratings; turns out that is really some of the actions and mindsets of young women today.
One of the reasons I was so appalled by the film is that the goal of the main character, Sara, was to have children and marry her boyfriend, who is also 16. I believe that women in today’s society should have goals that are greater than just looking after a child and catering to a man at the age of 15. I realize that some girls may have the ultimate goal to be housewives and may love children but how can they be so sure that is their life destiny at the young age of 15. I believe one of the most important goals of young women should be to simply have goals. I live in Philadelphia in a very urban area and sometimes I notice how the young girls act disrespectful in front of the elderly and I also notice a lot of them have children of their own and they are younger than me. I hope that we, as women, can learn to have self-love and realize our worth so that we can understand that having children at a young age is not the only option for a bright future. Teenage pregnancy statistics show that most teen mothers don’t finish high school or college and 80 percent of unwed mothers end up on welfare. They also show that many women who were teen mothers ended up in prison; they also have a greater rate of experiencing abuse. After reading statistics about teen moms I can honestly say that there are greater things in the world to experience than abuse from your baby daddy and jail time for killing him after he has gotten on your last nerve. I hope that if young women decide to have sex at a young age they use contraceptives to help protect themselves and their partner and to avoid becoming another statistic. Please be smart about it ladies, because safe sex is great sex and babies will drive you crazy!
Seriously young women, make decent decisions towards what you believe love truly is and ask yourself is it worth the risk. Also if you do believe it is worth the risk be smart, use contraceptives. Try to set goals that involve education or making a change. Women have made some of the biggest differences in the world and I hope that I and other women of the future will do the same.
