by Jessica Gordon

Created on: December 20, 2006   Last Updated: May 02, 2007

Oh no doubt about it! The teachers, peers, parents, none of them want pregnant teens around in the school. Personally, I think it's very cruel and unjust in the way these young women are treated, but it just seems everyone rationalizes it with, "Well, if she hadn't gotten pregnant in the first place she wouldn't be having such a hard time now would she?"

That is so hypocritical. It's like saying, "You drove, it's own fault for getting into an accident." No pregnant teen, that I've heard of, ever expected that what they were doing would result in their almost complete exile from polite society in general. Most of them didn't even realize it would require such drastic changes like dropping out of school.

The school itself usually offers little to no help. Although it will still proclaim that gaining knowledge is important for anyone's future, they want pregnant teens to do so outside of the building and away from the teens subsequent peers. Especially down here in the Bible Belt region. "You show, you go" is a very popular attitude. The school fears that when pregnant teens are around the school's population, the teens will consider it 'normal or alright' to have a child at that young of an age (before eighteen, basically).

It's not all the education system's fault. Parents of other teens do not want their children around 'such a bad influence', although the teen has done nothing wrong at all. The adults will pressure the school, the teens parents, and the teen herself into getting out of the school. Quite frankly, the parents become the bad influence when they go to the trouble of removing the poor girl.

Of course, the teen is branded once 'word gets around' about her pregnancy. She will find that her friends no longer associate with her as often, and that normally nice people will turn their backs toward her as a blatant sign, "We don't want you here." She becomes the 'prego' and slut, whore, all the various terms meant to strip away her reputation and dignity.

In a sense, this is all a general form of bullying. Picking on the pregnant teen because she made a mistake that they don't approve of. It's absolutely horrid how society can treat a person, though she has committed no crime against any person. Prejudice towards these girls is wrong in every way, as they deserve just as much of a chance for a future as the life that grows within them.

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