Pendragons Princess

This happened in Bulgaria (no state in the Union permits marriage at the age of 11). Read on:

http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/news/575565/This-11-year-old-schoolgirl
-had-a-baby-on-her-wedding-day.html?mode=error

This 11-year-old schoolgirl had a baby … on her wedding day

By Jane Atkinson in Sliven, Bulgaria, 01/11/2009

HOLDING up her tiny baby for the camera, 11-year-old bride Kordeza declares: “I’m not going to play with toys any more - I have a new toy now.”

For the youngster barely old enough to start senior school has just become a MOTHER after going into labour during her WEDDING to her teenage boyfriend.

She was still wearing her flowing white dress and tiara when she arrived at hospital and gave birth to 5lb 8oz Violeta.

But after spending the night with her newborn, Kordeza - who you can see on video below - changed back into her wedding dress and nipped out to finish the ceremony.

And the Zhelyazkova family couldn’t be happier for their child bride - the youngest girl ever to give birth in a city where 13-year-old mums are routine.

After leaving hospital this week, Kordeza - who fell pregnant within two weeks of her 11th birthday - spoke exclusively to the News of the World.

With proud husband Jeliazko Dimitrov, 19, at her side, Kordeza admitted: “It feels strange to be a mum and have a baby.

“I used to play with my toys but now she is my new toy. She is so beautiful, I love her. Violeta is the child and I must grow up. I am not going back to school - I am a mother now.”

Kordeza met Jeliazko in the playground of her Roma gypsy school in Sliven, Bulgaria, when he rescued her from bullies.

The worried teenager - who is facing up to six years in prison for having sex with a minor - wrings his hands as he recalled: “I was walking past the school when I saw some boys mocking her and I told them to leave her alone.

“Then she arranged to meet me and asked me out on our first date. I thought she was 15. She didn’t tell me she was 11.”

Kordeza giggled: “I didn’t want to say in case he wouldn’t fancy me.”

The pair went on their first date to their local park then met at his mum Violeta’s house near the gypsy ghetto where they both grew up.

But within a WEEK of them meeting, their daughter was conceived. Kordeza admitted: “I haven’t had sex education classes and I didn’t know how to get pregnant. I’d never had a boyfriend and I’d never heard of condoms.

“I didn’t know I was pregnant until my grandmother saw I had put on weight. I just thought I’d eaten too many burgers.”

By then Kordeza was five months pregnant and living with her grandmother Dida, 55, because her parents were both working on vineyards in Spain.

Home is a ramshackle one- bedroom bungalow with no bathroom tucked away in a labyrinth of filthy alleys in the ghetto - ironically called Hope.

Dida said: “I noticed she was getting fatter and asked if she was OK. But she’s a shy girl and she just shrugged at me. I never imagined she was having sex. She’s the kind of girl that likes to play on the computer and loves her schoolwork - her favourite subject is maths.

“I was still worried though and when she told me she had met a boy I bought her a pregnancy test. I hit the roof when it was positive, and she cried and cried.”

Incredibly, it is not uncommon for Roma girls to fall pregnant in their teens. Sliven is the underage mums capital of Europe with 177 cases last year.

Dida, who herself married at 13, explained: “It’s normal for our girls to have babies young. It’s our tradition. But I didn’t want it for my Kordeza - I felt she was too young.”

When Jeliazko found out he was going to be a dad he dashed back from Spain, where he had been working on farms.

He recalled: “I was really scared. We didn’t plan to have sex or a baby although I fell in love with Kordeza the moment I saw her.”

Her mum Raina, 33, said: “I fainted when I found out Kordeza was pregnant. I couldn’t believe it but I knew I had to stand by her.”

The family quickly planned a three-day Roma wedding for October 22 - so Kordeza and Jeliazko could be married before the baby was born.

His mum Violeta, 36, married at 13 and had him when she was 14. She explained: “It is so important for our women to be married when they have a baby.”

Nobody presides over the ceremony, but Roma gypsies believe the weddings - where most brides are aged 14 to 17 - are legal in their tradition and more important than a conventional service.

But as the families marked the second day of celebrations, Kordeza went into labour a week early. She explained: “I had been having pain in the morning and a couple of hours into the wedding it got worse.”

She was rushed to hospital and gave birth 20 minutes later. Kordeza said: “It was quite easy but painful too. I was very happy when I saw her. She has a nose like me and hair like Jeliazko.”

