1) Agency (a problematic term)

Where the agency rests depends on the desire at issue. If the young women (see below) choose or have men manipulate or coerce them into sex, that makes sex the issue. If they actively want to have children, to become (for whatever reason) mothers, then however much or little sex they have had only provides one of the available means to that end. And then on top of that issue lies the question of whether or not their choices, whether involving sex or motherhood, really make sense for them.

2) Young women

I don’t know the ages of the people Okun teaches, but our society keeps people too young for too long (and don’t get me started on the special indignities heaped on People of Colour in this connection). At the age of 16, I conned a crippled windjammer up one of the busiest waterways in North America. A fourteen year old can legally take to the sky, in a sailplane, alone. If Okun speaks of 14-16 year olds, I refuse to apologise for referring to these people as young women and men.

3) On motherhood

Let’s acknowledge that Okun’s students live in a world where a conservative writer can produce jeremiads about the People of Colour people out-breeding “us” without getting read out of the mainstream. Our culture, as Cara pointed out, does not value Black motherhood.

4) Discomfort with sex

I don’t know about you, but I find I have to work to avoid our culture’s comfort level with questions of the sexuality and reproduction of People of Colour. I could post reams of data; go to the Atlantic Magazine (subscription) and search Hmong for an article that captures one of the truly egregious and relatively recent examples. A little more discomfort about our ordinary way of addressing this topic would do “White” folks a world of good.

I don’t understand your or Okun’s need to take sex out of the discussion. Limiting the discussion to “what do we do after they’re pregnant?” ignores the agency of the other party responsible for the pregnancy, and it conveniently removes any uncomfortable discussions about how these girls are ending up pregnant in the first place. Offering childcare is important, but it says nothing about the issue of how a fourteen-year-old girl ends up as a single mother.

1) The young women have no agency in this.

As one of Hugo’s own references suggests, it doesn’t do to deny these women credit for their own agency. It appears that some of them do want to have children young; they didn’t get caught up by sexual predators (though some may have) or adult blue-noses. They made a choice which they consider appropriate, but which some adults, with the advantage of experience, see as closing off a great many other choices.

2) This all has to do with sex.

No, this has to do with the supports available (or not) for raising a child by racialized women in an impoverished community in the United States today. A poor young woman can (Hugo has that right) raise a child if she has the needed support. Does she have access to affordable daycare? If not, what have you done about it today? Does she have access to health care for herself and her child? If not, what have you done about that, today.

I wonder if Okun feels the urge to shake his male students who are sleeping with their girlfriends, or “the man” (in his words) who was half responsible for the pregnancy? Does he want to shake people who are diligently working to teach girls like his students that contraception is immoral and abortion is evil? Does he want to scream at the pervasive teaching that a woman’s highest calling is to birth and raise babies, with a “career” being such a distasteful second option that it is always put in quotes?

Because if not, it’s just more of the usual slut-shaming. I doubt Okun or any of the NYT readers applauding him kept it in their pants until marriage.

Sorry if this is getting off-topic.

Several instances come to mind on separate ends of the spectrum. One is the deadbeat father scenario–not my fault, I want nothing to do with the child, I am outta here. One is the couple who this is “not supposed to happen to”–honor students, varsity football, etc. who were careful but not careful enough. A third may be the honorable type of male who is willing to get married and participate in the child’s life regardless of either the strength of the relationship, readiness for marriage, etc. Some teens in this situation actually make a marriage work–I know one exceptional couple with three children now who now face their “golden years” together in their late 40s with a surplus of energy.

I recall a two-week period of time in which I was one-half of the “not supposed to happen to” type (fortunately, high school gf was simply late). It was an exceptionally emotionally distressing period. We had discussions, painful ones, and my irrational, selfish male perspective on the matter was to push my girlfriend to get an abortion. Ostensibly for both of our sakes but, in retrospect, mostly for my own sake. I had plans, dreams, accomplishments ahead. In this case, my gf played organ at her church (provided as a proxy for her character and home values) and was caught in a situation that she should not have been in. Had she been pregnant and taken my advice, I suspect we would have both regretted it for the rest of our lives. Particularly in light of how our beliefs and lives have progressed. Forgiven, but remorseful.

I think in all cases, the prospective father plays a distinct role by leaving, freaking out, berating the girl, ignoring responsibility, influencing the girl’s decision (almost always in favor of an abortion, I assume), being supportive, or offering to take responsibility in whatever capacity necessary respectively. The discussion hits all aspects of the support for the single parent–professors, parents, grandparents, friends, etc. Father is not mentioned once.

The one for eleven statistic cited by Hugo seems pretty appalling to me. Yet nobody seems to talk about the implicit lack of character revealed by this statistic on the male side.

Before you go off, Nuomena, I made no attempt to imply “causality” between the 1 for 11 sampling referred and the relationship between single parent households and a lack of character in the father. And Hugo’s anecdotal observation was used for this example, in case you want to try to discredit the source.

I just wonder what impact the father has in this discussion overall, since there was none in this discussion thread.

Hugo, I hope that the sleeping babies attending your classes were brought out of necessity rather than as a result of the soporific nature of these lectures.

These young mothers and fathers needed role models, mentors, tutors. Needed options, needed encouragement from a very young age. Some of the battle’s been lost for a lot of these kids before they even became sexually active with the terrible school conditions, etc etc.

Teen pregnancy isn’t something you address once a young girl starts menstruating and you’re worried now that she can get pregnant. You address it a kindergarten, when kids has dreams, imagination, creativity, interest, and curiosity. You tell kids those are important, those are worth pursuing, those are worth focusing on, that life isn’t just dealing with what happens to you, but making things happen for yourself. You have to do that, not with just words, but also with action. Support the arts for both genders, sports for both genders equally, afternoon programs where kids can play, study, get tutored and pursue their goals. The way to prevent teen pregnancy isn’t about sex- it’s about letting kids know that they can dream big, and to go after that big dream.

Preventing teen mothers isn’t just about giving sex ed- it starts way, way before that- with both little boys and girls.

Even if teens become pregnant, those that are motivated and determined still succeed, maybe in a different timescale, if given the proper support.

Both of us are probably seeing selected populations. I wonder what the real picture is.

While I agree the teen mothers might know what they’re in for, do they know what they’re losing in the process? They model what they see, not what they could be. That sounds like a trap to me.

Rhyming not intentional.