The Blame Game

This post originally appeared on The PushBack.

MTV’s show Teen Mom (and its sister program 16 and Pregnant) aren’t perfect.  We’ve covered that one before.

I don’t like that they show domestic violence on television entertainment, especially when that violence is happening in front of a young child.

I don’t like that they pay the young mothers what is (in the television world) a pittance, but is (in the real world of teen parenthood) a landslide — and then don’t comment on how an extra $60,000 makes this a very-less-than-realistic reality show.

I don’t like that they glorify adoption, lauding the young women who make that choice as “selfless” and “brave” for doing so – as if the rest of them are so selfish and cowardly for wanting to raise their own children and stepping in to the role of young motherhood, even if they know it will be difficult.

But even I, who is more than willing to acknowledge the show’s (many, many) faults, have never claimed that it glamorizes teen pregnancy.  This trope is so overused it shows up in my Google alertsevery. single. day, even though the show has finished its second season (with 16 and Pregnantcurrently in its third).

I don’t think there’s anything glamorous about watching a young woman cry over failing a GED pre-test, or having an engagement called off, or taking her former boyfriend to mediation to fight for custody.  The show doesn’t shy away from documenting the sleepless nights, the missed parties, the overdue bills — and it seems to try to make childbirth seem as scary as possible.

And now, the “Teen Mom glamorizes teen pregnancy!” rallying cry has taken a new tone: teens are getting pregnant just to appear on the show!  How awful!  How stupid!  Can you believe it?

No.  I cannot.

Just like I was wholly skeptical of 2008’s “teen pregnancy pact” story that turned out to be total bull, this seems like an excuse.  Teens getting pregnant?  They must have formed some secret pact to all get pregnant at the same time.  It’s not the adults’ fault for not making sure they had comprehensive sex education, or access to condoms, or even the reinforced hope of going to college that made them be fully conscious of how every decision they were making might impact that goal.  They were just silly, stupid girls who wanted to get pregnant.  Nothing we could do.

But now, the scapegoat’s even better – it’s MTV encouraging these silly, stupid girls to get pregnant. Again, there’s nothing we can do.  Let’s just blame all of American society’s reluctance to have healthy, open, progressive conversations with our youth about sex on these two television programs.

It’s the same excuse, and it’s still a crappy one.  Teens get pregnant for many reasons and attributing pregnancies to their being “in a pact” or wanting to “be on TV” is overlooking the many complex causes of young parenthood.  The economy sucks, and teen pregnancies usually goes up when the economy goes down.  Many American school are still teaching the same ineffective, judgmental abstinence-only curriculums that leave young people with the knowledge to prevent pregnancy.  Teen pregnancy prevention campaigns seems to be limited to scare tactics and the demonization of young parents.  MTV is only a drop in an overflowing bucket.

Girls getting pregnant because of a reality show?  Come on.  It’s time to sacrifice this particular scapegoat and move on to a dialogue that’s more productive and more worthy of our young people.