The new mum then returned to the ceremony in time to be married before getting back to the hospital to feed her baby.

Both grandmothers will be guardians of baby Violeta, easing the concerns of local social services who initially wanted to take the baby into care. Kordeza and her daughter will receive £70 a month in state benefits.

Hospital doctor Sonya Mihaylova confirmed: “This is the youngest child who ever gave birth in our ward.”

Raina said: “Kordeza is still a child and I hope to do everything I can to make sure she isn’t robbed of her free time.”

Prison

But her new husband Jeliazko is not allowed to live with her as the Prosecutor’s Office is investigating the case. For having sex with a girl under 14 he could face two to six years in prison.

Jeliazko said: “I’m scared. I want to look after my wife and child. Instead I may be going to prison. I made a mistake but I am not going to apologise for that because now I have beautiful Violeta.” Raina added: “Everybody seems to be against Kordeza and Jeliazko but what have they done wrong? They are a young couple in love.”

They are already planning their future together. Jeliazko said: “We know that having a baby is a big responsibility. My wife is young but I will make sure that I look after both of them if the law allows me.”

And he dreams of giving his daughter a better future. “I am going to work hard and make sure we all have a good life,” he promised. “I want Violeta to be educated, to be able to read and write. She was born famous and maybe she will stay famous like becoming a doctor who invents brilliant medicine or saves lives.

“Whatever she does I will be proud of her - she is my little girl.”

Kordeza adds: “I don’t want more children right away. I think one is enough for now.”

The family are planning a huge party next week to celebrate Violeta’s birth. Jeliazko’s mum said: “We want to show her off. I just hope that my son does not go to prison.

“He is a good boy and a hard worker. He loves his wife and he will support his baby.

“I don’t think it matters that they are young. They are in love with each other and the baby. Surely that is enough.”
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“My daughter is my new toy.” Excuse me? I thought it was bad enough American women consider their babies to be the newest Louis Vuitton handbag, but toy? What the hell is wrong with this child? I have nothing against gypsies, but this is outrageous. To top that off, her husband is facing prison time. What a prize he turned out to be - not. Kordeza’s mother is only 33 and a grandmother. I can’t see that that is somethig to be proud of or brag about - all that does is give her a bad image of having babies at such a young age. Most gypsies are dirt poor and live in extreme poverty due to lack of education. What’s even worse is that these people have bought into that myth of “my child will grow up to cure cancer one day” myth. It just goes to show you even gypsies are not above the child and baby-centered culture of the planet Earth. Such sadness for an 11 year old! Her life will be full of hardship, having to care for a baby and not go to school. And Jeliazko belongs in jail for the rest of his life for doing something he never should have done: have sex with a child.

It gets more ridiculous by the day:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1200755/

A-mum-18-Teenager-hands-triplets-toddler.html

A mum of four at 18! Teenager has her hands full with triplets and a toddler

By Emily Andrews

21st July 2009

It’s hard enough being a teenage mother with just one child.

So when 17-year-old Sian Robbins was told she was pregnant with triplets - to add to the little boy she already had - she knew she was in for a tough time.

To make things worse, the babies - Taylor, Tyler and Levi - were born 11 weeks premature and all three boys had to stay in hospital in incubators.

Doctors had warned of complications and during the unplanned pregnancy Miss Robbins, now 18, faced the agonising choice of whether to abort one of the triplets to give the other two a better chance of survival.

But she refused, saying: ‘I knew that I faced a higher risk of miscarriage but was determined to give all three of them an equal chance.’

Luckily the gamble paid off and seven weeks after their birth all three have been allowed home.

Levi and Tyler weighed just 2lb 6oz after their birth, while Taylor was slightly heavier at 2lb 14oz.

All three were so tiny they could fit into the palm of their mother’s hand, but now they weigh 4lb each, to the delight of Miss Robbins and her boyfriend Callum Thomas, 19.

Mr Thomas said: ‘I’m delighted with my boys. Sian went into labour very prematurely and it was very traumatic.

‘It was touch and go for a time and the doctors warned me that some of them may not survive. But they pulled through and are now doing really well.

‘Taylor initially wasn’t very well as he had a heart murmur and an infection, but he’s battled through that now.’

The non-identical triplets were due on August 11, but were born on May 28 by emergency Caesarean section.

Miss Robbins added: ‘Three is a lot but I’m so pleased we’ve got all of them. It does mean a lot of work though - we get through 24 nappies, 18 bottles of milk and five loads of washing every day.’

