Thursday, August 7, 2008

No Pregnancy Pact

In my recent class with some parents here at St. Andrew's the issue of teenage imitation of movies came up. Specifically, the "Juno" effect of teens wanting to get pregnant like her (as if getting pregnant would make them as witty and funny and loved as she was portrayed). One parent mentioned the Gloucester pact which apparently didn't even exist.

Reminds me of the Lost Children of Rockdale County piece that Frontline did a number of years ago. Seems to me that the excitement about "rainbow parties" was significantly exaggerated, just as the "pregnancy pact" was exaggerated. The generalizations from a small sample to a national epidemic makes for great Oprah but very bad actual decisions regarding adolescent sexual behaviour.

I wish that I could find a comment from Mark Regnerus on this topic as his book Forbidden Fruit was very revealing and statistically significant.

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