Pajamas Media

125 Comments

1. Phil Magness:

Girls this age shouldn’t be having sex at all. The fact that the author doesn’t come right out and say this, but wastes ink on the availibility of “family planning” (abortuary?) near Gloucester only to finally arrive at the more logical conclusion that “one has to assume they wouldn’t use the contraception responsibly anyhow” shows how ethically challenged our culture is today. The idea that unwed teens shouldn’t be spending their free time copulating used to be considered common sense. Today people like me who maintain that view are assumed to be religious extremists.

Jun 21, 2008 - 7:16 am 2. michele:

That’s a big assumption. I have a teenage daughter, and I do not in any way think that girls that age should be having sex. This really isn’t about sex for the sake of sex. These girls had sex as a means to an end, because they wanted, at 16 or younger, to become mothers. That’s the crux of this story.

Jun 21, 2008 - 7:25 am 3. katinga:

Gloucester in the early 80s when I was going to school was more an art colony than an impoverished fishing village. Has it gone back to fishing?

Something here rings false, in other words.

Jun 21, 2008 - 7:34 am 4. Mabel:

Yes, it’s about them wanting to be mothers…but why? Because they can. It’s as simple as that. I think these are the unintended consequences of telling young girls that they are the absolute masters of their bodies. I do believe in sex education to a point, but at some point, it becomes a tacit permit or even a mere expectation that they will be sexually active. The culture tells them sex is ok, even glamourous and that an abortion is an easy solution to an unwanted pregnancy. It’s their bodies and their choice, even at the expense of another’s life. No wonder they are now deciding it is as much their choice to actually have the baby, for whatever romanticized and delusional idea of teen motherhood they may have.

Jun 21, 2008 - 7:46 am 5. griefer:

its 18 now.

Jun 21, 2008 - 8:08 am 6. North Shore Girl:

Gloucester is anything but an isolated fishing community. It’s located about 30 miles to the north of Boston, and is easily accessible (to Boston and other north shore towns) via commuter rail and bus.

As for blame-laying, I’d say that the Social Service Industry’s influence (Gloucester-area families are major consumers) and that of the educators would play strong supporting roles alongside poor parenting.

This is such a shame. I grew up under similar circumstances (Catholic in a Rust Belt city without the access to what a large city has to offer). Family life was a wash, so it was teachers and school counsellors who put me on track to get into college and make something of myself rather than end up another DSS statistic.

It just floors me how not only the parents, but the professionals paid to help the kids failed these 16 so miserably.

Jun 21, 2008 - 8:17 am 7. Nelson:

None of these articles mention the fathers (other than the homeless man). What poor reporting.

Jun 21, 2008 - 8:29 am 8. rightwingprof:

“Girls this age shouldn’t be having sex at all. The fact that the author doesn’t come right out and say this”

You obviously didn’t read the final paragraph, or possibly didn’t understand the Hawthorne reference in the last sentence.

Jun 21, 2008 - 8:36 am 9. JTFaraday:

I agree that it’s odd for such a morally outraged writer to be outraged about everything *except* teenage kids having sex in the first place. I hate to say it, having always considered myself a liberal, but the liberal mind seems to be sporting a huge mental deficit in this regard.

Jun 21, 2008 - 8:44 am 10. Pete:

I’m not sure where you’re going with this. On the one hand you correctly state that handing out birth control would not have done anything, as they WANTED to get pregnant, yet almost in the same breath you suggest that this is somehow a natural consequence of a Catholic upbringing and a lack of comprehensive sex education. You can’t have it both ways. Seems to me that they knew enough about sex to know how to get pregnant when they wanted to.

I agree with Mabel, that at some point it - the constant talk of sex in the name of “education” - becomes tacit permission, or at the very least an expectation. Let’s face it; everything one needs to know about sex can be taught in one semester - it just ain’t that difficult. To continue non-stop and then hand out condoms sends a very strong message - it’s OK, we expect you to be having sex.

And yes, pop culture does have an influence. You state that “Not every teen girl who sees Juno or is a fan of Jamie Spears is going to go out and get pregnant.” But some will.

Jun 21, 2008 - 8:46 am 11. JTFaraday:

“or possibly didn’t understand the Hawthorne reference in the last sentence.”

Well, I think we already did that– it was called “welfare reform.” Anyway, the problem with all that is Hester gets to wear the scarlet letter while someone else gets off scot-free.

Jun 21, 2008 - 9:09 am 12. Charlie on the PA Turnpike:

From the television media this morning, I’ve heard constant references to alleged pact, and in a few cases people identified as school administrators claiming to know of the pact claim only through the Time magazine article. That doesn’t mean there isn’t a pact, of course.

Maybe I am getting to the age where curmudgeon-thinking begins to set in, but I am doubting the whole pact claim, and instead thinking that a school where strollers and day-care are considered normal is being used as a hook for the story.

Jun 21, 2008 - 9:26 am 13. Azul Del Fuego:

Ahhh, to be a homeless man in fashionable Gloucester! Pardon me while I have another fantasy.

Jun 21, 2008 - 9:28 am 14. Timmer:

Hmmm, note to self: Look up what’s being taught in Boyo’s Junior High and augment where necessary.

Jun 21, 2008 - 9:51 am 15. michele:

Charlie, I am beginning to doubt the whole pact thing as well, but no matter what, it is still alarming that 17 girls of that age are pregnant.

Pete, I did not mean to imply that this is a natural consequence of a Catholic upbringing. It is, however a natural consequence of bad or lazy parenting. The problem is too many parents leave it up to schools to educate their children about sex, and then act horrified when they get pregnant or an STD, as if the school’s sex ed program is to blame - either it taught them that sex was good, or it didn’t teach them enough. There has to be parental education that goes hand in hand with the school’s education. And sex is, at least in our school district, is not just about the act of sex. It’s about consequences of sex, the detriments of having sex before they are emotionally ready for it and the dangers of unprotected sex. I think these are important things for kids to know, but I also think that parents have to hammer home these points and take care to raise their children to be confident young adults with self respect and good decision making skills. In other words, not the kind of kids who would be swayed by pop culture heroes or some deep seated need for unconditional love to engage in immoral behavior that could affect the rest of their lives.

Yes, some girls will go out and get pregnant after seeing Juno, I suppose. But you can’t blame the movie. If a girl is that influenced by a movie that she wants to have a baby because of it, there is something going on there is much deeper than wanting to emulate a fictional teenager.

Jun 21, 2008 - 10:04 am 16. Gmidwest:

When is the State coming in to take all the children away?

Jun 21, 2008 - 10:16 am 17. Javelin:

She seems to consider Gloucester to be some isolated 19th Century fishing town, when it’s part of the 21st Century and less than 30 miles from Boston. Do you think they keep chickens for eggs and save their grease for soap making? Face it, wanting to be a mother is natural for most women and defying adult rules and conventional morals are the norm these days. But let’s insist we all return to those good old days when burgers were a dime and a letter was three cents.

Jun 21, 2008 - 10:28 am 18. Javelin:

I’ve noticed another assumption here, that welfare is to blame too. Does anyone know how many of them are in the welfare program?

Jun 21, 2008 - 10:30 am 19. joe:

HAVE THEY BEEN NOT TAUGHT ABOUT UNPROTECTED SEX? WTF
These girls made a pact, no amount of sex ed and free condoms would have changed their mind.

Jun 21, 2008 - 10:32 am 20. Johnny:

Why in the world did you spend half the article foaming at the mouth about “lack of sex education” only to acknowledge it doesn’t help when they WANT to get pregnant? This “lack of sexual education” garbage is a load of crap anyway. My high school had plenty of proper sexual education and still maintained a nursery with a few dozen kids and one of the largest pregnancy rates in the city (I’m in Toronto). All you sex ed nuts need to figure out that your solutions don’t work either. Kids today are irresponsible and stupid and no amount of toothless education is gonna help.

Jun 21, 2008 - 11:18 am 21. George:

I am assuming at the very least the 24 year old man has been arrested and is being charged appropriately?

Jun 21, 2008 - 11:18 am 22. Richard:

Lovely article. Better socializing and normalizing of aberrant behavior. Yes, aberrant. Almost sociopathic. Doing what one wants without regard to consequence or conscience. Pact or no pact. Repugnant most of all. These children and their parents are an AMERICAN shame.
Best of luck in your new lives kids, grand dad and grand mom (around 43-ish?)
will most assuredly help raise your little bastards.
It’s what they wanted anyway.

Jun 21, 2008 - 11:23 am 23. Gloria:

These 16-year old girls had the very natural urge of girls of that age to love something. The urge is idealistic and romantic, and not necessarily connected with the physicality of sex. In my generation we asked for dogs or horses to love and care for.

Unfortunately, ideals and romanticism are considered naive by today’s educators (I am an educator), and are replaced with a so-called “realism,” which is focussed on street-smarts.

Had the educators understood the idealistic, romantic nature of the teen-age psyche, they would not have glorified baby-making at this age–instituting a daycare in the school. The girls would have been just as happy with a puppy or having access to a riding academy.

Jun 21, 2008 - 11:31 am 24. Sweating Through Fog:

i just find this story astonishing. Every child deserves two parents who love them, not one, immature parent who decided it would be “cool” or “trendy” to have a baby.