Miss Robbins was 15 and still at school when she discovered she was expecting her eldest son Jaden, now two, but after the birth in November 2006 she returned to her studies and got four GCSEs before leaving to become a full-time mother.

She split up with Jaden’s father soon after the birth, before meeting Mr Thomas.

The family lives on benefits in a two-bedroom council house in Portsmouth but they are hoping to be given a bigger house, although they are adamant there will be no more babies.

‘We are definitely not having any more,’ said Mr Thomas. ‘The boys are sleeping and feeding very well but three babies and a two-year-old is enough of a handful.

‘I haven’t got a job at the moment as I want to stay at home and look after Sian and the kids but I will be looking for a job soon.’
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Oh yeah I’m sure she’ll be looking for a job soon. Chances are she’s on welfare just like the rest of the UK’s teen motherhood crowd. And triplets? Was it birth control pills, or fertility drugs in play here? The entire western world has devolved into breeder brains. And her doctors said it was a risky birth, for her life, and the life of her babies. Now is that really worth it? Shouldn’t Sian be in college majoring in chemical engineering instead of making more babies with her boyfriend? They are not even married and they have four babies between them, not to mention the fact that the present boyfriend du jour is not the father of the first child, Jaden. Nope, Sian broke up with Jaden’s dad right after the baby’s birth. Looks like the UK needs a major revolution in eliminating their welfare program for teenagers making babies. What a waste of tax dollars. Does the father of the kids, Callum Thomas, have a job? Probably not. Now I know the USA is no better when it comes to teens making babies out of wedlock and collecting welfare checks, but at least our system is not as generous as that of the UK’s. I love how Sian and Callum claim there will be “no more babies.” As if the rest of the world believes them.

I figured it is time for a post on some personal thoughts drawn from real life experiences, even though these do not frequently happen to me. The most recent one was not long after I left my job working in ice cream in the food court of a local small. I was speaking with some of the new, younger employees who were girls and talking about nothing but babies. By girls, I mean teenagers, kids who are not quite ready to assume responsibility for a tiny human life. But that is what they were talking about, amking babies and actually looking forward to it. To set the record straight, Arizona still has one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the nation. Pretty soon the subject turns to me when I said “Not me”, meaning I’m not going to be squeezing out a few watermelons this year or in the future. I didn’t go into the semantics since these kids seem to have no concept whatsoever of birth control, so I’d figure, why waste my time explaining that? Well, at the rate these girls were going, getting almost straight F’s in high school, screwing around with boys, I would not be surprised if they wind up giving birth before their senior year. They were truly baby rabid.

Prior to that, I was working nearby in a department store in the accessories section, which I loved. One of my employees, a sweet Mexican lady, starts telling me about her family, which is fine, since I am a listener by nature. She aksed me if I had any kids and I replied “No, I don’t.” She then actually asks me if I want to play with one of her daughter’s new babies. Well, naturally I did not ask her how many babies her daughter had, but when I responded “No thank you” with a slight laugh, I explained to her my husband and I were not going to have any kids. She had a blank look on her face then said “Everyone has to change a diaper.” I thought to myself, ‘Not me’, but as with the ice cream shop, did not bother to waste my time explaining the necessity of using birth control.

Okay, so it sounds like the majority of people in Tucson, AZ are baby manufacturers but in truth, I have met a few people who are child free. One is an astronomy professor at the University of Arizona, another was a guy a few years younger than me who is originally from Oklahoma. Yeah I know OK is the Bible Belt but this guy is a bit to the left in his ideology. It’s gotta be tough being childfree and living in the Bible Belt. But like me, he is college educated, and he makes good money, and if I wasn’t already married, might consider him, but he acts more like a sibling which is good because I’m already married.

Outside of these guys though, the rate of babies born directly corelates to the poverty in this city, even under the guise of ‘Family Values.” I find it sad that many teen girls have no real ambitions to look forward to, since once they have a baby, they will be on welfare and perpetuate the cycle. Saddled and burdened with having to care for a child, these girls will be burned out long before they hit their middle age years. I certainly do not envy that. Young girls having sex, having no real knowledge of what they are doing, which is royally screwing up their lives, being unable to get a higher education, get a job that pays well, and have real money in the bank, not food stamps and welfare checks like the infamous Nadya Suleman. Babies are not the biggest goal in anyone’s life, and they certainly are not the greatest achievement, either. It doesn’t take a person with a brain to sprog; that’s what microbes do. I feel sorry for these misguided girls. All having babies does is relegate them to second-class citizenship.

