…and this is a 
Willfully obtuse
Category: Politics • Reproduction
Posted on: March 2, 2008 5:02 PM, by PZ Myers
The principal of a high school in Texas (where else?) is censoring the school's yearbook.
Senior Megan Estes, editor in chief of The Elk, said the point of the article, featuring two seniors who also are teen mothers, was to show fellow students how the girls are coping with motherhood and how their lives have changed. Estes said the principal told her he felt the article "glamorized" the teen mothers' mistakes.
Principal Paul Cash said the topic of the article conflicts with the school's abstinence-based curriculum. He also said he does not think the community would want that topic covered in the yearbook.
I think reality conflicts with the school's abstinence-based curriculum. I wonder if he's got an answer for that?
Probably something like "close your eyes real hard."
Comments
Remember, teens will never have sex if we don't talk about it.
Posted by: freelunch | March 2, 2008 5:05 PM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mOa3sXjqE4
Posted by: abu el banat | March 2, 2008 5:10 PM
This is the kind of shit that drives me absolutely crazy. First of all, abstinence only don't work. We know that. So let's get that out of the way from the start.
The worse point, though, is that even talking about teen motherhood is viewed as "glamorizing" it. Anyone who has spent time with teenage mothers, listening to them describe the challenges in their lives that involve trying to be bother mothers and students--and often employees as well--knows that there is no "glamorizing" going on. These kids deserve credit for getting the work done to have graduated, despite the difficulties that having a child presents. An honest picture shows that these young women have succeeded under difficult circumstances, and talks about each of those.
That's not glamorizing what they did. It's providing an honest assessment. Could we deal with reality please?
Posted by: MAJeff, OM | March 2, 2008 5:10 PM
Posted by: Gregory Kusnick | March 2, 2008 5:11 PM
Remember, teens will never have sex if we don't talk about it.
The Introductory chapter to my MA thesis was titled "Don't Talk About it or They'll Do It." I studied 10 years of Christian Right discourse on sex ed. These people make me crazy. They are so ignorant and so dishonest. And there's a very real cruelty to a lot of the ideology as well.
Posted by: MAJeff, OM | March 2, 2008 5:12 PM
Principal Paul Cash said the topic of the article conflicts with the school's abstinence-based curriculum.
More like, "It shows what a failure the abstinence-based curriculum has been, and we can't let people learn this fact, lest they decide to change it."
Posted by: Joe | March 2, 2008 5:17 PM
I thought abstinence-only meant abstinence was the only thing you could teach, not abstinence is the only thing that exists. But what really caught my attention in the article was this:
That is bad on so many levels.Posted by: Taz | March 2, 2008 5:25 PM
Of course, this brings to mind Roy Zimmerman's
"Abstain With Me".
Posted by: Joe Bob | March 2, 2008 5:27 PM
MAJeff wrote:
I certainly don't endorse the theory that teens will never have sex if we don't talk about it, and the fact that the school even has an abstinence-based curriculum is a clue to how they've got things fundy backwards. But I'm not going to jump the gun and say this is an "honest picture" or that the young women have "succeeded" in everything they wanted to do. We really don't know that and the odds are their pregnancies have cost them a lot in terms of future potentials. Potential life choices they hadn't anticipated are gone now.
Were those costs talked about honestly?
Posted by: Norman Doering | March 2, 2008 5:34 PM
Texas pays a high price for their Voluntary Ignorance Only policy on well,...everything.
Texas has a teen age pregnancy rate much higher than the national average. Which will most likely go up since the national average is going up in lockstep with abstinence only sex ed.
A lot of states that value children over ideology have told the federal government to take their unworkable abstinence only fundie nonsense and shove it.
Posted by: raven | March 2, 2008 5:38 PM
Were those costs talked about honestly?