Jun 21, 2008 - 11:33 am 25. michele:

Javelin: I read about 40 articles on this story before I wrote this, a good portion of them from papers within that vicinity, and that is the way they all referred to Gloucester. In fact, the one word I saw repeated most often was isolated. Also, where did I ever say welfare was to blame? I never even mentioned the word at all. I made mention of other people blaming an economic downturn, but myself, I never blamed welfare at all or implied that any of them were on welfare.

Johnny, you seem to be confusing sex education with contraceptives. I said that handing out condoms and pills would not have helped as their goal was to get pregnant. Some of you seem to think that sex education is about nothing except how not to get pregnant, and it is so much more than that. Like I mentioned earlier, our sex ed program here teaches about everything, not just conception, and including the emotional dangers of having sex before you are ready. They teach about respecting yourself and your body.

The girls are missing something, a basic understanding of playing house vs. really becoming a mother. Like Gloria stated, it is about romanticism and love and the idealism of those things, and the foundation for understanding that a 16 year old is not going to find a fantasy life of unconditional love by having a baby is not present in these girls. The fact that there are (now) 18 of them at once going through this leads one to believe that the entire community is missing something. The complete lack of concern from the one mother I quoted saddened me. Something is very wrong with that thinking.

These girls are treating motherhood as a trend, babies as accessories the way Paris Hilton carries a dog around. They think it will be fun and cool and they had to get that idea from somewhere because I can tell you that my daughter and her teenage friends think no such thing. It’s not a natural teenage urge to become a mother at 16. To look for love, yes. To look for love in a way that causes you to have unprotected sex with a 24 yr old homeless man, NO.

Jun 21, 2008 - 12:10 pm 26. Richard Wallace:

I know nothing of Gloucester, I can only say that a big part of the problem in my own area is the availability of government services. Some girls will admit, eventually, to getting pregnant to get out of their Mother’s home. What they usually will not admit, perhaps because they do not realize it, is that they are a product of the culture here. It is a not uncommon career path to have a couple of children and begin attending your appointments at the various government agencies that will take care of you, at least until your youngest child is 18. I’m not deriding our government taking care of those that can’t care for themselves, but there is an ongoing baby-making industry here. Subsidized housing, WIC, EBT, Workfare, (which actually requires women to make just below poverty-level income to retain her other ‘incomes’), it’s a shameful cycle that is not likely to end anytime soon.

For women that actually want to work their way out of it, it’s a trap. Every dollar they make above the established line; their rent goes up, their food stamps are reduced, they no longer qualify for Medicaid. The only way out is to find a job that takes their income from less than 15k to over 30k; that is the extent of their dependency on the ‘helpful’ programs. Not completely off-topic, but I am sorry for blogging here.

Jun 21, 2008 - 12:35 pm 27. courtney:

It’s parenting, plain and simple. I had precious little sex education in the public schools, but plenty from my mother and my Catholic upbringing. I managed not to get pregnant, or get a disease, and wait to have sex with someone I loved and who loved me and was concerned for my welfare and safety before, during and after. The one pregnancy scare I had, at 19, my MOTHER took me to buy the test, and my mother sat with me on the edge of the tub and waited.

As a human, not just an educator, I have found this story disturbing to the core, not only because of the facts of the story (17 pregnant girls in one high school), but of the media circus surrounding it. And the best I can come up with, after reading and listening, is that it’s parenting. Well, the lack of parenting. It has nothing to do with availability of birth control, or comprehensive sex education, or religion, or anything else. These girls have been FAILED by the adults in their lives who were entrusted to care for them.

Jun 21, 2008 - 12:50 pm 28. Kay:

Sorry, but what’s an ‘educator’, is that anything like a teacher?

Jun 21, 2008 - 12:50 pm 29. Gloria:

Kay, I suppose you are referring to my posting where I state I’m an educator. What I mean here is a university professor in an education department.

Jun 21, 2008 - 1:44 pm 30. Javelin:

Michele, sorry, you didn’t mention welfare, I was referring to other comments. Sorry I didn’t make that clear. But your tone reminds me of an isolated Maine or Labradorian fishing village rather thant a popular north shore village of the Boston metro area

Jun 21, 2008 - 2:43 pm 31. Ed Wallis:

Nature or nurture?

The problem I have with this article is the author’s seeming insistence that this event has little to nothing to do with the decadent, depraved culture which surrounds - among other places - Gloucester. Gloucester is not only in Massachusetts, but is also hooked up to the United States of Media…ahem…Persuasion.

I find it at best disingenuous to hear the “it’s not the Left’s fault!” canard, especially from those who otherwise would normally have an epileptic reaction to the notion that people should be responsible for the consequences of their own actions.

Jun 21, 2008 - 3:07 pm 32. Hazel Stone:

katinga:

Gloucester in the early 80s when I was going to school was more an art colony than an impoverished fishing village. Has it gone back to fishing?

Something here rings false, in other words.

Mystery solved. $#@^*%$ hippies.

Jun 21, 2008 - 4:32 pm 33. fraydna52:

I visit with pregnant women/girls and new moms in my work. I’ve observed an 18 year old, married with a premature baby, who had more maturity and ability to mother her child than some who are twice her age. I’ve seen a teenager give premature birth to a baby who later died. It was the teenager’s mother’s idea that she have a baby because the older woman “wanted another baby in the house”. My experience has been that maturity and age are not necessarily related, that marriage before sexual activity is an ideal well worth pursuing, and that lack of knowledge of sexual matters is very seldom the problem. Girls need mothers and particularly fathers (preferably married to their mothers, but an involved dad is better than none) to demonstrate to them that they are highly valuable, have inner beauty, and are loved enough to be taught what is right and wrong and why. Unfortunately some girls/women think that having a baby is a way to have love or attention (the “look what I caught” mentality). I am appalled that this story seems to present these girls as seeing no need at all for men/fathers for their babies.

Jun 21, 2008 - 5:50 pm 34. elvis:

I think since the word, educator, was put in quotation marksthat Kay was being sarcastic.

Jun 21, 2008 - 6:29 pm 35. Charlie (Colorado):

Sorry, but what’s an ‘educator’, is that anything like a teacher?

Not usually.

I suppose you are referring to my posting where I state I’m an educator. What I mean here is a university professor in an education department.

See?

Girls this age shouldn’t be having sex at all.

Sorry, Peter, but a 16 year old girl nowadays is 3-5 years past menarche. Maybe they shouldn’t be having sex, but a billion years of evolution suggests some significant number of them will be having sex. You can’t, as they say, fool Mother Nature. Each of these girls and every one of you reading this article is here because every last one of your direct ancestors, every one of them including both your parents, wanted to reproduce, had sex, and succeeded. You’re not going to understand any of this until you stop playing “let’s pretend” about it.

It’s about consequences of sex, the detriments of having sex before they are emotionally ready for it and the dangers of unprotected sex.

Michele, with all due respect, they don’t appear to have lacked a grasp of the consequences of sex or the dangers of unprotected sex if they were acting out of the desire to get pregnant. They may have not been thinking about whether they wanted to be a mommy at 20 or attend their own kids graduation (please God!) in their 30’s, and they certainly weren’t thinking about ruin and dishonor and shame in being an Unwed Mother, nor does it appear they are feeling any. Nor do I want to suggest they ought to be; I remember the days when “shotgun wedding” wasn’t a metaphor as much as it was an exaggeration, and I’m not anxious to see those days come back.

But as far as a lack of sex education, it would appear that they either had enough sex education or managed to figure things out on their own.

I’m not convinced, frankly, that this is really worth a lot more excitement than any silly-season story; sure, it’s a hell of an example to use on your own daughters, including reminding them that it’s going to be tough to be Paris Hilton when they’re making 3AM feedings.

Jun 21, 2008 - 6:46 pm 36. Brian:

An “oh well, the world needs ditch diggers too” moment.

I find it difficult to be sympathetic to any of the characters in this story.

Jun 21, 2008 - 8:09 pm 37. Mike G:

This story seems familiar. I teach in an urban high school and me and my co-workers have noticed that in the past year or so there has been a near epidemic of pregnancies. And from the talk we hear in the hallway, most are planned, that is the young girls (some as young as 15) tried and succeeded in getting pregnant.

In a conversation I had with one of the young girls who is pregnant (although I wasn’t supposed to know), I told her that having a child when you’re are a teen is not a smart thing to do and more than likely to result in a lifetime of poverty. Her response was that she was offended by what I said. I guess the more PC thing to do should have been to congratulate her.

Jun 21, 2008 - 8:16 pm 38. dirigible:

“… pact to get pregnant and raise their babies together.”

Curious. The Times story fails to elaborate on this. Do they have plans to form a commune, or what?

Maybe what Gloucester high school needs is not sex ed or contraceptives, but economics courses. Just what is a 16 year old with half a high-school education going to do to support a baby? The time to consider such things is before the arrival of the lil’ bundle o’ joy; not after, when it’s too late.

Jun 21, 2008 - 8:26 pm 39. sixfingers:

Does this tell you something?
Should women vote?

Jun 21, 2008 - 8:45 pm 40. Koblog:

Look, what is all this “shock” I’m hearing from you people?

If we are simply products of blind Evolution–if we are merely advanced slime that sprung to life by chance with an animal drive and the ability to reproduce–and we find ourselves now with conflicted “laws” created out of the imaginations of the slimmest of majorities of unelected judges that state we cannot even define the word “marriage” and then hold it in mockery, what is to stop a group of girls who can reproduce if they want to?