Bill Clinton gets all the credit for this one:

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Parenting/story?id=7693121&page=1

Teens: Oral Sex and Casual Prostitution No Biggie
Teens in Documentary Say Oral Sex ‘Not That Big of a Deal’ and Get Paid for Sexual Favors
By CLAIRE SHIPMAN and COLE KAZDIN
May 28, 2009

They don’t give their names, but viewers can see their faces plainly and what these teens are saying is shocking parents. Pre-teens and teens are engaging in sexual activity at an earlier age.

“I ended up having sex with more than one person that night and then in the morning I was trying to get morning-after pills,” one of the girls said. “I was, like, 14 at the time.”

It’s just one of dozens of stories from teenage girls in a new documentary by Canadian filmmaker Sharlene Azam that aims to shed light on the secret, extremely sexual lives of today’s teens.

Have a question about teens and oral sex? Click here and Claire Shipman may answer online. Also check out Claire Shipman’s blog by clicking here.

After four years researching for the documentary, Azam told “Good Morning America” that oral sex is as common as kissing for teens and that casual prostitution — being paid at parties to strip, give sexual favors or have sex — is far more commonplace than once believed.

“If you talk to teens [about oral sex] they’ll tell you it’s not a big deal,” Azam said. “In fact, they don’t consider it sex. They don’t consider a lot of things sex.”

Evidence of this casual attitude may be seen in the fact that more than half of all teens 15 to 19 years old have engaged in oral sex, according to a comprehensive 2005 study by the Centers for Disease Control’s National Center for Health Statistics.

‘Oral Sex Is the New Goodnight Kiss’

In the documentary, “Oral Sex Is the New Goodnight Kiss,” girls as young as 11 years old talk about having sex, going to sex parties and — in some extreme situations — crossing into prostitution by exchanging sexual favors for money, clothes or even homework and then still arriving home in time for dinner with the family.

“Five minutes and I got $100,” one girl said. “If I’m going to sleep with them, anyway, because they’re good-looking, might as well get paid for it, right?”

Another girl talked about being offered $20 to take off her shirt or $100 to do a striptease on a table at a party.

The girls are almost always from good homes, but their parents are completely unaware, Azam said.

“The prettiest girls from the most successful families [are the most at risk]. We’re not talking about marginalized girls,” she said. “[Parents] don’t want to know because they really don’t know what to do. I mean, you might be prepared to learn that, at age 12, your daughter has had sex, but what are you supposed to do when your daughter has traded her virginity for $1,000 or a new bag?”

Sex Favors Traded for Relationship Stability

For some of the girls, the sexual favors are not about clothes or money, but used to keep a relationship together in a chillingly objective way.

“I think there’s very much trading for relationship favors, almost like ‘you need to do this [to] stay in this relationship,’” one girl told “Good Morning America.”

“There’s a lot of social pressure,” said another. “Especially because of our age, a lot of girls want to be in a relationship and they’re willing to do anything.”

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I find it hard to believe that teens nowadays do not know the word “No” on any level. “No” here doesn’t just mean “No, I won’t have sex with you” but “No, I do not discuss that with others”, referring to sexual activity with peers. Even if a teen is sexually active, that remains no one else’s business except the teens involved (and hopefully their parents). Of course, even there I do not encourage the practice of teens engaging in a behavior they should not be doing to begin with.

From where are these kids learning sexual behavior? It seems like a ridiculous question, but when I was that age, I had no knowledge of sex or how to make babies. My parents did not consider it “important knowledge for children.” I did know English and American literature, Spanish, French, history, biology, chemistry, and a number of other elect courses in school. Something which a lot of today’s teens do not know since they are too busy screwing around with each other in the classroom.

And seriously, the girl who was seeking the morning after pill after having sex? What sort of cluelessness does she suffer from? Today’s kids are ignorant about sex and how it can cause children. Once a girl gets pregnant, her life is over with. Studies have shown that teen girls who get pregnant drop out of high school and wind up with low paying jobs. Is that something to aspire to? What is wrong with these kids?

The biggest question of all: Where are these kids parents, if they have any? Eleven year old girls attending sex parties? Excuse me? Shouldn’t they be playing with their Barbie dolls at that age and taking ballet lessons? Maybe the parents of these little girls should be whipped. But no, they suffer from the “My kid would never do that” syndrome.