I dunno. You're right, context matters. For some young women, graduation as a mother is a much greater accomplishment (in terms of difficulties faced, etc.) than others. (I've got one friend in particular who've talked about feeding her kids hamburger helper without any hamburger, and who now has Masters Degrees...there were some hurdles overcome in her life...but I'm also thinking of the young women I saw in very poverty-stricken areas having to drop out of school just to take care of their children...) I would have no problem, indeed, it would preferable, if the larger issue were discussed and these young women's lives as both entries into the larger phenomenon, but also as some of the stories that comprised the graduating class....
Posted by: MAJeff, OM | March 2, 2008 5:40 PM
MAJeff, #3:
Actually that depends on what you mean by "work". If the goal is to prevent unwanted pregnancy, then sure, obviously abstinence-only doesn't work. But I'm going to argue (despite my snark at #4) that that's not the real goal. Busybody moralizers need bad examples to point to, and abstinence-only provides them. They need a way to pigeonhole people as "good girls" or "bad girls", and abstinence-only makes it humiliatingly obvious who the "bad girls" are. Abstinence-only does exactly what its cynical promoters want it to do, and they simply don't care if lives get ruined in the process.
In this sense it's not unlike school prayer, the real point of which is not to defend children's religious rights. It's to give school officials a litmus test by which to identify non-conforming troublemakers and pigeonhole kids as either "one of us" or "one of them".
Posted by: Gregory Kusnick | March 2, 2008 5:40 PM
that the young women have "succeeded" in everything they wanted to do.
And I didn't say at everything they do. But they succeeded in getting their high school diplomas. In large parts of this country, that is an accomplishment (which says very sad things about the state of our nation).
Posted by: MAJeff, OM | March 2, 2008 5:42 PM
Teen age pregnancy correlates very highly with present and future poverty.
There goes college, careers, traveling around the world, and anything but an uphill struggle forever.
A few might break out of that cul-de-sac but not many.
Posted by: raven | March 2, 2008 5:44 PM
"I beleive that as principal of the school it is my obligation to make sure that whatever our students put into press accurately reflects the ideals and values of the community," Cash said.
So the students do not count as a part of the community, eh? And the ideals and values of the community do not include sympathy?:/
Posted by: mona | March 2, 2008 5:46 PM
The story is two weeks old. The yearbook was due for the publishers yesterday. I tried to find news about this but I found no current information.
Posted by: Janine | March 2, 2008 5:47 PM
Those students are free to publicize - on their own dollar.
Replace "teen mother" with "drug user" or "DUI"
Again, it's the schools policy rightly put forth to
provide examples to AVOID teen prenancies, to
avoid the use of drugs and oh, let's say drunk driving.
Chances are, the article won't put forth how life is really
going to suck for them and what opportunies they're going to
miss. Instead - what do the students write about? - a
candy coating of how some student supposedly 'overcame' some ordeal they got themselves into because of bad choices, their choices.
When you glamorize and tell these teens' stories, thus
the school promoting opposing views, it just confuses
the heck of the high schoolers and that age is difficult enough.
Do you think those teens really want to be pregnant?
Why not tell the stories of the kid that was sexually
abused or the guy that got the DUI or the group of stoners
that will end up making you fries in a few years?
Those stories would be fairy tales, soon forgotten and nowhere
close to reality without any regard to the future life consequences
of bad choices those people made. Where's the reality in that?
Reality for the bad choices some make isn't the reality most of
us want, or need, nor care, to hear.
Posted by: philos1856 | March 2, 2008 5:51 PM
motherhood is the equivalent of drug addiction. Might be a new angle worth trying....
Posted by: MAJeff, OM | March 2, 2008 5:55 PM
The people who push "Abstinence Only" sex education (which gives no advice or information on birth control whatsoever) will always think the program works -- even if 99% of the students who take it end up pregnant. They are not looking at statistics. They are looking at personal stories -- the one kid who did it right.
Remember, this is for the most part the same religious crowd which takes the tale of Noah and his Ark -- a situation where every human being on earth excluding 8 and every living animal on earth excluding a single pair of each species is DROWNED in sudden, screaming agony -- and they tell it to their kids, as a happy, happy story about happy, happy animal buddies and God and His loving promise of the pretty, pretty rainbow to the happy, happy Noah family. They take a situation where virtually everyone in the entire world will suffer excruciating torments in eternal agony except for a few Real Christians -- and they call it Good News.