We are seeing academia’s and Hollywood’s nihilistic, deconstructed and loveless theoretical world play out in reality before our very eyes.

Jun 21, 2008 - 8:45 pm 41. ZEITGEIST:

[...] CATALANO: Fast Times at Gloucester High. “At an age when most teens are making plans for college and careers, 17 teenagers from Gloucester [...]

Jun 21, 2008 - 8:54 pm 42. John Davies:

Let me go out on a limb here. I blame it on smaller families.

Children in bigger families know how much of a pain a baby can be.

I think teenage girls (and boys) should have to work in a day care for the summer to learn what babies are really about.

Jun 21, 2008 - 8:56 pm 43. Jim C.:

Unidentified males plus this alleged homeless man are part of the problem too, yet they seem to be getting off scot-free. Whereas if a married woman cheats on her husband and has a child as a result, her husband has to support it. What a crock.

Jun 21, 2008 - 9:13 pm 44. Roxie:

Don’t you get it??? These girls REFUSED birth control. They had access to it. Hell, they were in the high school health clinic all the time getting pregnancy tests to find out if Billy Bob hit their timing just right. NOTHING could have stopped their quest to get pregnant. These were not accidental pregnancies by naive kids. They are not retarded or braindead!! They knew what they were trying to do!!

These are not young newly weds. These tramps screwed over and over with any boy till they got pregnant. Even the news media said the pregnancy test requests at the school had skyrocketed!! Okay, then what is your definition of a slut. This is what the Webster online dictionary says: SLUT - 1 chiefly British : a slovenly woman 2 a: a promiscuous woman. Now, I am not judging these kids, but they fit the definition of SLUTS!!!!

Liberals are just upset because they have to take responsibility for glamorizing sex outside of marriage. It is a hard pill to swallow.

Jun 21, 2008 - 9:14 pm 45. Allen:

“It’s not only the eagerness to become pregnant here that is alarming — have they not been taught about unprotected sex? Or is the refusal by parents to have birth control available in the schools a sign that they don’t believe their kids are engaging in sex, so why bother talking about it?”

Um, I think the point is that they WANTED to get pregnant…. not the fact that they didn’t know can get pregnant having sex. I’m pretty sure they knew you can.

Jun 21, 2008 - 9:23 pm 46. James Nightshade:

I don’t know if there was a pact. The reporting on this has been here-and-there. But, reading between the lines, it does seem fairly certain that most of the girls wanted to get pregnant for their own individual benefit: perhaps to get attention, enhance their social status, or to have a baby to love them unconditionally.

Of course, the problem is well known. The literary model I choose is not The Scarlet Letter, but Pride and Prejudice. The Mrs. Bennets of our age are raising a crop of Lydias.

The root cause is poor parenting, but the popular media’s glorification of cads and harlots sure as hell doesn’t help.

Jun 21, 2008 - 9:28 pm 47. TSOL:

“Girls this age shouldn’t be having sex at all.”

Nature clearly disagrees.

Jun 21, 2008 - 9:53 pm 48. Ben:

Katinga: “Gloucester in the early 80s when I was going to school was more an art colony than an impoverished fishing village. Has it gone back to fishing?

Something here rings false, in other words.”

Jeez, way to miss the forest for the trees - there has been an “artist’s colony” in Gloucester, at Rocky Neck, but Gloucester has always, always, always been a fishing town (full disclosure: my father was born and raised there, my grandmother is still in the area [Rockport]). I’m kinda offended you spend any time there in, presumably, Rocky Neck, and didn’t have a clue what kind of town it really is. The closing of the fishing banks was a mortal blow, and it’s been dying a slow death ever since.

For those of you pointing out that Gloucester is “only 30 miles from Boston” - have you been there? It’s an hour, by car or train but, like much of New England, an hour outside of Boston can put you in a very different place.

As to why this happened there? I dunno - being “white and Catholic” has never kept it from being anything but the bluest of blue collar kind of towns. Young pregnancy is nothing new there, but earlier it was young marriage, with the husband out on the boats (ergo, my father, and many of his friends). While this case is creepy, with the suggestion of a pact, teenage pregnancy is old hat for the town. Now it’s married up to poverty and single-motherhood in a way it wasn’t before.

Jun 21, 2008 - 10:02 pm 49. jw:

When I was in highschool long ago (1948-51), girls started getting married at 16, some at 14 and 15, and then had children. The problem with the girls in Gloucester is that they do not associate having children with marriage; they should marry the fathers of their children.
“Sex education” merely encourages thinking about sexual activity as entertainment. Human beings do not need to be educated about sex, anymore than any other animals do, since they are born knowing about it.

Jun 21, 2008 - 10:04 pm 50. Mitchell:

Gloria, I very much appreciated your insightful comments (which - surprise, surprise - I agree with). Thanks.

Start with bad parenting, add in various bad messages from society (from the media to the welfare state) and it’s really no wonder what comes out the other end.

I have 3 teenage daughters. I speak from experience. Having had a lousy childhood, and having been an extremely screwed-up and difficult teen/young adult, I was able to change and managed to raise my 3 daughters in a very different way than I was. I turned it all around. I learned from my past (from both my parents and myself). I made my children my number one priority and they knew it and still know it to this day. I was a stay at home Dad (while being the sole breadwinner as well). There was nothing I considered more important than my job as their father. I still feel the same way. They aren’t here for ME - I’m here for THEM.

All that effort has paid off handsomely. I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned this before to anyone, (I tend to be shy), but I will admit that it makes me feel good to have heard such nice things about them coming from their teachers and other parents ever since they were very young. As a matter of fact, last night two of them graduated high schoool, and once again a teacher came up to me and told me how “wonderful” they are and that I must be doing something right. The 3 of us blushed at the same time. lol.

My girls (and their Dad) are FAR from perfect. My point isn’t to brag about them or to impress upon you what a great parent I am. I’ve made plenty of mistakes with them. I have regrets. But the bottom line is: IT WORKS! Discipline and love go a long way. Put the effort in, make good decisions, repeatedly teach them the right things (i.e. the things that work), talk openly and honestly with them, love ‘em like crazy, earn their respect, and dozens of other “ingredients”, and the odds are your kids will turn out alright. Of course there will always be exceptions (great parents can have lousy kids), but that’s no excuse for being a bad or neglectful parent. There’s no sure thing, but if you do the right things, the odds are surely in your favour.

These kids have been failed by their parents, school, and society in so many ways. At this point I think the best thing that can be done - for them, their children, and those who might be influenced by this - is to hold them fully responsible for the consequences of their decision. Make them take care of those babies. Don’t make it easy for them. Shine a bright light on the REALITY of the entire process instead of the fantasy and that will hopefully dissuade other little girls from making the same mistake.

Jun 21, 2008 - 10:05 pm 51. lee:

I’m hearing from news sources that this “pact” is likely a hoax.

Jun 21, 2008 - 10:34 pm 52. Mohammed:

What’s my muslim take on this? Sharia Law would handle the high school pregnant sluts in Gloucester differently. They’d be stoned to death. Amina Lawal Kurami (born 1973) is a Nigerian woman. In March 2002, an Islamic Sharia court (in Funtua, Nigeria in the northern state of Katsina) sentenced her to death by stoning for adultery for conceiving a child out of wedlock. I know it sounds cruel, but we just don’t have this problem in our countries.

Jun 21, 2008 - 11:27 pm 53. Yaakov Watkins:

For those of you who haven’t figured it out, teenage boys want girls and teenage girls want babies.

What kept their mothers from getting pregnant at 14? The mothers thought it was immoral to get pregnant without a husband. So they waited. The girls didn’t think it was wrong, so they didn’t wait.

The girls didn’t know about jobs because they were too young to be allowed to have one. They didn’t know about money management because they were too young to have a checking account. They didn’t know about bills because they were too young to be allowed to have any. They didn’t know about responsibility because they weren’t allowed to have any.

But their bodies were old enough to make babies. So they did.

Jun 21, 2008 - 11:37 pm 54. dantana:

why does anyone care anymore?

Many have warned about the moral drift in our land, yet the majority profess that religion, morality discipline and shame are archaic and meaningless in contemporary society.

I hope the new Grandparents dig there new gig and these young chicks enjoy parenthood.

Jun 22, 2008 - 1:34 am 55. michele:

When I mentioned unprotected sex, I wasn’t just talking about the consequence being pregnancy. Obviously, they knew that was the result of having sex. What I meant was, were they aware of the other dangers of unprotected sex (especially with a homeless person), like AIDS or other STDs? You would think that would have made them think twice.

I am really astounded at the amount of people who are so eager to blame liberals and the media for this and let the parents off the hook. If you raise your children right, they won’t be swayed by media figures to have babies before they get out of high school. Today’s society IS much looser and freer than it once was when it comes to sex, and the media overload of sex certainly doesn’t help, but that does not mean you can’t teach your children right from wrong. Are you going to give up just because you feel overpowered by the media? It is a lot of work to be a good parent and to teach your kids good values, morals and equip them with enough knowledge to have good decision making skills. Blaming the media, blaming society is lazy. Millions of parents are able to combat those things. Yes, things happen, as someone said above, even good parents sometimes end up with lousy kids, or with kids who make mistakes. But you have to at least try. You have to know that you gave your children the best moral grounding you could or else you have failed as a parent.

