Editors' Blog: Media baby boom
By Megan Krause, Campus Life writer
August 8, 2008 | 3 p.m.
There has been a serious media baby boom, and it's not all baby butts and giggles. It is more like a baby-sitter's worst nightmare that dares teens to take it off by scaring them with baby poop and the mere possibility of teen parenthood.
NBC's "The Baby Borrowers" and ABC Family's "The Secret Life of an American Teenager" bring teen pregnancy to television as a form of birth control, and it's not going to work.
I think we should go back to consider the Time Magazine article about 17 high schoolers at Glouster High School who actually made a pact to get pregnant. I find that hard to imagine when teen pregnancy was hidden under baggy sweatshirts at my high school.
Times have changed. Even girls in my conservative hometown have started to show their curves instead of hiding pregnancies. It's hard to say whether it's an increase in pregnancies or a decrease in discretion, but teen pregnancy is definitely more prevalent in my home town, as well as in the media.
Planning to get pregnant as a teen is flat out crazy, but things happen. According to The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, more than half of pregnancies in the U.S. are unplanned. No surprise here if the majority of those were teens.
The teens who decided to take on "The Baby Borrowers" say they are ready for parenthood. I don't care how mature you are. It's impossible to be ready to be given a bratty kid on national television and asked to care for him or her while the parents are glued to a monitor tracking their every move. I've changed my share of diapers, and I feel it's safe to say that it's a good thing there wasn't some hidden baby-cam watching my every move.
Let's face it: teens are bound to screw up. It's no secret. I question if these new shows could be any more effective than Suzy health teacher's 50-minute lecture on birth control.
An ad for "Baby Borrowers" actually says "it's not T.V.; it's birth control." "The Secret Live of an American Teenager" takes it even further with its partnership with The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy. Discussion questions for every episode are provided in order to get people talking.
I, for one, won't be sitting down with my friends every Tuesday to discuss why it's a bad idea to get pregnant. It reminds me too much of the sappy music on shows like "Full House" and "Growing Pains," a helping of morals with every episode. Don't get me wrong. I have enjoyed my share of cheesy shows, but it's not the best way to get teens talking.
Some say that movies like "Juno" make teen-pregnancy look glamorous, but most are likely to see past that mirage. It's always good to be in touch with reality, but reality T.V. is rarely, if ever, as real as it claims to be.
There is no way "The Baby Borrowers" will be quite as effective as the pill, but watching a newborn spit up on a high schoolers designer duds can be entertaining, and when it comes to reality T.V. that's all you can really ask for.
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