The idea of sacrificing the many for the sake of a perfect few is nothing new to them. If they became convinced that Abstinence Only Sex Education actually increases both teen sex and teen pregnancy, it would not bother them a bit. They would tell each other the wonderful story of little Brittany who took the class, took it to heart, and SHE never ended up having sex before marriage, because of that class. It worked! Happy, happy Brittany. Good news. Yea!
Posted by: Sastra | March 2, 2008 6:02 PM
I think reality has a conflict with most of Burleson, Texas.
One of the three self-described radical Christian activists arrested July 4 for attempting to ignite a bomb at a Burleson church pleaded guilty Feb. 5 in Dallas.
Posted by: melior | March 2, 2008 6:13 PM
Let's compare
With philos1856, senior dipshit and fuckwit's clever analysis:
What was Sastra's comment about eschewing reality in favour of personal stories?
Oh, in case philos1856 doesn't get that I'm making fun of his or her extremely limited intelligence--likely given his or her demonstrated inability to read, I'm going to spell it out for him or her: you're a retard, and for all of our sakes I hope you'll practice abstinence only for the rest of your life, you dumb shit.
Posted by: Brownian, OM | March 2, 2008 6:13 PM
you're a retard, and for all of our sakes I hope you'll practice abstinence only for the rest of your life, you dumb shit.
http://home.earthlink.net/~tjneal/stupid.wav
Posted by: Ichthyic | March 2, 2008 6:19 PM
Simply put, it's pathetic. The senior who wrote this article is obviously taking her potential as a future journalist very seriously and is trying to cover tough issues -- tough issues that Fundy grown-ups prefer to shut their eyes to.
What part of growing up made these people forget that a lack of awareness leads to mistakes?
So Megan didn't write the piece in an apocalyptic light. Her choice to show strength in the face of adversity illustrated that THERE IS ADVERSITY IN THIS CIRCUMSTANCE. It is the perfect approach for her purpose -- to remind her classmates that actions have consequences.
If I hadn't been reminded of these very consequences in high school, I might not have held off having sex out of fear of the consequences. Other kids around me -- the ones whose parents refused to talk to them about sex, the ones who didn't have the facts -- had sex, got pregnant, and lamented their stupidity.
It's just as PZ said... "close your eyes real hard."
Posted by: Holydust | March 2, 2008 6:20 PM
Happy, happy Brittany
0.o
Posted by: Ichthyic | March 2, 2008 6:21 PM
hmm, let's try that surprised look again?
O.o
Posted by: Ichthyic | March 2, 2008 6:22 PM
P.S. As bizarre as it is for me to say this, there was a Family Guy episode that actually had a strong message about this exact topic.
Ear sex, anybody?
Posted by: Holydust | March 2, 2008 6:23 PM
promoting opposing views... just confuses the heck of the high schoolers and that age is difficult enough.
As a former high schooler myself, I would respond, "Bite me."
Posted by: melior | March 2, 2008 6:24 PM
Close your eyes ..... and what? Lie back, and think of England?
Posted by: Greywizard | March 2, 2008 6:25 PM
Ear sex, anybody?
naww, too busy lickin' toad.
:p
Posted by: Ichthyic | March 2, 2008 6:27 PM
MAJeff wrote:
True, you didn't. And getting their high school diplomas is a good thing. Don't confuse my position with philos1856's. But I do suspect these high school kids don't really know yet what the costs of a family are in the long term. I sure didn't have a clear picture of what post high school life would be like when I was in high school. That's not going to really sink in till they're out of high school and trying to go to college or get jobs. I hope they have families that can help them.
Posted by: Norman Doering | March 2, 2008 6:28 PM
#17---Have you read the article the students wrote? No? Me neither. So, maybe it does "candy coat" the realities of teen motherhood. But maybe it doesn't. Neither one of us knows, because we have not read it.