And those who think their should be no sex education at all - I certainly hope you would at least teach your children the basic necessities at all. Being armed with knowledge is not a sin, people. It’s important, especially when part of sex education is (or at least should be) to teach your children the consequences of sex AND to teach them self respect when it comes to engaging in sexual behavior. This is what parents should be teaching their kids, both boys and girls, that you are worth more than the sum of your reproductive organs.

Even if the school officials blew this story out of proportion by claiming there was a pact when there wasn’t, 18 high school girls from the same school having babies is still a massive problem.

Jun 22, 2008 - 2:16 am 56. NB:

Koblog hit the nail on the head. Modern Liberalism with the Courts as its hammer and the media as its voice box has built a world where this had to happen and will continue happening.

And here I will separate myself from Koblog if only to keep from incorrectly and inadvertently tying him/her to the rest of my opinions… Anyone who’s studied the progress and evolution of modern liberal thought and politics in America starting circa 1950 (probably earlier, more like early to mid 40’s) knew it was only a matter of time. If you’re the type that wants to fight tooth and nail to drive home the idea that a woman is wholly and without restriction free to do as she likes with her own body and that the institution of marriage and the idea of family are dirty conservative ideals you really can’t be surprised that this is the result. While those ideas may (and I stress may) apply to an already grown emotionally mature and responsible adult woman who is prepared both personally and fiscally to accept the consequences, the liberal education system’s policy has been to drive the idea home to ever younger generations of young women. Well guess what, 18 girls have now taken advantage of the right to use their own bodies in whatever way they saw fit. Congrats everybody. Worked a treat didn’t it? I’m not opposed to the fact that a woman’s body is her own and I’m not opposed to a person’s individual rights. What I am opposed to is the idea that personal responsibility has no place in social discussion to temper the exercise of those rights. So perhaps I should revise my statement; it’s not the liberal idea regarding one’s rights to one’s own body that’s flawed, it’s the liberal idea that demanding personal responsibility is somehow an infringement on those rights that has bred the perfect storm of adolescent misguidance.

And as an aside to Mohammed, I’m hoping that was just an attempt to get people riled up. If not I’ll maintain my composure by simply saying, we don’t tolerate that Sharia crap in America and we never will. We address the problem, face it head on, come together as a community and as a nation and do what we can to help those caught up in it. We do not kill the person that needs help or improved guidance.

Jun 22, 2008 - 2:36 am 57. michele:

it’s the liberal idea that demanding personal responsibility is somehow an infringement on those rights that has bred the perfect storm of adolescent misguidance.

I have to agree with you there. I think personal responsibility started to disappear right about the time the “self esteem” movement started, where we began to treat children as fragile human beings who will shatter if they are told they are doing something wrong, rather than shaping them into adults who can handle criticism and accept responsibility for their actions.

Again, that goes back to parenting. Nobody says you have to subscribe to that way of thinking.

Jun 22, 2008 - 3:12 am 58. michele:

I also want to add this - Rachel Lucas has an interesting post on this, which made me want to add that I do think there is a problem with how girls are portrayed in the media and how they are sexualized at such a young age, with everything from clothing to those ridiculous Bratz dolls. I hate the way most young girls dress, it makes me uncomfortable and it makes me feel like they are just headed down a road to disaster.

But it is up to the parents to counter what society and the media is giving us. When you buy your 10 year old daughter a pair of pants that says “juicy” on the ass and don’t monitor what they watch on tv or do on the internet and don’t give them any guidelines, you can NOT come back and blame the media when she gets pregnant.

Jun 22, 2008 - 3:24 am 59. Sam Hall:

“but these are children — yes, children, with terrible decision making skills”

No, they are not children.

American Heritage Dictionary
child
n. pl. chil·dren (chĭl’drən)

1. A person between birth and puberty.

Treat them as children and this is what you get.
They need to be taught that decisions have consequences and that babies need a stable two-parent family.

Jun 22, 2008 - 4:25 am 60. vb:

Michele: I agree that it is up to parents to counter what society and the media puts out. But I do think society should not leave parents alone. Each of us has a role in forming societal values and we shouldn’t pretend otherwise. Do we increase ratings and advertising income by watching celebrity gossip on TV? Do we reach for the magazine with the most salacious cover at the hairdresser? There are many opportunities for all of us to practice a little self control and we owe it to parents and children to do so.

Jun 22, 2008 - 4:25 am 61. George L.:

I disagree that these are children. They are teens. Children are 12 years of age or younger.

We can’t have a rational discussion if we don’t agree on basic terms.

Jun 22, 2008 - 4:57 am 62. Ed Wallis:

“michelle,” sorry to go on about the “one dimensional” aspect of your comments, but many folks can chew gum AND walk at the same time (tho’ some can’t even get the gum chewing right!) - meaning it is NOT an “either / or” situation (see comment by “vb”). BOTH parents and the media (or pick the generic word of your choice “culture” etc etc) need to get their act together and reduce its own overall detrimental impact on families.

Jun 22, 2008 - 5:06 am 63. michele:

I agree, Ed, but parents need to take matters into their own hands if the media is not going to tone it down and, let’s face it, they won’t, because they are making money. Too many parents are buying into what the media is selling and their kids are dressing like Paris Hilton and choosing people like Britney Spears as their role models. We can not, in any way, depend on the media to put our kids’ best interest at heart. Which is why it is our first and foremost job to do that.

As for calling them children, if one has the level of maturity where they think it will be fun to have a baby and don’t have the smarts to figure out that it is a JOB not a hobby to be a mother, especially a single mother, then they are children in my eyes.

Jun 22, 2008 - 5:18 am 64. betsybounds:

“And those who think their should be no sex education at all - I certainly hope you would at least teach your children the basic necessities at all.”

Yikes. I’m constantly amazed at the number–the HUGE number–of people who are willing to trust government schools with sex education. These teachers (ahem–”educators”) can’t even teach math and language skills competently. Why would anyone trust them with something so fraught as sex education? And if I were a university professor in a school or department of education, I’m not sure I’d be so proud of it. The products of these places are pretty uniformly awful.

I like Gmidwest’s question: When is the State coming in to take all the children away? If this had been a religious “cult” instead of a government high school, we’d be treated to a nice display of “government knows best.” As it is, of course, government is part of the failure.

Jun 22, 2008 - 5:41 am 65. betsybounds:

BTW, with respect to the quote “And those who think their should be no sex education at all - I certainly hope you would at least teach your children the basic necessities at all,” I suggest that anyone who uses the formulation “those who think their should be. . . ” is in need of a bit of education herself, and not about sex either.

Jun 22, 2008 - 5:43 am 66. michele:

Betsy - I certainly know the difference between there and their. Typos happen. I always get a kick out of people who read a lengthy article and get all uptight about a grammatical error.

Jun 22, 2008 - 6:43 am 67. GW Crawford:

I never thought I would fantasize about being a homeless guy! Wow, for a guy down on his luck, he hit the jackpot!

As far as sex ed, these girls obviously knew that sex got you pregnant, they went out and kept doing it until it worked

Wow, what an interesting little demographic that will be - likely negelected when these teens’ attention spans draw them on to the next cool thing - piercing maybe, meth sounds kinda fun, possible genetic damage (what’s the homeless guy been doing)

Raising a kid takes a great deal of patience; they are annoying as hell for some time (crying, pooping, vomiting followed by whining, “NO!” and then “cuz I don’ wanna!”))

Jun 22, 2008 - 7:01 am 68. Jay Manifold:

I suppose that if we’re going to be taxed to pay for sex ed — and as Pete noted above, it doesn’t take long to teach the essentials (much less than a semester, in fact, more like a couple of hours) — a consequence-based course is in order. Emphasize the risks of disease, poverty, and ~18 years of ensuing obligation. Perhaps a few short films analogous to those my generation was forced to view in drivers’ ed, the ones showing maimed survivors of car wrecks shrieking in agony. Scare the hell out of ‘em. In any case, make early parenthood seem as unglamorous as possible and STDs and economic fallout seem as bad as possible.

Jun 22, 2008 - 7:22 am 69. CapeAnnGirl:

I’ve lived on Cape Ann my whole life (apart from college) and this is news? Gloucester has always been the home of the thirty-year-old grandmother. It’s the culture among a segment of the population there. They see nothing wrong with it. As far as it being Catholic, I’d say it was more culturally RC than religiously so. As far as economic opportunity goes, as someone pointed out, there are two train stations in town where you can catch the train to Boston every hour. This was done deliberately with full knowledge of the benefits that await them (WIC, free day care, free health care, Section 8, etc.). In their minds it beats working, paying your dues, and being self sufficient.

Jun 22, 2008 - 7:43 am 70. michele:

Jay, your idea of sex ed is exactly what my kid got in our schools here.

CapeAnnGirl - thus proving my point that it’s a family related problem. If this scenario is just an ongoing cycle in this town, then the culture there is perpetuating it, not pop culture, not the media, not a liberal society. The root of the problem in Gloucester is entrenched firmly in Gloucester.