Lastly, girls who think that having sex with a boy will “mark them” are more naive than they think they are. In no way does having sex make a relationship. Neither does having sex cause a relationship to deepen. And as Ellen Peck said, having a baby is not a sign of perfect love under any circumstances whatsoever: a baby is simply the sign of someone who is sexually active, nothing more, and nothing less. The same goes for so-called “married” couples, too. “Married” as in idiots like Jon and Kate Gosselin and it’s questionable that they have a relationship, too.

Maybe humans need to spend less time proving to the world their private parts are in working order, and more time actually contributing something productive to human society.

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2009/05/07/lkl.bristol.palin.cnn?iref=videosearch

Bristol now claims that her statement on abstinence was taken out of context back in February 2009. Once again she manages to put her foot in her mouth, stating that abstinence is the only way to go for teens. While the lip service is not preventing teens from having sex (yet they must still be learning about the mechanics of sex somewhere if schools are reputedly teaching abstinence education), it always seems easier to speak abstinence than actually practice it.

Apparently abstinence did not work at all for poor Bristol. Teen pregnancy is still the highest in our nation in the western world. Teens are not doing too much to prevent pregnancy but of course that can be a challenge to do in our sex saturated culture. Birth control is not being taught in schools, which may prevent pregnancy, but not provide a foolproof way of preventing pregnancy, especially where condoms are concerned.

Levi has admitted that abstinence is unrealistic for teens since female teens seem to have the attitude that “I can’t get pregnant from having sex.” Guys still buy into the myth that withdrawal works, full insertion is not necessary for impregnation to occur, and so on. Girls think a Coca Cola flush will kill the sperm inside of them. So, why are the public schools not doing their jobs in dispelling these myths? Is it because that “abstinence education” does not include such information? This is most likely the reason.

Bristol Palin is of course the wrong person to be a spokeswoman on abstinence, since abstinence obviously did not work for her or Levi (it does make one wonder where this young couple were during the time abstinence did not work for them). Both Bristol and Levi failed in practicing abstinence, as do many other teens. The fact that both of these kids are fundamentalist Christians only throws a monkey wrench into the deal. Maybe they learned their abstinence sex ed from all of those “begats” the Old Testament is full of. Levi isn’t Bristol’s first love, either; an ex-boyfriend has admitted that the two of them used to fool around a bit at times.

At this point, Bristol Palin is better remembered for her statements on teenaged pregnancy not being glamorous, neither is having to take care of a baby at such a young age. Nothing is positive about teens reproducing, since the majority of them do not have the means to care for and support a baby.

http://news.aol.com/article/baby-thrown-from-car/463968

Baby Thrown Onto Highway, Killed

May 5, 2009

Richard Anthony McTear Jr., 21, was arrested after his ex-girlfriend’s baby was beaten, kidnapped and thrown from a car along an interstate in Tampa, Fla.

Authorities in Florida arrested a man suspected of assaulting and kidnapping an infant, and then discarding the child’s body along an interstate Tuesday.

Sheriff’s deputies were called to the home of a 17-year-old girl early Tuesday in Tampa, Fla. Jasmine Marie Bedwell told authorities that her ex-boyfriend showed up before dawn and attacked her and her infant son, throwing the boy onto concrete and then running off with him, according to the St. Petersburg Times.

The body of the infant, Emanuel Wesley Murray, was found along Interstate 275 in Tampa by a photographer for Fox 13, a local television station.

“On the side of the road, I saw something out of the corner of my eye and at first I thought it was a baby doll and then as I was thinking about it more, I thought that was awfully big for a doll,” photographer Jason Bird told Fox 13.

The baby was pronounced dead at 4:30 a.m, the Times said.

The suspect was arrested around 9 a.m. Police identified him as Richard Anthony McTear Jr., 21.