Secondly, if you're interested in only reading winners' stories, and never dealing with the reality of someone who---horrors!!---made a mistake, even a really bad one, fine for you. No one's forcing you to read the article.
And yes, it is accurate to speak of "overcoming" one's own bad choices, although obviously it's not the same as overcoming obstacles that one has no control over. It still takes a certain amount of guts to look at some mess that you've made in your life, accept responsibility, and still try for better things.
Posted by: Elin | March 2, 2008 6:29 PM
Now now - no need to worry about abstinence; that charming personality and overflowing compassion should serve philos1856 admirably as birth control.
Posted by: Samwise | March 2, 2008 6:30 PM
So, which form of motherhood would you recommend, injection or oral?
Posted by: Janine | March 2, 2008 6:30 PM
That's not going to really sink in till they're out of high school and trying to go to college or get jobs. I hope they have families that can help them.
I'd bet that a lot of the mothers have better ideas of the difficulties ahead than do the kids who aren't parents.
One of the things that makes me crazy is a position like philos's. Let's make their lives more difficult, shall we?
It's hard work being a parent, even harder as a single parent, even harder as a teenage single parent. Providing resources that will help alleviate some of the difficulties, and informing folks about what life is like, and how becoming a parent changes life and produces new challenges, both seem to me to be ethical and efficacious approaches to these problems. Better educated kids tend not to get pregnant as often and kids who are parents tend to do better when there are programs in place to help them succeed.
But no. We've got to punish them. And we've got to punish their children. That'll show everyone else!
Posted by: MAJeff, OM | March 2, 2008 6:36 PM
So, which form of motherhood would you recommend, injection or oral?
Well, I'm afraid of needles, so I'd go with smoking or snorting.
Posted by: MAJeff, OM | March 2, 2008 6:37 PM
Spot on, PZ. That's how religious conservatives live, I think. They just stick their fingers in their ears, close their eyes and sing, "Lalala, we're not listening." That is why they are so out of touch with modern American culture.
Posted by: Matt | March 2, 2008 6:40 PM
MAJeff wrote:
True, in fact I'm pretty sure of it, they need that knowledge now. I didn't. But better isn't necessarily completely on target. How could it be? All they've known is school.
Posted by: Norman Doering | March 2, 2008 6:46 PM
Jee, I wonder how that makes those gals feel? Maybe they should ask him, to his face, what he really thinks of them. I predict stuttering.
Posted by: Kcanadensis | March 2, 2008 6:51 PM
Anybody else wonder if the principal's interest in censorship might be related to the fact that two pregnant teens in his school doesn't say a lot for the efficacy of his abstinence-only education?
Posted by: Brownian, OM | March 2, 2008 7:03 PM
Oops, looks like Joe beat me to the punch.
Posted by: Brownian, OM | March 2, 2008 7:10 PM
Wimp. Only a real mother mainlines motherhood. Tie me off, off. TIE ME OFF!
Posted by: Dan | March 2, 2008 7:19 PM
So, which form of motherhood would you recommend, injection or oral?
I thought oral was what all the kids were doing these days to keep from getting pregnant in the first place.
Here is a good story about a Colorado state rep. who called teen moms "sluts" in a public speech, but then had the guts to go visit a teen mom specific high school after they wrote letters giving him what for. It really is worth the read.
Posted by: Carlie | March 2, 2008 7:24 PM
Just completed reading "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand and she has a great word for principals and other creationists who think like that: somnambulists.
Posted by: Rick Schauer | March 2, 2008 7:26 PM
I thought oral was what all the kids were doing these days to keep from getting pregnant in the first place.
That's aural, as per the mention of Family Guy above.
Posted by: MAJeff, OM | March 2, 2008 7:28 PM
...
Probably something like "close your eyes real hard."
Apparently the young ladies did not get the message to keep certain other body parts 'closed real hard'.
...tom...
.