Jun 22, 2008 - 8:30 am 71. Sarah:

Are you suggesting that dating should be chaperoned? That is structure. Anything less will not prevent teenage girls from becoming pregnant. If one of your children wanted to join the “pact”, then what measures would you take?? Let’s be honest. Role models don’t mean anything to a teenager when she sees Spears having a kid. This is not a societal problem. This was a parenting problem. But, no one really cares if even statutory rape was committed. Female school teachers are getting off all the time after committing this crime. Let the little children have their babies and go to work at McDonald’s. That’s why you can buy a burger on Sunday.

Jun 22, 2008 - 8:31 am 72. Koblog:

Yaakov Watkins, great point: “The girls didn’t think it was wrong, so they didn’t wait.”

The idea of “teaching” sex is ridiculous. As if every kid with a TV, computer, the movies or a host of other information conduits doesn’t know what sex is. Yeah, what 16-year old adults need is more information about sex. That’s the ticket.

What the schools don’t teach is that anything is “wrong”–except perhaps intolerance to homosexuality. By Public Education’s world view, morality is at best ambivalent and changeable (like our “living” Constitution) and at worst, genuinely evil because its basis is in Christianity, which must be removed from every corner of our society for us to be “free.”

And to those of you railing against the parents, remember that those parents are a product of the same immoral Dewey/Evolutionist/stupefying school system.

Dewey’s goal for the schools was to graduate uneducated students.

You can’t control truly educated people. Dewey saw educated thinking individualists in America as the roadblock to his dream of a socialist order. That new order could not be installed in the U.S. until the people were controllable.

A tiny example of how badly the schools are doing is that 72% of the population believes the ERA was ratified. “Students” can’t find American on a map. They cannot read. But they surely know what sex is.

The Los Angeles Unified School district this week announced the dropout rate skyrocketed after the 2006 California High School Exit Examination became a requirement for graduation.

In other words, their goal of “graduating” uneducated Obama voters had been achieved but was exposed, sadly, via this simplest of Exit Exams. Their answer to this dropout “crisis?” Get rid of the Exit Exam.

Home schooled kids beat the pants off public education all the time. So what’s California’s answer? Outlaw home schooling.

The goal is a mind-numbed controllable mob. We now have one from Massachusetts to California…from sea to shining sea.

Welcome to Obamanation. “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.”

Jun 22, 2008 - 8:36 am 73. RattlerGator:

Michele, thanks. Good article and interesting comments. Your link to Rachel Lucas is also appreciated. It takes you to your comment; other readers may prefer to link to the beginning of the piece:
Rachel Lucas - Mandatory Sterilization Fantasy

Personally, I’ve indirectly witnessed the shock on black college campuses as more and more female students show up with babies as freshmen or get pregnant in their first year or two. It is something of an epidemic and many faculty members are somewhat amazed with how out-of-control the problem is.

I am more than a little conflicted on this issue. I know how strong the sex drive is but I also know you can’t have your cake and eat it, too. I know mistakes happen but I also firmly believe the concept of shame desperately needs to be reinforced.

These kids know their so-called rights but are not made to understand much about responsibilities. That MUST change. I would start by revising the present benefits with an ultimate goal of ruthlessly seeking to eliminate any benefits that act as a standard incentive for unmarried, underage minor women to have children.

Finally: pregnant underage females should rarely if ever be allowed to attend regular school. They should be removed and segregated. This “mainstreaming” movement that is now the norm, and applied in far too many ways, has it exactly backwards. Obviously, there should never be a daycare facility in a regular school. That is outrageously stupid in my book. We can never have any hope of turning this trend around until we admit this error.

Jun 22, 2008 - 8:49 am 74. Louise Cate:

In Texas about 450 FLDS children were rounded up and put in foster homes because a few girls under 16 were pregnant or already had babies.

It sounds like the “culture” at the Gloucester, Mass. high school where 17 girls deliberately attempted to get pregnant is at least as toxic and dangerous to girls as the FLDS religion. I bet NO ONE has considered busing the approximately 500 girls at the Gloucester high school to foster homes to protect them from getting pregnant.

Why did the girls want to get pregnant? I believe there are several reasons such as:
-the girls want to be “independent” and they know they will receive section 8 vouchers for housing, WIC, and all kinds of help to raise their babies. It beats working at Walmart or going to school.
-no one taught the girls that raising a child is a 24 hour a day, 365 days a year job. Sex education doesn’t teach responsibility. What the girls really needed is responsibility education and real experience caring for babies.
-I believe our society needs to draw strict boundaries on how much help we give unwed mothers, so no young girl is tempted to get preqnant for the social services having a baby provides. Perhaps society can help with ONE “mistake”, but require that a girl get her tubes tied before giving her aid for more than one child. And even with one child, an unwed mother should have to work and put her child in childcare. We should not encourage girls to get pregnant as a way for them to avoid being responsible for earning their own living.
-we encourage bad behavior when we reward it.
-I know a young family that provides emergency care for children in the foster care system. During the past year they have cared for 4 children whose parents had drug or alcohol problems. For the past six months they have been caring for a 22 month old boy who was taken from his mother because he was serverely neglected by her. He was underweight, underdeveloped, etc. He is the 5th child to be removed from his mother for neglect. It seems to me that such neglect is the worst form of child abuse and such a mother should either be in jail or should have her tubes tied so she can no longer create babies to abuse. Have you read about the woman in southern California who tortured and abused her child?
-perhaps the 17 girls who tried to get pregnant need to be shown videos of immature young women who ended up abusing their babies.
-If the parents of the 17 girls were totally responsible for caring for the girls and their babies, perhaps both the girls and their parents would be more concerned about possible pregnancies.

Jun 22, 2008 - 9:35 am 75. Truth:

OmegaPaladin, Eddie Wails

OmegaPaladin:

Truth,

Some cultures have higher illegitimacy rates than others. That is a fact. You cannot paper over that by citing the fact that all cultures have some degree of illegitimacy. The disparities are the most relevant characteristics when you are seeking to explain different outcomes.

Jun 17, 2008 - 12:05 pm Ed Wallis:

“OmegaPaladin,” It’s useless to try to point out those pesky, fine-tuned differences of reality to one like “Twoof,” who views everything through the eyeglasses of moral relativism.
Jun 17, 2008 - 12:50 pm

Maybe a little relativism is what you need to realize circumstance plays more of a roll than race. And when you use race as your argument. Look at the circumstances before condemning the entire race.

Jun 22, 2008 - 11:04 am 76. Helen:

People keep harping on the mantra about contraceptives that the schools don’t issue. This is a Catholic community, and that is likely a factor in their attitude to contraceptives. There is nothing wrong with that; in fact, it is right that these people are trying to live according to their church’s teachings. More significantly is this: these 17 girls made a PACT to become pregnant; therefore, the absence/presence of contraceptives at the school is not a factor in their situation. Had the girls had access to contraceptives in school, they would not have taken them because of their pregnancy pact. Thus, there is no point in decrying the lack of contraceptives in a school in a Catholic community.

A lot of people are going to ignore that reality and blame the Catholic church and the community. In this matter, nobody else is to blame but those girls.

Jun 22, 2008 - 11:26 am 77. SFC Cheryl McElroy US ARMY (RET):

Phil Magness:

Girls this age shouldn’t be having sex at all.

Jun 21, 2008 - 7:16 am

Newsflash: Neither should boys.

Jun 22, 2008 - 11:33 am 78. Cristina:

michele:

It’s not (just) a “family problem.” Social phenomena are not explainable thru singular causes.
Gloucester seems to fit right into what the great British historian Peter Laslett called, referring to pre-industrial England, “bastardy-prone sub-cultures.”
Nice word, bastardy, isn’t it? Because that’s what’s happening here. Completely gone from our functional vocabulary.
What’s horrifying–and interesting–to us is the “choice” aspect of it, not that is happening at all.

Jun 22, 2008 - 11:54 am 79. Nix:

Catholic community, contraceptives, & abortions. I haven’t seen any word on how many got abortions? I know you said the young women wanted babies but the parents are well still parents.
On the other hand I think it is stupid that the same people that will defend the anti-contraceptive are also anti-abortion. You see if you don’t get pregnant then you don’t need an abortion. (sigh)
They are teens after all and because the parents are so repressed and want to force that repressed ideology on their own children and mine and who would have guessed that this shocker would happen that these as most teens would reject that ideology. (duh)
With out real sex education not this failed abstinence only (I use this term lightly) “education” what hope did these kids really have?
As for the unreported fathers who cares that homeless dude isn’t going to be able to make his child support payments anyway and the other dads are just out of luck. Those boys/men wanted to play now it is time to pay.

Jun 22, 2008 - 12:28 pm 80. Nathan B.:

Michelle, I have seen a few of your pieces, and have found them interesting–but I seem to always disagree with the emphasis you place on things. I hope you will permit me to comment here on the nature of this disagreement.

The main thing is that I don’t understand why your post exhibits this sense of shock and outrage–and the focussed attempt to find something or someone to blame. What should be shocking and outrageous about post-pubescent young women wanting to have babies? Reproducing is a basic fact of evolution. Caring for and giving love to one’s offspring is surely one of the best parts of life. This is much more “productive” (if you’ll pardon the pun) than a good many other time-wasters that young people are into.

Modern society has extended the period of adolescence well beyond what nature intended–into at least the thirties, in fact. Society expects young people to exhibit immaturity instead of growing up. When some do grow up faster, outrage can result.

