Seventeen girls are pregnant at Gloucester High School, and many of them got that way on purpose, Time magazine reports in a new, read-it-to-believe-it article. The Time story says the school nurse was deluged with girls asking for pregnancy tests, and that: on hearing the results, "some girls seemed more upset when they weren't pregnant than when they were," [Principal] Sullivan says. All it took was a few simple questions before nearly half the expecting students, none older than 16, confessed to making a pact to get pregnant and raise their babies together.
Some of the fathers are apparently in their twenties.
Two members of the school administration quit when, even given this situation, parents insisted their children not be provided with contraception or thorough sex education.
WBZTV has this video about it.
Something tells us these girls are going to be in for a rude awakening when they realize how hard single teen motherhood is. Someone should follow up on them in a few years and see if they're still as enthusiastic about that pact.
Reader Comments ( Page 1 of 6)
1. When kids think that things like this are good idea, our education system obviously needs a thorough overhaul.
Holly at 6:11PM on Jun 19th 2008
2. I encourage everyone to click on the link and read the "Time" article - it is disturbing. As the article points out, conservatives will blame modern culture and liberals will blame the lack of sex-ed. But I think the article taps into something - teen girls who, for some unknown reason, think it is good to have a baby - someone to love them unconditionally. One has to wonder what their home life is like.
On a side note, apparently one of the fathers is a 24-year-old man? Uh, is he not in jail, we hope??
David S. at 6:14PM on Jun 19th 2008
3. What a bunch of idiots! As if we really need stupid people like these girls breeding. Abort the babies and sterilize the retards--we're doing the world a favor!
Karen at 6:39PM on Jun 19th 2008
4. Too bad their pact wasn't to "graduate together." This story was featured on http://detentionslip.org. It was voted #1 for crazy education news.
hall monitor at 7:37PM on Jun 19th 2008
5. Nice piece Ada. I agree, it would be interesting to learn how these young women feel about their pact a few years down the road.
In the mean-time, I'm willing to bet state and federal bureaucrats are teaming-up right now and investigating this. No dought, they will
come up with a conclusion and solution that will absolutely boggle the mind.
Willet at 7:45PM on Jun 19th 2008
6. No, Holly - PARENTING in our society needs a complete overhaul.
Suzanne at 8:31PM on Jun 19th 2008
7. Yes, these girls are going to be in for a shock when they find out just how demanding caring for an infant is. I just spent the last few weeks helping a friend who is a new mother with her newborn and it's physically and mentally exhausting. God help these poor babies.
MS at 8:51PM on Jun 19th 2008
8. What about the parents of these kids? Obviously they have fallen down on the job.
And how about Hollywood and all the Baby Mama's and celebs having babies without being married?
Someone should do a video of these kids, girls and boys (they are going to get hit with paternity suits and child support payments)during the pregnancy, and afterwards to show the horror story these kids are facing. Then it should be manditory viewing for all middle school kids in the country. That includes changing poopy diapers.
cdnbirch at 9:04PM on Jun 19th 2008
9. I don't want to take this anywhere ugly, but a thought just occured to me:
I guess now we finally have evidence that all those poor, ignorant teenage women in the ghetto, on welfare, aren't just getting pregnant because they're black. They're getting pregnant because they're poor and ignorant. The fact that this happened in a predominantly white town in socioeconomic crisis proves it.
Crystal at 9:17PM on Jun 19th 2008
10. So where were all the idiot parents ??????? And these are the same idiot parents who don't want sex education in school !!!!!!! Did somebody drill a hole in these girls' heads that allowed all the brain cells to ooze out so they couldn't think rationally ????????? Who the heck told these girls that it is going to be a "big party" to raise these kids together ????????
Hope at 9:32PM on Jun 19th 2008
11. Inadequate sex education wasn't the problem here. These girls got pregnant on PURPOSE! They wouldn't have USED birth control whether they were educated about it or not! What they needed was to be taught how difficult parenthood is.
Cecilia at 10:03PM on Jun 19th 2008
12. I hope these girls were the daughters of the Pro-Life Pharmacists! (See previous story.)
Sarah at 10:19PM on Jun 19th 2008
13. actually, inadequate sex ed and bad parenting ARE the problem. kinda hard to stop a pregancy if you don't know how! sure, it may seem like common sense to YOU, but i'm sure it wasn't to these kids. and what ABSOFUCKINGLUTELY KILLS ME is the fact that the parents at this school STILL don't want sex ed taught to their kids. OBVIOUSLY you're not doing it. or at the very least, doing THE WORST job of it that i have EVER seen. seriously, a good parent would get their kids the sex ed they need. since i'm not a doctor, nurse or health care professional of any kind it makes sense to let some one in the health care field teach my child about sex ed. at least the basics on how NOT to get pregant or get an STD. then i can teach them the values behind my telling them why they should wait. but i'm not stupid. at least prepare the kids! but something tells me, that these girls are doing this b/c they don't see anyone else struggling to raise a family. stars have nanny's to help them. and everyone else is shut out of the media eye. 1) they're not very interesting stories and 2) there's the whole invasion of privacy thing to think about. but i think we'd be better served looking at how stars raise their kids (not like us i can tell you that much!) and how single parents, the true poor (below the poverty line) and middle class families handle it. it won't be pretty, but it'll be an eye opener. and that's what we need.
Devynn at 12:01AM on Jun 20th 2008
14. It's sad, the things happening to kids these days. Very very sad.
Margaret at 4:00AM on Jun 20th 2008
15. From a healthcare professional;
Neither sex education (which for God's sake should come to these children from somewhere, if not in the home!), nor the schools are the real answer. Our society fails to get its important priorities right because we all worship something (religion, personal freedom, the almighty dollar ...), generally to the exclusion of any other concerns. Life is not one sided or single issue.
There is no question that these young women have made some very bad choices, blindly, without adequate understanding of reality, and, at least to some extent because of the media's habit of lionizing "stars" who choose to have children out of wedlock or as single mother's at a very young age. The sad truth is that these teenagers hope that the newborn baby will provide the status (for which read love and attention) that they are not getting from their families. Teenage girls and boys often try to get this attention from their friends (don't teenage cliques remind you of "families"), especially when they have inadequate support from their home situations. I wonder if these girls will now get the attention from their parents and/or siblings (even if it is negative) that they are really looking for. They certainly will not get it from thier new born babies!
Harvey at 8:24AM on Jun 20th 2008