Bailey Pittl

OPTION E: TEEN PREGNANCY

An 18-year-old female that you have known for a long time tells you that she is pregnant and wants to
know if she should marry the baby’s father. What is your advice? Would your advice be different if the
female were 25 years old? What would be your advice if an 18-year-old male asked you if he should
marry the 18-year-old girl that he got pregnant? What if he was 25 and she was 25?

Teen pregnancy is growing more and more today than ever before and there is such a strong influence
in social media that sex is a normal thing to be doing in high school. TV shows like gossip girl and
vampire diaries have a lot of sexual content in it and expose sex to teens at a young age. “research
strongly suggests that teenage behavior is influenced by the amount of exposure teens have to sexual
content in the media. A 2006 study looking at the effects of television along with popular music, movies,
and magazines on the behavior of more than 1,000 North Carolina middle school students from more
than a dozen middle school schools found that white students who were in the top 20 percent of
exposure to sexual content at ages 12 to 14 were twice as likely to have engaged In sexual intercourse
by ages 14 to 16 as those in the bottom 20 percent of exposure.” (Strong & Cohen, 2016, p. 199) It just
goes to show that pregnancy is growing more and more with what the media is showing as acceptable!

In that case that I have a friend come to me at the age of 18 saying that she was pregnant and asked me
if she should marry the father who is 25 years old I would definitely be taken back and would be
overwhelmed that she would be coming to me for advice. But I would tell her that it would be her
decision but she would have to look at all the attributes he has and if she really thought he’d be a fit
than she could do it. I would let her know that she wouldn’t just have to marry him just because she has
a baby with him. It’s a rough spot that she would be in and I would want to be as sensitive as possible.

My advice to the 25 year old guy would be that he would need to take care of her. I would reprimand
him a little bit more than her because he is 25 years old he should know better and this sweet young girl
who is only 18 years old and doesn’t have much to provide for a baby. I would tell him that he should
marry her and show you that he will take care of her and the baby.

If the couple were both 25 it would change the way I would react a little bit more because they would
both be more responsible for the decision they made. They definitely wouldn’t have to get married if
they both didn’t feel compatible but my advice for them would be to get married if they loved each
other and wanted to work together and have a family.

If the couple were both 18 and the female were pregnant and she came to me I would tell her that they
are way to young to get married. I had a friend get married just because they were pregnant at a really
young age and it was super hard a straining and came with a lot of marriage problems because they
were both young and not ready. I would tell her that they can still be a couple and work together to
raise the baby but not to rush into marriage because it’s a huge step.
 Bailey Pittl

It’s interesting how my reaction would be different to each person and if the situation would be a little
different. But I think that teen pregnancy really shouldn’t be happening because if you really aren’t
ready to commit to someone or have a baby you really shouldn’t be having sexual intercourse. It amazes
me how much media focuses on teen sex and it really is influencing our society.

Reference:

Strong, B, & Cohen, T. F. (2016). The marriage and family experience: intimate relationships in a

changing society (13th ed.). Belmont, CA Wadsworth.