My time as a parent (married!) has been wonderful, and one of the factors that makes it wonderful is the presence of the grandparents and other friends. In this regard, I note that Hillary Clinton, much as I dislike her, was right: “it takes a village.” With a lot of love from a lot of people–but especially the parents and grandparents–these girls will grow up to have decent kids. And they’ll have lots of time afterwards to use their life experience to enter into educational or vocational programs.

(By the way, I do agree that the children will miss their fathers, and that is a serious issue–but children all over the continent are already growing up without fathers–or with bad ones. If the support is there from the grandparents and the community, all need not end badly.)

To sum up: we don’t really know what kind of mothers these girls will be, but I suggest it is premature to assume the worst mostly because they got pregnant earlier than most of us would like.

Jun 22, 2008 - 1:16 pm 81. view from afar:

uh, Nix did you actually pay ANY attention to anything written in any of the precreding blogs, letters rants whatever?
The problem isn’t abstinence, and the abstinence-Catholic church thing is false too, as the abstinence movement is PROTESTANT evangilical…but back to the main topic which that you are most likely on a very similar level as the grandmother-to-be! I certainly won’t be surprised to learn of one of your kids getting pregnant even with good secx education and contreception…and good luck forcing your kid to just have an abortion…and even better luck with the long term complications that can be associated with all modern contraception methods and abortions!
life is so eay to control by modern methods!

Jun 22, 2008 - 1:38 pm 82. Idin Doit:

These girls didn’t learn their misguided behavior from Catholic parents. Everything they did was contradictory to church teachings. It is the public school system that discredits parents and teaches our children to become sexualy active with a total lack of family values. These children were taught by the government school to engage in sex without any marital commitment or love from their partners and that pregnancy is synonymous with a disease to be avoided or eradicated by abortion. Is it any wonder that these confused teens thought that the only way they could ever be loved in the true sense was by having a child of their own? This whole ordeal is an endictment of the schools intentional disreguard for family values. One can only ask why, what is our public school systems real agenda? Why would the education system of a supposedly free country intensionaly destroy traditional family values among OUR children?

Jun 22, 2008 - 1:55 pm 83. cicilitigator:

I am struck by the haste with which the author moves to paint and blame the entire community as nefarious. This seems to be a detraction technique to avoid the real issue, ie. that there was recently a very haralded movie marketed to young girls that glorified teen pregnancy. While every teenager who sees Juno may not go out and get knocked up, I wonder if any of these pregnant girls did not see the movie. My guess is that they all did seee the movie and were highly influenced by it. People who saw this movie and were outraged such as myself warned that there would be an impact but of course we were ridiculed. Now there is what appears to be copy cat incidents and of course the same critics now point to an overly chaste community as the cause. I am the father of a 13-year-old girl who was invited by her Catholic friend to see this movie. Fortunately, she was wise enough to call her mother and ask permission which was denied with an explaination.

Jun 22, 2008 - 2:12 pm 84. simon:

This story tells us that the community is not deeply Catholic. Faith by definition is about action. To confuse a Catholic baptism at birth with an active faith is just story telling.

These girls are living in a world where experience trumps reason. The community should be ashamed that is what will define them to the rest of us in America.

Jun 22, 2008 - 2:33 pm 85. Alsadius:

Not that I’m saying that these girls acted sensibly, but why all the outrage over 16 year olds having sex, or over them wanting to be mothers? It wasn’t so long ago that that was the normal age for such things.

Jun 22, 2008 - 2:38 pm 86. Rishika:

It takes a loving mother and father, each with a sense of duty, to raise a child from the animal level to the level of humanity. Sex outside of marriage destroys the order and peace of society and is an underlying cause of child abuse, kidnapping, murder, depression, suicide, drug and alcohol abuse, not to mention maladjusted adults ‘with no direction, no guidance and no boundaries’.

We would do well to consider that when God gives a commandment (aka suggestion) it is for our benefit, not His.

Jun 22, 2008 - 3:29 pm 87. Cristina:

Nathan B.:

“What should be shocking and outrageous about post-pubescent young women wanting to have babies? Reproducing is a basic fact of evolution.”
Oh boy. Biology as destiny. So is the male’s desire to spread his genes to as many females as he can, frequently walking away, sometimes supervising a harem. That makes everything fine. If the girls want babies and decide to reproduce and it’s understandable, so should the males’/boys’ urge to reproduce indiscriminatelly be equally fine/understandable. Too bad if the girls don’t have the loving support of a “village.” You scare me, sir. Besides, you don’t seem to realize we, in America, don’t live in idealized “villages” of the Margaret Mead type where everything is so harmonious and non-individualistic. And you seem to have an equally rosy image of the loving grandparents. That certainly happens in populations where there’s, generally, an integral family with an equally integral set of grandparents. It doesn’t happen in most of the black families I see every day, where a nine-grader gives birth to a baby in a single-mom family, on welfare, who rewards the girl for promising not to have sex anymore with a trip to the tatoo parlor, where both get tattoos, and with a larger-than-life grandma who bakes wonderful stuff and goes to church and cries “Jesus!” and “Halleluiah!” when she hears Al Sharpton on the news or in the pew. Sure she does the dishes and the cooking and the diaper changing.

You must have had a rosy life, and somewhat insulated.
In my experience, it was precisely those girls who were neglected at home, with absentee or abusive fathers and indifferent mothers, that ended up pregnant before they finished school or before they were mature enough to understand what raising a child meant.

Jun 22, 2008 - 3:33 pm 88. cicilitigator:

Does anyone know if these girls even came from Catholic homes? I am Jewish but authors flight to condemn the “Catholic community” is scarey given that the article gives no information about the home life of these girls. A reader leaves this article with a negative impression of Catholics if they are not careful to observe the authors apparent bias. This author owes an apology to Catholics or clarification that the article was written with specific knowledge of the girls religious background and that is consistent with the Caltholic blame set forth.

Jun 22, 2008 - 3:50 pm 89. s sommer:

This group is getting the publicity, but this is not new.

Many years ago, I became aware of a group of high school girls in a rural school (Auburn, Washington) who were all giddy about getting pregnant, and becoming mothers, AS A LIFESTYLE CHOICE.

I was shocked to be informed by a teen girl who attended that school that a number of her close friends had decided to get knocked up, on purpose, not due to “love” or “desire for sex” or any other reason save obtaining their own apartment, an income from the state, independence from their parents, and, oh yeah… a real live baby doll to play with, who would “love” them.

I prevailed on the teen girl that I was talking to, not to fall for such a dumb Life Plan.

She assured me that she would not. But, over the next couple of years, I met a number of her girlfriends and their babies, as they popped out kids and used every social service available.

A number of years later, the girl who had originally “enlightened” me about this lifestyle choice by her teenage friends also became a single mother, unwed. She was in her late 20’s.

She recently asked my two kids, who are in their 30’s and unmarried, when THEY intended to have children. My kids observed that they are not even married, yet.

She then stated “Well, you don’t have to be married to have a kid!”

Isn’t it a bit obvious how lack of financial accountability creates this insanity? Without stupid taxpayers to pave the way, people manage to make different choices, as evidenced by the results achieved by welfare reform. Now, we just need to reform it one hell of a lot more.

I don’t know the welfare rules in Massachusetts, but sounds like a “Lifestyle” choice, to me.

Jun 22, 2008 - 4:08 pm 90. michele:

Rishika, are you saying that single mother can not raise children above the level of humanity?

cicilitigator: I researched as much as I could before I wrote this, and all my research pointed to the town as deeply Roman Catholic. I did not, however, blame the Catholic church. I implied that I was surprised this happened in a town with religious roots.

Jun 22, 2008 - 4:40 pm 91. Steve H:

I say bravo for the girls. They are NOT children and it’s attitudes like the one on display here that have infantilized our offspring well into their twenties and beyond. It’s great that they have chosen to bring new lives into the world and plan on caring for them. After listening to rants for years about how we need to lift the stigma from teen pregnancy, isn’t it ironic that there is so much sensationalism surrounding this story? The fact that it offers a chance to poke at those “backward” Catholic with their non-contraceptive ways may be part of it.

Why not just mind your own business?

Steve H.

Jun 22, 2008 - 5:31 pm 92. LeatherPenguin » Pajamas Media » Fast Times at Gloucester High:

[...] link to this solely because the author, Michelle Catalano, was once my cohort in a Yankee fansite called “Coalition of the Dark Side,” which, upon [...]

Jun 22, 2008 - 6:29 pm 93. Ed Wallis:

TOO GOOD NOT TO SHARE:
from http://ace.new.mu.nu/archive/2008/6

“Rachel Lucas Rants About the Gloucester 17″ — Ace

You can take away the natural economic penalty for bearing children out-of-wedlock at a young age, but so long as you maintain the social inhibitions against it, the problem will be limited to the most dysfunctional.

You can take away the social inhibitions against such puerile stupidity, but as long as the natural economic consequences of such actions remain mostly in place, again the problem will be limited. Awful for those who affirmatively choose stupidity, but at least limited a select number of hardcore sexual recidivists.

Take away both — effectively pay very young girls to get pregnant, and give them nice little heavily-subsidized apartments, and also remove all social inhibitions against out-of-wedlock young-teen childbirth, and you get this.

The liberal mind is often animated by truly compassionate impulses, at least at first. It doesn’t seem fair that a young mother should suffer the grinding poverty her choices have inevitably led her too; let’s alleviate that suffering, and even make it nearly an economic wash for poorer girls to choose between sound choices (not getting pregnant, getting the skills to work in a decent, but hardly high paying, job) and bad choices.

It doesn’t seem fair for sexually precocious young girls to be branded sluts or callow morons seeking status, of all things, by getting knocked up by popular boys or older men, so let’s take away that stigma to the extent we can, to ensure their self-esteem isn’t terribly damaged.

Both impulses are understandable. But what is harder to understand is the refusal of many liberals to think one or two steps beyond their initial impulses and ponder the likely — or inevitable, as is frequently the case — consequences of too much compassion, support, and self-esteem-boosting for decisions which are, ultimately, disastrous.

Diving off of piers into shallow water is a bad choice which cannot be made into a good one, no matter how much economic or social support one provides to the teenagers inevitably rendered cripples by such insanely self-destructive stunts. No liberal would argue we should support such choices or pay taxpayer funds to teenagers to subsidize the activity.

And yet, when it comes to matters sexual, liberals just suddenly lose all common sense in the headlong rush to encourage — or at least remove all natural discouragements — for pathologically poor sexual decisionmaking.

Liberals are so determined to be broad-minded and progressive about sex they often wind up extraordinarily narrow-minded and reactionary about the subject.

Take away virtually all consequences for a bad choice and you know what you’ve got? A choice which was formerly a bad one but is now a rather good one, or at least seems so (somewhat rationally) to a certain cohort of the population.

To liberals, conservatives often seem heartless or even sadistic towards such people in refusing to give money or social approval for their bad choices, thus making their lives more difficult.

But to conservatives, liberals seem heartless and even sadistic by making very bad choices relatively easy, even advantageous, to make — and refusing to admit that those bad choices may be made easier to make, but they can never again be unmade. And the consequences for such choices lead to even more misery.

Anyone thinking these seventeen girls’ seventeen children (with many more to come in the next ten years, I’m sure) will have a happy lot in life? That they’ll grow up well-adjusted and well-parented and successful?

One or two or even three might overcome the atrocious circumstances of their formative years.

For the rest — all the misery and poverty and dysfunction liberals had hoped to alleviate by being compassionate towards their borderline-retarded mothers, plus a 50% bonus level of misery, and also affecting a greater number of people than we’d hoped to mitigate originally.

No misery or poverty or social stigma has actually been avoided. The reduced levels of such evils will be more than made up for by the hard, sad, likely violence-filled lives of the 30+ children they’ll eventually mis-raise. And an even greater number of grandchildren so afflicted.

And of course all those assaulted, raped, and/or murdered by this increasingly-dysfunctional line of whore-spawn. (If whore-spawn seems harsh, well, I’m having trouble imagining what other sorts of jobs these girls will end up moonlighting in when they need a bit of extra spending cash. Whoredom is a popular career-path among the young, female, self-destructive, and otherwise-unemployable.)

Is that compassion? Only if one willfully blinds oneself to hard reality, and refuses to even consider the esoteric concept called “the future.”

Jun 22, 2008 - 6:34 pm 94. Jay:

Everyone seems to be forgetting that schools can do whatever they want, like teaching about homosexuality, sex education (putting on condoms), and taking kids across state lines for abortions without parental approval but now that something like this comes up and it is the parents fault. Let parents have control of their kids lives again and maybe things like this will not be happening as frequently. Just look at the parent who grounded their child and she got the courts to reverse the grounding. Strange world and getting stranger.

Jun 22, 2008 - 6:53 pm 95. Tess:

Daniel Patrick Moynahan was precient…this is the entirely predictable result of defining deviancy down…
Don’t know if it’s even possible anymore to civilly debate the wisdom of policies we’ve adapted and their effect on the culture.

Jun 22, 2008 - 7:59 pm 96. FredHjr:

I’m very Catholic and I grew up on the North Shore of Massachusetts. Born in 1955 and went to Catholic schools. I have something to say about the nihilistic or hedonistic culture that has taken over since the late sixties (Yes, I saw it starting to happen back when I was 13 and 14 years old): when I was a boy and then a young man there was still a stigma to getting a girl pregnant. It was considered shameful, but at least a real man would own up and help support the kid. The focus of this story is too much on the girls and not enough on the shameless males who collaborated in this tragedy. And I call it a tragedy, because a child growing up in a home like that is really up against it. Some of these teenage girls want babies because they want someone in their lives to love them. That is so narcissistic and immature I just don’t have words to express my revulsion. A child is always going to disappoint you. A child is always going to need love, and if that child has to fill the role of being the provider of love for a stupid teenage girl, well, that kid is going to be harmed in many ways.

Is there no sense of shame left?

Jun 22, 2008 - 8:05 pm 97. michele:

Jay: “Let parents have control of their kids lives again and maybe things like this will not be happening as frequently.”

Parents DO have control of their kids’ lives, some just choose not to accept it, like the mother quoted in this story. Also, In our school district, parents are given the option of opting out of the sex ed classes.

Fred: “A child is always going to need love, and if that child has to fill the role of being the provider of love for a stupid teenage girl, well, that kid is going to be harmed in many ways.” Very well put and that, in a nutshell, is why it is a terrible thing that these immature girls are going to become mothers. Their reason for having a child is not to nurture, but to be nurtured.

Ed Wallis: “And yet, when it comes to matters sexual, liberals just suddenly lose all common sense in the headlong rush to encourage — or at least remove all natural discouragements — for pathologically poor sexual decisionmaking.” Once again, this is what I mean by sex education, even though so many people were in a rush to imply I meant giving tacit permission to have sex and handing out birth control. No, I mean our children have to be educated, whether by us or the school, preferably a combination of both, on making the right decisions when it comes to sex. And I don’t mean the decision to use a condom or have an abortion. They need to be taught what the consequences of those decisions are, in harsh reality kind of way. They need to be taught how to respect their bodies, not give them out like free candy. They need to be taught what the ultimate result of unprotected sex can be, not just the immediate result of becoming pregnant, but what that can mean for the rest of their lives, and they need to be taught the emotional dangers of having sex. Too many sex ed programs just say, here are your reproductive organs. Careful what you do with them, and leave it at that.

Jun 23, 2008 - 2:44 am 98. Ed Wallis:

“Michelle!” First of all, I quoted Ace Of Spades HQ, let’s give credit where credit is due. Secondly, after decades of primary and secoondary sexual indoctrination (AKA “Sex Ed”) I find it appalling for anyone to suggest that schools - whether alone or in tandem with parents - should have any further say on the matter; THEY ARE THE “ENEMY” in this regard, one aspect of the “culture” which I hold accountable on this issue.

Jun 23, 2008 - 5:41 am 99. Sue:

Welcome to the results of the past forty years…the 60’s sure “changed” America. Now, for the 24 thousand dollar question: for the better?

Jun 23, 2008 - 8:25 am 100. SFC Cheryl McElroy US ARMY (RET):

Steve H said:
I say bravo for the girls. They are NOT children and it’s attitudes like the one on display here that have infantilized our offspring well into their twenties and beyond….Why not just mind your own business?
Jun 22, 2008 - 5:31 pm

There’s only one problem with that. They and their illigitimate children become part of the working tax-payer supported welfare system. IT IS OUR BUSINESS.
Secondly, what makes you think that teenaged girls no older than 16 are fully capable of raising a child? They’re babies having babies. There’s nothing whatsoever “bravo” about it.

Jun 23, 2008 - 8:53 am 101. Gerry:

Veeeery interesting. But it now seems that the whole ‘pregnancy pact’ thingy is a figment of the Principal’s imagination. He has no evidence and can’t quite remember where or from whom he heard about the ‘pact’.
Just another urban myth.

Jun 23, 2008 - 10:38 am 102. Brutus:

Cape Anne Girl is correct; Gloucester is, despite some current attempts to change the “tone” of the community, a ramshackle town. It was a working seaport for 300 years, and the recent closing of the fishing areas that supported the community for many decades have hit the town harder than the surrounding area, where fishing wasn’t as big a part of the residents’ incomes and the shift to tony seaside bedroom community (Beverley, Rockport [the REAL Cape Anne artists colony],Manchester-By-The-Sea, etc.) was easier.

Gloucester is 40 minutes from downtown Boston. I take the trip quite often from my home in Melrose, 2 towns north of Boston, and it rarely takes me any more than 25 minutes on Friday nights; it’s a straight shot up Route 128, and downtown Gloucester is all of 5 minutes from the highway. Isolated it’s not.

Here in the People’s Republic of Massachusetts, the pravda (Truth) comes from the top that there was no “pact” between these girls, and the official line is that this is just an aberration, and that after having on average 4 pregnancies each year, having 17 this year is just something that happened out of the blue (or pink). The large-P Pravda, or Boston Globe if you prefer, asks us to swallow that 4 times the average number of girls get pregnant, “almost all sophomores”, and it’s just a statistical anomaly.

Funny to me is how the reactions to this story reflect the attitudes that have no meaning today. These girls are doing the same thing, to use a local comparison, that black girls from Roxbury and Mattapan are doing. Why are they getting all this attention? Is it our racist liberal media reacting in disbelief when white girls do the same stupid things as black girls, who of course don’t know any better?