The newspaper reported that McTear has prior convictions for offenses including drug possession, resisting arrest, trespassing and felony battery. He was declared a fugitive earlier this year after his probation officers in the battery case were unable to locate him, the newspaper said.
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What is totally amazing here is that McTear’s ex-girlfriend actually went out with a criminal, but I suppose there are some girls who love bad boys. Well, McTear is a really bad boy in this case, tossing an infant from his car window while he was zooming up I 275. The baby is obviously not McTear’s - its name is Emanuel Wesley Murray, implying that his ex-girlfriend had a baby with another guy (What did McTear expect once they broke up? That she would never again hang out with boys? Wrong there!). Admittedly, the ex is way too young to be having babies, at the tender age of 17 (goodness, she is not even allowed to legally vote yet or buy lottery tickets) but at some point in her life, she hooked up with the wrong guy. Hopefully McTear will be away in jail for  along time and when he gets out, the ex-girlfriend will probably have to get police protection against McTear. The “good” news is that it is a good thing MctTear was not the father of little Emanuel but it is very well possible he might be a father to someone else’s baby. He was just upset enough with his ex Jasmine to assault her and take away her baby and kill him. McTear simply is not mature enough to be a father quite yet.

http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/fromcomments/263902.php

Experts lament media myth of happy teen motherhood
Costs are high, both in dollars and to society

Tucson, Arizona | Published: 10.24.2008

NEW YORK — Teen motherhood has gained a bit of celebrity allure with the pregnancies of Jamie Lynn Spears and Bristol Palin, but front-line professionals see a starkly different reality involving poverty, lost opportunities and a cost to taxpayers in the billions of dollars annually.

At minimum, the public cost of births to teens 17 and younger is $7.6 billion a year, according to research presented Thursday at a national forum in Chicago.

The calculation includes both the lower taxes that these often-impoverished families contribute and the extra social services they require. A 2006 study put the cost at $9.1 billion.

“Teen births do have substantial, widespread negative effects, especially for the children of teen mothers,” said University of Delaware economist Saul Hoffman, who compiled the estimate.

“The children are more likely to be in foster care, less likely to graduate from high school,” he said. “The daughters are more likely to have teen births themselves, the sons are more likely to be incarcerated.”

There are more than 400,000 teen births annually in the United States, most of them to unmarried mothers on welfare, according to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy.

Yet over the past year, teen pregnancies have been in the spotlight in contexts detached from the sobering statistics.

Don’t let movie fool you

TV actress Jamie Lynn Spears, Britney’s unmarried kid sister, gave birth to a son at 17. The hit movie “Juno” featured a spunky heroine who remains at high school while pregnant and recruits a married couple to adopt the baby. And Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin disclosed that her 17-year-old daughter, Bristol, was pregnant, would have the baby and would marry the boyfriend.

In each case, the real and fictional teens come from supportive, financially stable families, and seemed to be on track to have an array of future opportunities that a more typical teen mom might lack.

“It’s been glorified all over the place,” said Evelyn Rod-riguez, 34, a New Yorker from a low-income background who gave birth to a son at 15 and now, after more than a decade of juggling jobs and classes, is on the verge of earning a college degree.

“People who don’t have the money and great support, they say, ‘Oh, wow, they’re doing it — it’s cool,’” said Rodriguez, referring to Spears and Palin. “But it’s not cool. I’ve been through it. It’s a job. I don’t appreciate what’s going on out there making it seem so beautiful, when it’s not.”

To the panelists at Thursday’s forum, organized by the University of Chicago’s Chapin Hall Center for Children, the hoopla over Spears and Palin represents a squandered opportunity for a serious national discussion of teen motherhood.

“We are, as a society, uncomfortable with sitting down and having conversations about what we expect,” said Sarah Brown, director of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy. “When is the last time we said, as a culture, ‘Babies need adult parents.’”

Teen birthrate going back up

Brown’s organization and its allies have deepening concerns because of the latest federal statistics on teen births. After 15 years of decline — attributed both to less sexual activity and more use of contraceptives — the teen birthrate increased 3 percent between 2005 and 2006, and a further increase is expected when the 2007 figures come out soon.

Brown said the cost estimates contained in Hoffman’s research could be useful in persuading policymakers to be more aggressive in trying to reduce teen births.

“We wish we could interest them on grounds of human suffering alone,” she said. “But when our issues have dollars attached to them as well, it does make a difference.”

Hoffman’s findings are contained in a new book, “Kids Having Kids: Economic Costs and Social Consequences of Teen Pregnancy.” He said his calculations of costs to taxpayers were based on the difference between bearing a child at 17 or younger and delaying childbearing until at least age 20.

He described his new cost estimate of $7.6 billion annually as conservative, and said the total cost to society could be more than three times as high. A previous study by the Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy pegged the annual cost to taxpayers at $9.1 billion.

Less than 40 percent of the mothers who have their first child before age 18 earn a high school diploma, Hoffman writes, and their children are far more likely to go into foster care and eventually end up in prison than children born to even slightly older mothers.
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Unfortunately, teenage pregnancy is common here in Tucson, and especially Tucson High School. Children having children just so they can get that free welfare check from the state of Arizona. Since babies are undesirable during the teen years (not to mention completely impractical), our society should be discouraging teenaged girls from making and wanting babies. Babies will end the life of a teenaged girl. No more parties, no more shopping or going out with friends. Just looking after a screaming, screeching, starving, needy baby. Now that picture for teens really is undesirable in more ways than one. Stay in school, stop worrying about screwing the latest boyfriend du jour, develop some real interests, not babies, and go to college to get a good job. Babies are irrelevant to the lives of teens and not something to be lusted after.

Incidentally, Bristol Palin something to the same effect a few months ago with her “I wish I had waited ten years before having a baby.” Read on:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090403/ap_on_re_us/people_bristol_palin

WASHINGTON – Levi Johnston says ex-fiance Bristol Palin, daughter of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, allows him to visit their 3-month-old son but won’t let him take the baby out.

In an interview to air Monday with talk show host Tyra Banks, Johnston, 19, said he and 18-year-old Bristol don’t always get along.

“Some days we can have regular conversations without fighting,” Johnston said. “Most of the times, I don’t know what’s wrong with her. She’s in a pretty bad mood, she’s short, she doesn’t want me around, I don’t think. She says that I can come see the baby and that kind of thing, but won’t let me take him anywhere.”

The two are the parents of an infant son, Tripp, born on Dec. 27.

Palin family spokeswoman Meghan Stapleton said Bristol Palin was unaware Johnston would be appearing on “The Tyra Banks Show,” along with his mother, Sherry, and sister, Mercede.

“We’re disappointed that Levi and his family, in a quest for fame, attention and fortune, are engaging in flat-out lies, gross exaggeration, and even distortion of their relationship,” Stapleton said in a statement Friday.

Stapleton has said Bristol Palin isn’t preventing anyone from seeing the baby, and that Johnston sees his son “whenever he wants, the family sees the baby whenever they want.”

Johnston told The Associated Press on March 11 that the couple had broken off their engagement. He has said they needed time to grow up before following through on marriage plans.

In the interview with Banks, Johnston said the Alaska governor probably knew he and Bristol were having sex. “Moms are pretty smart,” he said.

Sarah Palin announced her daughter’s pregnancy on Sept. 1, days after Sen. John McCain picked her to be his Republican vice presidential running mate. Johnston later appeared at the Republican National Convention with the Palins.
Johnston told Banks he went to the convention at Bristol’s request, but he wasn’t thrilled to attend it. “I felt out of place,” he said.

Asked whom he’d vote for in 2012 if the choice were President Barack Obama or the Alaska governor, he said: “I still think I’m going to have to vote for Sarah Palin.”

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Levi is right about one thing: both he and Bristol need to do some serious growing up because as of now, both he and Bristol proved to the planet that neither are mature enough to take care of a baby nor marry. Okay, so they were behaving like typical teenagers, despite their Evangelical Christian upbringing. The majority of teenagers are in no position to be making babies - indeed, so many of them cannot take care of themselves, never mind take care for a child. Britol’s mother Sarah Palin takes care of the baby most of the time. Thus Levi and Bristol have been open and honest enough to admit neither of them can be parents or mature adults at that very young age.

It is doubtful that Bristol and Levi’s public statements about teenage parenthood will have any influence on other teenagers. The good news is, they admit there is nothing glamorous about teenagers making babies (accessories). Neither is there anything glamorous about teenagers getting married in this day and age although it is obvious that Levi and Bristol would probably do nothing but fight all day long, what with having a baby. Perhaps they learned, though, that not only does having a baby not cement a relationship, it frequently causes breakups and the dissolution of engagements. Let this be a lesson to those who buy into the “Baby Trap” socialization in American society.

