I am seeing a horrifying trend in YA romance: glorifying teen pregnancy.

 

Now, before I go on, I am not slamming teen moms (or dads). I am simply saying that books targeted at kids should NOT glamorize babies having babies (as Judge Judy would put it). I feel like these books give teens a very bad, incorrect view of what being a teen mom is like. So here are the facts:

 

  1. 1. 3 in 10 teen American girls will get pregnant at least once before age 20. That’s nearly 750,000 teen pregnancies every year.
  2. 2.Parenthood is the leading reason that teen girls drop out of school. More than 50% of teen mothers never graduate from high school. 
  3. 3. About 25% of teen moms have a 2nd child within 24 months of their first baby.
  4. 4.Less than 2% of teen moms earn a college degree by age 30.
  5. 5.The United States has one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the western industrialized world.
  6. 6. In 2011, the teen birthrate in the United States fell to the lowest level recorded in nearly 70 years of tracking teen childbearing.
  7. 7.In 2008, the teen pregnancy rate among African-American and Hispanic teen girls, ages 15 to 19, was over two and a half times higher than the teen pregnancy rate among white teen girls of the same age group.
  8. 8. 8 out of 10 teen dads don’t marry the mother of their child.
  9. 9. A sexually active teen who doesn’t use contraceptives has a 90% chance of becoming pregnant within a year.
  10. 10. More than half of all mothers on welfare had their first child as a teenager. In fact, two-thirds of families begun by a young, unmarried mother are poor.
    1.  

(from DoSomething.org)

 

Also teen moms are:

 

 

  1. Are more likely to get pregnant more times during their life
  2. Are more likely to be single parents
  3. Are less likely to have good health coverage for their babies
  4. Are less prepared for being a parent and may not know how to take care of their baby
  5. Are less likely to get support from the biological father

 

(from TeenPregnancyStatistics.org)

 

So, fellow authors: Can you PLEASE stop making it look like a Disney movie? Books most notorious for this behavior are:

 

Taking Chances by Molly McAdams

Bumped by Megan McCafferty

Hooked by Catherine Greenman

Fifteen...& What?! by E. McNew

 

 

ERMERGERD STAHP!!!!