Posted by: ...tom... | March 2, 2008 7:33 PM
Aural sex, ha ha HAHahahaa. Perfect. :D
Seriously, though. We should all be so lucky as to have a Lois Griffin-type visit schools and tell kids what their parents--who seem to have forgotten what it was like to be a teenager--won't tell them.
My dad didn't have the sex talk with me -- even when he caught me fooling around. I think deep down he knew I was too terrified to actually "go all the way". Our sex talk came when I was 19 and I went to stay with a boyfriend in another part of the state. "Just don't come back married or pregnant, okay?" This same method would not work with a kid who wasn't smart enough to be afraid of sex. :D My fear didn't work against me, it worked for me. By the time I was grown-up enough to know what the risks were, I was conditioned enough by my knowledge to know how to avoid mistakes.
Unfortunately, priming kids with the idea of abstinence is like plugging up a dam with bubblegum. At some point, it's just going to explode. And then that dam explodes with... er... babies.
Posted by: Holydust | March 2, 2008 7:34 PM
Since we're talking sexuality education, I'm going to put in a plug for some folks I think do pretty good work:
http://midwestteensexshow.com
They do web-based sexuality education. It's officially only for people over 18-years-of-age. However, if you're interested in doing sexuality education among youth, or if you have young people, they do awesome work. I've also supported them by purchasing this t-shirt, which I wore to teach on Valentine's Day.
Posted by: MAJeff, OM | March 2, 2008 7:40 PM
Oh, is aural sex what you get when you call 1-900 numbers? That could get expensive. Mr. Deity sort of used that for a laugh, too.
A dam exploding with babies is not a mental image I wanted!
Ewwww.
Posted by: Carlie | March 2, 2008 7:48 PM
Why are there articles about these teens in the yearbook, anyway? It sounds like they might work well in a school newspaper, but yearbook?
Posted by: tinyfrog | March 2, 2008 7:49 PM
My high school did a lot of "special interest" articles throughout the yearbook. It was especially nice for the students who weren't the typical center of attention for the school - there were pages for the vo-tech program, the auto shop students, etc.
Posted by: Carlie | March 2, 2008 8:00 PM
I'm with tinvfrog, #48.
I don't endorse censorship or abstinence only sex education, but this really isn't something that belongs in a year book.
A school paper is perfect for this sort of thing. The students used poor judgment by placing it in the yearbook.
Frank discussions of issues like teen pregnancy have their place, and it's not in a yearbook. Should we have a section devoted to drug abuse as well? Both are important issues, but they don't belong in a yearbook.
OEJ
Posted by: One Eyed Jack | March 2, 2008 8:05 PM
It's always Texas.
Posted by: Bubba Sixpack | March 2, 2008 8:14 PM
The tone and the circumstances are important. If a student died of a drug overdose, let's say, I could see the yearbook running an "In Memoriam" page. (Depends on the school and the student, of course, but it's not beyond the realm of the possible.) I was on my high school's literary magazine, and we would certainly have tried to do such a thing. We'd have been shot down, naturally: our administrative staff didn't even like the opinion column which said that we should kick boy bands in the crotch and run away.
Posted by: Blake Stacey | March 2, 2008 8:14 PM
We're not shutting our eyes really hard - it's just not our problem and why involve me, with your problem, in my yearbook?
Well, for all the 'censorship' fanatic readers that seem to endorse the promotion of stories highlighting the unfortunate and negatively influencing life-altering decisions high schoolers can make in their lives instead of the positive ones that relate well to the school's and communities' philosophy, you are free to open up your own school,
write your stories ad nauseum about all the mistakes your peers make
and see what happens.
In the meantime, quit whining.
Of course, no one will know what will happen to the student themselves. They're forgotten. Or, will you help them?
We'll just think they'll climb themselves out of the mess and well,
you'll go on with your life, now won't you?
Too bad Ms. Estes doesn't compare the pregnant students from 20 years
ago and see how they're doing.