People from Gloucester, or Roxbury for that matter, don’t want to hear that it’s not a black or Italian or Catholic problem. It’s a class problem.

Jun 23, 2008 - 10:59 am 103. The Mad Parson » Teach Your Children Well:

[...] Here is a sharp analysis of the Gloucestor High fiasco, in which girls formed a club to get pregnant.  The “fashion accessory baby” phrasing is particularly damning, and the author is spot on with her assessment of parental negligence.  That being said, there are (at least) four systemic variables at play here as well, not all of which are unique to pregnant high schoolers: [...]

Jun 23, 2008 - 11:37 am 104. always right:

I just read through the article, and would read through all the comments eventually. If anybody had made the point, sorry for the repeat.

Seems to me the question is not about sex, sex education, Catholic upbringing, etc. The question is about ‘responsibility’. Every action is a ’cause’ and there will be ‘consequences’ as the result of each action.

However, when you learned that you are not to blame for your actions, it is always ’somebody else failed you’. While the society is tracking to blame those true villains, the society is also going to shoulder your problems for you.

Next time the headline won’t be just a few teenage girls WANT to get pregnant. There will be fools competing to out-do the last escape.

Jun 23, 2008 - 11:38 am 105. Fred:

“always_right” - a Catholic upbringing IS all about taking responsibility for one’s actions. Notice I come down just as hard on the boys/poor excuses for men as I do on the girls. You know, I went to a boys Catholic boarding school in Ipswich, MA (it closed back in ‘72)and even in those days I knew about condoms. Mind you, I was not sexually active, but I knew about birth control (and I had some points of agreement and some points of disagreement, even back then, with the Church)and I knew that in the unlikely event, during my teens, if I was to be intimate with a girl I had to use protection. And I knew about STD’s. I NEVER HAD A SEX-ED CLASS! But we knew where to get the information.

Teenage boys and girls are not ready to be parents. That should be obvious to anyone with half a brain.

And a guy over 18 who impregnates a girl under 18 or even 16 is a scumbag and he should be prosecuted for statutory rape.

The above comments apply, Brutus, whether the kids are from Gloucester or from Roxbury or Jamaica Plain. Race has nothing to do with it. For the record, I am a former Jesuit seminarian (now married and a parent of two teenage girls)who also did volunteer work in hell-holes like the Southside of Chicago and the ghetto in Washington, D.C. I know what the lay of the land is. The rules of moral responsibility apply regardless of neighborhood or context.

Jun 23, 2008 - 1:03 pm 106. Heather:

She recently asked my two kids, who are in their 30’s and unmarried, when THEY intended to have children.

In addition to all of the positive feedback (and freebies) unmarried teenage mothers get from our culture, please also note the negative feedback our culture directs at women who wait until they are married and/or financially able to raise their children. Then double it, and you’ve got the negative feedback directed at women who are childless because they’re unmarried and choose not to bring additional fatherless children into the world. Holy buckets, I wish someone had wanted to have sex with me when I was 15–teenage mothers are considered strong and noble, beautiful human beings, unlike we sub-human barren spinsters…

Jun 23, 2008 - 1:39 pm 107. michele:

Gerry: Just another urban myth.

Who cares if that part is true or myth? The fact remains that 17 girls 16 and under, from one high school, are all pregnant. It’s disturbing whether they made a pact or not.

Jun 23, 2008 - 1:44 pm 108. Brutus:

Not commenting on the the kids themselves from Roxbury or Gloucester, Fred, just the reactions of the media to the story. Why is there such wailing and gnashing of teeth about these girls’ stupidity?

Jun 23, 2008 - 1:44 pm 109. Fred:

Brutus,

I think the reason for the wailing and gnashing of teeth about these intellectual and moral cretins is because of the fact that, wonder of wonders, there may still be people out there are can call things as they see them. It’s a good thing, actually. Not enough of it. By the way, I am not uncompassionate towards these waifs. Part of me feels pity for them, because their sperm and egg donors, when they were young, were narcissists who had not a clue as to how to raise them. And the cycle just repeats itself…

It’s tragic.

I’m neither a libertine nor a prude. But I do know that high school really is too early in life to be sexually active/intimate. Hell, even some college kids are not ready for this.

Not using birth control when you have neither the intent nor the ability to raise a child is just plain idiotic.

Jun 23, 2008 - 2:26 pm 110. may:

This is crazy. The parents are to blame. When i was in high school my parents told me not to have sex and i didnt. It was drilled in my head over and over by my parents becasue that is what parents are suppose to do. Media, teachers and all that other stuff isnt to blame. Parents of young children should know where their kids are at all times. How did these girls find all the time to sneak off and have sex month after month. under the age of 16 you should be terrified to go home to your parents and tell them your pregnant. the parents didnt teach their children right. its sad for the girls and they will learn their lessons the hard way.

Jun 23, 2008 - 6:58 pm 111. Fred:

may,

It’s even sadder for the children they bring into this world. I think it is criminal to allow kids like that to keep the kids, when adoption into much better situations should be the way to go. I cannot see much good coming out of this.

But, hey, what about the boys in this whole screwup? They are getting off easy, and that’s an injustice.

Jun 23, 2008 - 9:23 pm 112. Ed Wallis:

“Fred” and “may”, Parents have their share of the responsibility, as does the corrupting culture which surrounds us (…except when it compels Leftists and liberals to do something they don’t want to, or stop what they want to do)…

http://ace.new.mu.nu/archive/2008/6

Jun 24, 2008 - 4:23 am 113. michele:

I’ll be addressing the new developments in this story, as well as some of your comments, in an follow up article.

Jun 24, 2008 - 4:39 am 114. Nathan B.:

Hmm, I seem to be having some difficulty with the comments feature.
–
It’s probably too late to reach “Cristina,” but it’s perhaps worth a try. I’m certainly quite sorry for scaring you, before I even knew you existed, with my insularity.

Really, though, the world you described–apart from the broken families–isn’t so bad. A mom who goes to the tattoo parlour with her daughter isn’t a criminal. (She may only be guilty of bad taste.) Nor will the grandmother who bakes cookies, yells “Hallelujah,” and listens to Al Sharpton be flying into any towers anytime soon.

As for evolution, of course we are more than the sum of an evolutionary process, and of course a modicum of good behavior is expected. I’m certainly not saying that we go all the way with harems and the like. At the same time, it’s ridiculous to assume that evolution should have no bearing on our sexualities. A good solution would be to seek a balance between primal desires and the need for children to be loved.

Now, as for that insularity–perhaps. On the other hand, when I was a teenager working at McDonald’s, I saw a fair number of teenage girls come down with pregnancies. In those days I was quite a moral tut-tutter, but I quickly came to realize that congratulating them and sharing their joys with a smile was best. All three girls whom I remember had the support of their mothers, by the way, and all appeared to be happy.

The long and the short of it is that it is ironic that I “scare” you, with all of your bluster and words of condemnation–both for me and the girls, for simply saying, in effect, “judge not; let’s wait this out before jumping to conclusions.”

Jun 24, 2008 - 6:11 am 115. MJE:

Why is this the schools problem, where are the parents?

Jun 24, 2008 - 7:59 am 116. Oncelivedingloucester:

This is totally embarrassing to our entire community., We have to stop and remember the kids in the school who have worked hard and will be heading off into the RIGHT direction. My rule in the house is No girlfriends over when Nobody is home, keep the door open when you have company and we ARE home. Believe me, I’m not totally naive when it comes to teenagers and sex, they will find a way if they really want to. I strongly feel its the upbringing. The mother that was quoted in this article as to her daughter quitting school at 16?, I remember her, she’s about my age and has had her own issues to deal with.She needed to take care of herself first. I have to side with Gloucester High, on theyre behalf, having a day care for their babies was to encourage them to finish school with no excuses., they can’t win.

Jun 24, 2008 - 8:10 am 117. TalkinKamel:

Nathan B., I can’t help but wonder how happy those pregnant girls you encountered are today, or, more importantly, how happy their kids might have been, growing in a single-parent home, with perhaps not much money, and, probably, as stream of “Uncles” (mom’s boyfriends) coming in and out of the household?

Jun 24, 2008 - 10:05 am 118. TalkinKamel:

Yes, Heather, I know. Teenage, unwed mothers are always depicted as these noble, upstanding, hard-working people, perfectly capable of raising a kid on their own, though they might just be 14 or 15 years old. (Most 14 or 15 year olds can’t even drive!) Of course, the fact that, more often than not, they’re impregnated by older men in their 20’s and 30’s, who abandon them, is rarely mentioned. No, we’re just supposed to coo over the beauty of young love, and how cute teeange mommies are. . .

However, older women who are unmarried and/or have no kids are all too often depicted as selfish shrews. (And, of course, being the mother of a disabled/handicapped child will get you looked down on, even if you’re married.)

Jun 24, 2008 - 10:10 am 119. TalkinKamel:

And, NB, very often the support is NOT there from the grandparents (who “have their own lives to live”, as is the mantra these days). Many grandparents are retired, and don’t have a whole lot of money to spend on feeding and clothing grandkids. Also, in the natural course of things, grandparents are older and far more physically frail than their children and grandchildren. They’re likely to die before the grandkids reach maturity, and they don’t have the energy to run after t