Living in the middle of Sprog Central (Tucson, Arizona to outsiders) when one comes across the relative of a fellow employee, one does not become too surprised when one hears that the sixteen year old relative has visitation rights. Yes, you heard right. So it appears the girl who got pregnant by this nice looking young man has physical custody of the child (who knows how old the kid is - in this city, the offspring could be as old as eight) while the very young father gets to see the child twice a week. I mean, this guy isn’t even old enough to vote, never mind old enough to legally drink alcohol. Yes, he is still in high school, thank goodness, although I do not know the educational fate of the girl. Hearing this sort of thing makes me at a loss for words but all I can think of is, “F’ed up big time.” No pun intended of course, since triple X-rated behavior seems to be the norm in a city that reputedly claims to be family oriented and family friendly. Yes, I know the two concepts radically contradict each other. But whatever. However this is not the first time I have met a teen who is a parent. I’d see many at the mall where I used to work - 15, 16 year old girls with strollers and infants in tow, sometimes with the boyfriend, sometimes with another girlfriend and her rugrat. Tucson is supposedly a “red” city, meaning it is largely conservative, yet out of wedlock sex prevails big time. It’s not just the Catholic population, either, although there has always been a very high rate of Mexican girls who get pregnant as teens. The non-Mexicans are quickly catching up when it comes to the premarital birth statistics. Ultimately the tax payer has to pick up the tab in these cases. It can be a challenge to be childfree where we live as my husband and I are but at least we have a real relationship versus those who are just crotchloafing.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7911684.stm
Teen pregnancy rates go back up

The UK has the highest teenage pregnancy rate in Europe

The number of teenage pregnancies in England and Wales has risen slightly, figures show.
The Office for National Statistics data showed there were 41.9 conceptions per 1,000 15 to 17 year olds in 2007 - up from 40.9 the year before.

It is the first increase since 2002 and means the government will almost certainly miss its target to halve rates by 2010.

The news follows a series of high-profile teenage pregnancy cases.

In total, there were estimated to be just over 42,900 conceptions in under 18s.

The under 16 conception rates also increased from 7.8 per 1,000 to 8.3, meaning there were nearly 8,200 pregnancies.

The levels in Scotland are almost exactly the same as England and Wales, with the drive to reduce them also struggling.

Teenage girls in the North East were the most likely in England to become pregnant, with 52.9 pregnancies per thousand girls aged 15-17.

Hartlepool and Middlesbrough were the towns with the highest rates of teenage pregnancy in the North East, with 66.8 per 1,000 and 66.7 per 1,000 respectively.

Of the 2,598 pregnancies in the North East, 42% led to an abortion - almost 10% lower than the national average.

Pregnancy rates were also high in Yorkshire and Humberside, the West Midlands and the North West, with all recording more than 47 pregnancies per 1,000 girls.

Failing a generation

Hilary Pannack, of the sex education charity Straight Talking, said: “We are failing a whole generation of young people.”

“Teenage parents statistically are much more likely to become parents of children who themselves become teenage parents.

“That means generations of child poverty, which we need desperately to tackle.”

Juliet Hillier, of Brook, a sexual health charity for young people, added: “It’s disappointing, but not surprising to see an increase.

“It is essential that funding finds its way to local areas where the need is greatest and this is simply not happening consistently.”

She also said sex education needed to be improved, adding it was too biological.

However, despite the rise last year, the overall rate has still fallen over the past 10 years.

Gill Frances, chairman of the Teenage Pregnancy Independent Advisory Group, said teenage pregnancy was still a challenging issue.

But she added: “There is good news. We’ve still got an overall fall in teenage pregnancy.”

Beverly Hughes, the children’s minister for England, said the government had made cutting teenage pregnancy rates a priority, and rates had come down over the last decade.

But she accepted that progress had not been as swift as has had been hoped.

Ms Hughes said it was important to give parents help and advice about how to tackle the issue of sex in an open fashion with their children.

She said high quality sex education in schools was also vital, and new guidance to make that compulsory would be issued to schools in the autumn.

“This is not just about the mechanics of sex, it is about relationships, moral values and about making clear what is right and wrong and what you expect from young people, but it is doing that in a way that enables them to take part in the dialogue.”

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“Sex education is too biological” - I will take that to mean they are getting hands-on experience in making a baby. It looks like the United Kingdom needs to teach these kids how to use birth control to discourage baby-making if these kids insist on having sex. Having relationships - what a joke. They’re not having any relationships except sexual relationships in order to see if they can make a baby or not.

This is no different from a parent telling a five-year old that if he or she sticks a hand in the oven while it is on, it will get burned. Of course, people must always find things out for themselves. The next thing they will be saying is the following: “I want to have a baby in order to see if I will be a good parent or not.” More than half the time they do not make good parents at all. Then they continue to make babies in order to receive that free welfare check in the mail. These kids really do need to learn how to use some form of birth control since it is obvious that self control does not work at all.