Posted by: philos1856 | March 2, 2008 8:36 PM
My highest regards to these two girls for a difficult job accomplished. However, for approximately 95% of teen agers becoming pregnant, their life script is written, and it ain't pretty. I do not have the studies at hand, and actually read them a number of years ago. My best recall is that, statistically, most will not finish high school, will have another pregnancy soon, will stay below poverty level, etc., etc. I worked all my career as a public health nurse--I vote for lots of sex education, contraception and abortion when necessary. Hormones will win over abstinence every time. Thanks for a great blog.
Posted by: Anne Ozment | March 2, 2008 8:48 PM
Let us get past all the socio-sexual politics of abstinence-only education and focus on the immediate issue at hand - should the school's yearbook glamorize and otherwise validate teen motherhood? I for one say no. Featuring teen mothers in the school's yearbook, regardless of how their situation is treated, provides a very significant stamp of approval that is simply innappropriate.
Posted by: tballou | March 2, 2008 8:55 PM
Oh, really? WTF?!?
Whatever happened to "Teach The Controversy"?!? Whatever happened to "Give the kids all the information they need, and let them decide what's right"?
LMELLAO
Posted by: Kseniya | March 2, 2008 9:00 PM
Kseniya, what does the ELL in LMELLAO stand for?
Posted by: Brownian, OM | March 2, 2008 9:04 PM
"write your stories ad nauseum about all the mistakes your peers make
and see what happens."
Um... maybe education happens? Lower teen pregnancy rates happen?
I really love your "We're not closing our eyes, we just don't want to look at that!" statement. Pathetic.
Texas. Gotta love 'em, bless their pointed little heads. Don't bother us with your reality, we want pretty prom pictures.
Abstinence-only education is right - they're abstaining from education.
Posted by: craig | March 2, 2008 9:04 PM
"Kseniya, what does the ELL in LMELLAO stand for?"
I'm guessing "ever-loving liberal"
Posted by: craig | March 2, 2008 9:06 PM
Oddly enough, in at least one study girls who got pregnant and had (legal) abortions were more likely to stay in school than girls who had babies or girls who didn't get pregnant. It seems that decding to have the abortion made them feel more in charge of their lives. The major feeling reported after aboortion is relief.
Posted by: Monado, FCD | March 2, 2008 9:10 PM
"We're not shutting our eyes really hard - it's just not our problem and why involve me, with your problem, in my yearbook?"
Thanks, philo1856, for a prime example of the attitude most people in our society have toward their fellow human beings.
Life isn't all butterflies and rainbows, and these young mothers shouldn't be relegated to the invisible, "we don't really talk about that here" category at their school or in their community. Why not at least deal with the topic in the yearbook? The school community probably doesn't have a newsletter or some other method of telling the stories of the students there, so maybe the yearbook is the only way.
Oh and Tom? FOAD, you misogynistic twat. Either that, or make disparaging comments about the boys involved in these teenage pregnancies as well. They didn't really keep it in their pants either.
Posted by: Shigella | March 2, 2008 9:13 PM
Craig is a... a genius!
Posted by: Kseniya | March 2, 2008 9:13 PM
Too bad Ms. Estes doesn't compare the pregnant students from 20 years ago and see how they're doing.
I'll ask my nephew how he's doing 24 years after his mother got pregnant as a teen. Oops, can't. The band he formed after his university graduation is busy touring right now.
Fuck, philo, but you really need to go play in traffic.
Posted by: Brownian, OM | March 2, 2008 9:14 PM
I couldn't agree more with most of the sentiments expressed here. Abstinence only sex ed is a disaster for everyone. But look on the bright side of things. Fifty years ago, pregnant teens would have been sent away to a home for pregnant girls, who were then made to feel filthy and slimy, and forced to carry the child to term only to give it up for adoption. And the girls' absences from home for six to eight months was explained away by saying they're sick or some such lie. At least today pregnant teens in most places have the option of an abortion and if one does choose to carry the child to term, neither the child nor the mother is usually ostracized with the same condemnation they were half a century ago--except maybe in Burleson TX. Things have changed for the better. They just haven't gotten where they should be.
