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Teen Mom Stereotypes

© Trula Breckenridge

Not like I am one of those people who think they are too superior to watch television. I am, however, one of those extremely busy people who just don't have a lot of time to watch television. When I do have time to watch, my children's preferences take precedence. Then I find myself watching Blue's Clues or Sesame Street or Dexter's Laboratory with my sons, or Jett Jackson or the Olsen twins in that show I can never recall the name of, the one my pre-teen daughter gets a kick out of.

I could lie and say that when I do have a half hour to hour of TV time I watch something high-brow or cultured or perhaps political but hey, I don't. I watch Mad TV every Saturday night. MTV for music videos in the early AM hours sometimes, and trashy talk shows every now and then. I don't know why I bother, especially when the recurring theme for so many shows is bashing teenage mothers.

I know that teen pregnancy is considered a problem and a social ill my most of our society. I don't agree, and I don't understand the need these shows have to continually bash teen mothers. The shows are hosted by affluent, well-known, sometimes highly educated hosts who are held in well-regard by most members of their viewing community. Instead of using their platform as a vehicle to help teen mothers, they give in to current societal demands to blame, punish, and humiliate teen mothers.

If I see one more show or commercial to a show titled, 'Help! I'm 16 and I have No Idea Who my Baby Daddy is!" I am going to puke. A call to my local child support agency, which has stats for all Ohio, got me the information that most DNA cases involving multiple possible fathers involve adult women in their twenties and thirties, not teens. Yet I have never seen a show titled, 'Help! I'm 35 and Don't Know who my Baby's Daddy is!' or 'I'm a Grown Woman who Slept with 3 Guys and Got Knocked Up!' or 'Late Twenties Mama Drama'.

Older moms are not knocked so severely for making poor relationship or conception choices. It's painfully obvious that many make the same or similar choices teen girls do. I think that's worse because they are more than old enough to know better. Yet it's still teenage mothers and former teen mothers who get portrayed so negatively in these shows.

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