Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, October 31, 1993 TAG: 9310300266
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By Beth Macy staff writer
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
It's a question that puzzles most of the city's experts.
``If we knew why the problem was so bad here, we'd solve it,'' Roanoke city social worker Debbie Henderson says.
A number of people are confronting the issue head-on - teen mothers, the social workers who struggle with them, some of their teachers and counselors. Here are their opinions as to why one in 10 Roanoke girls gets pregnant every year.
LACK OF COMMUNITY COMMITMENT TO THE ISSUE - ``This community has to get appalled about teen pregnancy,'' Henderson says. ``It has to be willing to accept things coming in here they don't want - good sex ed, good school clinics and day care in schools.''
The cities that have managed to lower their teen pregnancy rates have succeeded because ``the entire community has gotten on board,'' she adds.
``This town hasn't. We've got watered-down family-life education ... .''
TEEN-AGERS HAVE UNPROTECTED SEX BECAUSE THEY CRAVE LOVE - AT ANY COST. ``It's hard to tell when somebody loves you, but you know your kids love you all the time,'' says 18-year-old Angela Brown, mother of four.
Brown, for instance, began having sex at age 12 - before she had her first period. Her parents never married, and her mother was a teen mom, too. Peer pressure was also a factor, she says.
``You know how friends talk? Like they tell you to take a drink and then you get addicted to it? That's how sex is.''
FEELING OF HOPELESSNESS, WHICH TRANSCENDS ECONOMICS - ``Until we give people ways to be productive, which gives them hope, it's gonna be real hard'' to reduce the teen pregnancy rate, Jeanie Seay, Planned Parenthood's education director, says.
FEELING OF HOPE -o ``In the black community especially, most mothers tend to keep their babies. It's the love-lost, love-returned syndrome,'' says Janet Claytor, a teacher/counselor at Roanoke's Alternative Education Center. Although there are more white teen pregnancies in Roanoke than black, the black rate is twice the white rate.
``There's this sense of hoping for a better life,'' Claytor says.
``Even in slavery, I'm sure women knew how to abort, but they didn't because it was the hope for a better life.''
LATCHKEY CHILDREN, LACK OF PARENTAL SUPERVISION - Most of the pregnant teens that resource mother Connie Isbell works with were youngsters who came home to an empty house after school. ``If they're not being pushed, they're laying around and doing nothing,'' Isbell says. ``No one encourages them.
``The next thing is they hook up with someone they think cares about them - especially the older male. These kids are looking for some type of love, some type of guidance.
``The sex, it makes them feel like someone cares . . . up until they have to say, `I'm pregnant.' ''
LACK OF JOB OPPORTUNITIES, ESPECIALLY FOR BLACK TEENS -o ``I'm a young black mom with a high-school degree, and I still can't find a full-time job,'' 18-year-old Janet Glenn says. ``On the phone, they sound great; they even tell you you're overqualified. But when you get there in person, it's like uh-oh, they check you over.''
Isbell, Glenn's resource mother, agrees. In June, three of her clients - two white, one black - applied for jobs at three area fast-food restaurants. The black girl had experience and a high-school diploma; the white girls didn't.
The white girls got jobs; the black girl didn't.
``To me that's saying, not only is it hard to be a teen mom, but to be a black teen mom and to try to get employed even at a fast-food place, it's really hard. That's definitely feeding into the teen pregnancy problem because it discourages productivity.''
LACK OF MALE RESPONSIBILITY, NARROW DEFINITIONS OF ``MANHOOD'' - Females may be looking for love when they have sex, but for many males sex is nothing more than a score, Claytor says.
``Sex for them is like having a meal at Burger King or McDonald's; procreation is not even thought about,'' she adds.
``It's like basketball or football - you are scoring on somebody.''
Claytor works with too many male teens who believe manhood means having money, guns, a car and sex. ``Are those true symbols of manhood? Isn't it really responsibility, a code of honesty?
``We need to go back to the rituals and let boys complete certain tasks to become young men.''
NOT ENOUGH ON-SITE DAY CARE AT SCHOOLS -o ``Baby-sitting is a real problem in Roanoke,'' adds Fran Villarreal, director of the Resource Mothers program. That leads to school dropouts, which in turn leads to repeat pregnancies. Patrick Henry and William Fleming high schools have parenting classes, along with a grant that pays for day care for a teen's first child - ``but not transportation to the school [for all kids] or the day care,'' which is off-site, Villarreal explains.
Roanoke's School for Pregnant Teens offers on-site day care, but only through the end of the semester after the teen delivers.
``Most teen moms don't finish school,'' Villarreal says. ``Only the exceptional ones. It's almost impossible to be an average child and succeed in this environment.''
On-site day care may anger parents who see it as a reward for students' sexual behavior, or parents who believe their children may want to have babies if they see other students with babies.
Villarreal believes otherwise. ``I think if any adolescent saw their friend going through trying to take care of an infant, it would be more of a deterrent.''
PARENTS AND EDUCATORS ARE STILL UNCOMFORTABLE TALKING ABOUT SEX - ``I have a 12-year-old daughter; I know it's hard,'' Claytor says. ``We're from backgrounds where you just didn't talk about sex, and somehow we need to get over that.''
The average teen has sex for nine months to a year before using birth control. ``The reason is, they're afraid their parents will find out - but it doesn't keep them from having sex,'' Planned Parenthood Director Kathy Haynie says.
On one hand, society has made sexuality a secret - by refusing to openly discuss it. On the other, the media bombard youth with subtle and not-so-subtle messages promoting sex.
``When family-life education first started, boys and girls were split up. Each wanted to know what the other was talking about, of course,'' says Annie Harmon, Roanoke city schools ombudsman. ``When something is secret, you go that much further wanting to know what it is.''
Parents should get more involved in their children's family-life education and review the school curriculum guides, Harmon says. Churches and doctors should broach the subject more aggressively, too. Pediatricians should routinely ask mothers whether they've talked with their kids yet about sex.
``If every parent talked to their child about sex openly, we'd be taking a giant step forward,'' Harmon says.
BREAKDOWN OF FAMILY STRUCTURE AND TRADITIONAL VALUES - ``The answer isn't spending more money on sex ed,'' says Ruth Fielder, executive director of Crisis Pregnancy Center, the Christian anti-abortion group that counsels 60 pregnant teens each month. ``What we need to do is change it to include more teaching of values with a greater emphasis on abstinence.''
``The key to shoring up young people to have healthy sexual relationships is for them to have healthy family lives,'' Fielder adds. ``That way they're less vulnerable to being sucked into'' sex before marriage.
Churches are ideal organizations to work with families because they see both parents and children, Fielder says.
NONCHALANT ATTITUDES ABOUT TEEN PREGNANCY, SOMETIMES TRANSCENDING ECONOMICS - ``Lately I have even middle-class girls telling me now that they have no goals,'' Henderson, the social worker, says. ``You can have a daughter of a doctor and a lawyer get pregnant, and the parents aren't even upset about the pregnancy. It's been a long time since I've had a parent who was absolutely livid about their kid getting pregnant.
``My project girls, their goals are just, `I hope I'm alive.'''
``Nobody cares about these kids. I have girls tell us all the time, we're the only one s who care about them. Their social workers? Now that's getting sad.''
SYSTEM ENCOURAGES RECIDIVISM -o Angela Brown, the 18-year-old mother of four, requested that her tubes be tied after the birth of her second child. Medicaid refused because it won't pay for the procedure until a client reaches 21. Brown says she went on the pill, but still got pregnant again.
Also, Aid to Dependent Children rules prevent two-parent families from receiving funds - even if neither is working. ``It discourages fathers from having contact with the babies, from taking responsibility,'' Henderson says.
Isbell, the resource mother, agrees. ``These girls lose their ADC if they have anything to do with the fathers,'' she says. ``Society is saying it's OK for them to fat her, then go on about their business. The whole thing's a drawback, instead of something that encourages them to go ahead with their lives.''
by CNB