Posted by: Keanus | March 2, 2008 9:18 PM
promoting opposing views... just confuses the heck of the high schoolers and that age is difficult enough.
Thank you, philos1856, for reducing me to a drooling half-wit who can't do much more then stare blankly and wimper when faced with two different viewpoints. Your respect warms my soul and brightens my life. Clearly, My classmates and I are not near adults capable of facing the world and evaluating what we want. We're all toddlers who should be back in the nursery!
Posted by: Em | March 2, 2008 9:24 PM
I think the principal is on to something....they should research the sexual history of the parents of the kids in the school. Any kid whose parents were teens or unmarried at conception...those students shouldn't be pictured as well.
...just a modest proposal
Posted by: CleveDan | March 2, 2008 9:27 PM
Any kid whose parents were teens or unmarried at conception...
My parents' fortieth anniversary was yesterday. My fortieth birthday is in September. Mom didn't like it when I figured that out at about the age of 9. Nothing like having to go in front of the asshole church elders and apologize to them and the congregation in order to still get married in her church.
Posted by: MAJeff, OM | March 2, 2008 9:36 PM
Featuring teen mothers in the school's yearbook, regardless of how their situation is treated, provides a very significant stamp of approval that is simply innappropriate.
Yeah, and shaming them works sooooo much better. Why, back when sluts were sluts and pregnant teens got sent off to group homes to give up their babies in secrecy, the teen pregnancy rate was way lower than it is now! Oh, wait. It was almost twice as high then as it is now.
Since you don't agree with the teens being mothers, I guess you're in support of them having abortions instead, then?
And do you honestly think a page in the yearbook is "glamorizing" it? Jeez, I think I'll get pregnant so I can have a bigger picture and a paragraph in my school yearbook! Big influential factor, there.
The original article says that stories on teen moms in the yearbook has been done several times before; it's just this principal who is opposed to it ostensibly on the grounds that the yearbook is a school publication, which is supposed to be educational and "not intended to be venues for student expression."
Isn't the school yearbook supposed to be exactly that, a venue for student expression? Otherwise why have students do all the work putting it together?
Posted by: Carlie | March 2, 2008 9:39 PM
If anything, these two teen mothers are the living proof that abstinence-based curriculums DO NOT WORK.
Kids want to fuck. Okay? It's simple. It's the hormones, it's the lust, it's the instinct and the strong feelings it gives. Telling them not to do it only makes it better for them. Let's face it, doing something forbidden is even more awesome when we're kids. If anything, they should use the two girls as a way to promote safe sex, and not say they are a bad example! They're an example of something "bad" that can happen for a teen for sure, but only because of the probably-missing-condom part... not because they had SEX.
I bet he's against masturbation too. And pro marriage. Damn it, teens just can't have any fun.
Posted by: Michelle | March 2, 2008 9:44 PM
Oh, and my parents are a whopping 19 years older than me, and their marriage is a whole 7 months older than me, so tballou, philos, and Tom, fuck off.
Posted by: Carlie | March 2, 2008 9:45 PM
I thought he was banned, anyway.
Funny choice of handle, given what a proven hater he is.
Posted by: thalarctos | March 2, 2008 9:47 PM
Hey, what ever happened to "academic freedom" and "teaching the controversy?"
Oh, right; that's just for evolution.
Posted by: Martian Buddy | March 2, 2008 9:51 PM
For what it's worth, we had a pic in one of recent high school yearbooks that showed one of our grads with her little boy. He was three, so you can do the math. No big deal, at least for us.
Of course, we're a librul school affiliated with those backsliding Episcopals ...
Posted by: wheatdogg | March 2, 2008 9:56 PM
#16: The story is two weeks old. The yearbook was due for the publishers yesterday. I tried to find news about this but I found no current information.
I searched on Facebook and found a HS-looking girl by that name in the Dallas/Ft. Worth network, which is Burleson's area. I sent her a message asking her what the outcome was. I'll post back here if I get a response.
Posted by: FishyFred | March 2, 2008 10:13 PM
When my parents got married, I was already 11 years old and had two younger brothers. Does that mean I'm going to Hell? Or that they are? Or all of us are? Ye Gods! This is confusing. Maybe mom and dad were so stupid they didn't realize they were "in trouble" until I was eleven. This thinking thing is really hard. And overrated. Damn you athiest of atheists!
Posted by: Kseniya | March 2, 2008 10:28 PM
Maybe mom and dad were so stupid they didn't realize they were "in trouble" until I was eleven.
Well, you know, those pregnancy test results can be pretty hard to read sometimes.
Posted by: Carlie | March 2, 2008 10:32 PM
Wasn't the same Megan Estes. Nuts! She did say that she's been getting this question a lot lately.
Posted by: FishyFred | March 2, 2008 10:32 PM
Carlie :-D
Posted by: Kseniya | March 2, 2008 11:14 PM
FishyFred, she's in the Burleson High School Network, not Dallas/Fort Worth. I told her that someone was trying to find her and she was amused.
The article didn't end up in the yearbook. The pages were instead filled with hundreds of quotes from students at the school.
Posted by: Lin | March 3, 2008 12:22 AM
Actually, whether or not a teenage girl who gets pregnant and raises her child ends up living in poverty depends a lot upon the socioeconomic class of her parents. The teenagers who raise their children below the poverty line and pretty much stay there generally start out there. Middle and lower middle class girls who were planning to go to college prior to the pregnancy generally do, even thought it usually takes them longer.
Plus, at my rather exclusive university, when we took an informal poll of the women on my dorm floor as to how they lost their virginity and the kind of birth control used, pretty much all reported "No birth control" or "withdrawl". Yet because they happended to not get pregnant or else aborted if they did, they are"roll models" and those who got pregnant aren't. Right. Makes lots of sense.
Posted by: sea creature | March 3, 2008 12:36 AM
We're not shutting our eyes really hard - it's just not our problem and why involve me, with your problem, in my yearbook?
Nothing bad ever happens to you, right?
http://www.lyricsfreak.com/o/oingo+boingo/nothing+bad+ever+happens_20102799.html
moron.
Posted by: Ichthyic | March 3, 2008 12:36 AM
Yeah, and shaming them works sooooo much better. Why, back when sluts were sluts and pregnant teens got sent off to group homes to give up their babies in secrecy, the teen pregnancy rate was way lower than it is now! Oh, wait. It was almost twice as high then as it is now.
*just claps speechlessly and uproariously*
Posted by: Holydust | March 3, 2008 1:01 AM
maybe this is insensitive, but why [b]are[/b] there teen mothers in a country where abortion has been legal for more than three decades now?
it isn't that they like the hardship that they know they will face if they do become teenage mothers, is it?
oh! wait, is this another result of the 'every life is sacred' ideology?
Posted by: croor singh | March 3, 2008 1:05 AM
oh! wait, is this another result of the 'every life is sacred' ideology?
Every sperm is sacred, every sperm is great. If a sperm is wasted, god gets quite irate.
Posted by: Lin | March 3, 2008 1:22 AM
Every sperm is sacred, every sperm is great. If a sperm is wasted, god gets quite irate.
Then why'd he make it better for our prostates (you know, less cancer) if we waste the shit? Bastard!
Posted by: MAJeff, OM | March 3, 2008 1:34 AM
Then why'd he make it better for our prostates (you know, less cancer) if we waste the shit? Bastard!
easy religiotard answer:
You aren't SUPPOSED to live that long. Prostate cancer is one of God's ways of calling you "home". By masturbating (or having regular, nonprocreative sex), you're sinning by challenging God's will as to your intended expiration date.
Now that I've pointed out the obvious, expect this explanation to replace "you'll go blind!" as the preferred exhortation from religiotards against masturbation and free love.
*bows*
Posted by: Ichthyic | March 3, 2008 1:44 AM
God did always seem a bit of a schmuck to me.
Posted by: