New Haven Independent

Posted by: MORRIS COVE MF | September 18, 2008 5:38 AM

Finally, some smart kids talking about some important issues! This stat confused me, though: "In 2005, 93.5 percent of the teen births in New Haven were to black or Hispanic moms..." It implies that white teens are more responsible, but in reality white teens are just much more likely to get an abortion. I hope that these PSAs hit the airwaves, so that all area kids, including my own, can see them. Really good work, kids.

Posted by: KLSTRPHK | September 18, 2008 12:12 PM

"It implies that white teens are more responsible, but in reality white teens are just much more likely to get an abortion"

More likely to get an abortion? What are you basing that on?

I think that white teens are more responsible, because they are more likely to have positive parental guidance.

Posted by: Rafael Ramos | September 18, 2008 12:41 PM

Real good message, great acting, I'll share it with my own three teenagers, and there friends parents.

Posted by: THREEFIFTHS | September 18, 2008 2:15 PM

Klstrphk
You think white teens are more responsible,Because they are more likely to have
positive parental guidance? Than what Happen to Sarah Palin Daughter?

Posted by: KLSTRPHK | September 19, 2008 8:11 AM

THREEFIFTHS wrote: "you think white teens are more responsible,Because they are more likely to have positive parental guidance? Than what Happen to Sarah Palin Daughter?"

She was impregnated by the Illuminati.

Besides, I said "more likely", not absolutely. I was basing my comments on observations I've made living in New Haven for over 40 years.

Posted by: jade | September 19, 2008 1:52 PM

"More likely to get an abortion? What are you basing that on?'
You can read about this in Malcolm Gladwell, Steven Levitt, or other social researcher's books. It's a national phenomena. They are really interesting authors.

Posted by: KLSTRPHK | September 19, 2008 6:04 PM

I get it now Jade. White teens would rather have an abortion than let the taxpayers pay for their welfare, food stamps, etc.

Posted by: FairNess | September 19, 2008 10:12 PM

It is an injustice that we will kill the unborn, so that we can continue to live as we want.

Working with teens, as young as 13, I have found that it is their parents that many times force an abortion. The parents force the teens to pay the price for their poor parenting.

If parents, especially mothers, stop raising these "little princes", who think the world revolves around them, we might stand a chance. These "little princes" are particularly evident within the hispanic and black family system, but not exclusive. Cultures that demand much from the girls and let these little men run wild, doing whatever they want, need to be challenged.

Posted by: cedarhillresident | September 20, 2008 8:07 AM

WOW! Can it be a religious based decision? Remember we are in CT not the corn belt. African American and latin family in New England have a very high religious belief. I am sure that also plays a part. Also the fear of a teen telling their parent till it is to late to have that option. And then I am sure their is a cycle of teen births that play a part in it. Being that family and friends had kids when they where teens I can to attitudes.
I have 2 young adult kids. And always left the door open when they started dating. I also talk to them about how education come before everything. And untill they get that and have established themselves, children should not be an option. That simple! Not an easy thing to talk to your kids about and I am sure many parents don't.

We have "welfare reform" what part has that played in teens having kids?

Posted by: Chris Gray | September 21, 2008 1:39 AM

I have never been a parent but I have lived with much younger people, many underage and from dysfunctional family backgrounds. Some are still my best friends, even years later and at some distance.

I am also well known for not indulging in the activities which beget children, despite never having been out of love much in my life. I still love a girl who died at nineteen when I was twenty.

It is not that I disapprove of sex, at all.

When I lived with these young people, my co-worker and boss, Laura Lockwood, gave me a ticket to the Interfaith Aids Network (as I recall the name) benefit where Ruby Dee, an actress she knew I greatly admired, performed and spoke.

It was well attended and, where at other events punchbowls were filled with punch, here it was condoms and all the well-to-do attendees were studiously avoiding. My October birthday being the cause of Laura's gift, I had an overcoat and greedily filled my pockets and when I dumped them on the kitchen table at home Barbara from the WhoWhos (who was visiting and, forgive me Barbara for forgetting your last name) quipped, truthfully, "Chris, five lifetime's supplies of condoms for you!" She, Linda LaCava and I collapsed in laughter.

Still, even though it was clear I had no right to regulate my young friends' sexual behavior, I am not aware of a single pregnancy among them or their partners from that period and eventually the condoms all disappeared.

I don't want to argue about culture, religion, or any of that. Educate parents about their inability to control especially this aspect of their children's' lives so that they make condoms freely and widely available and kids of all these groups in our urban environment will tend to use them. Publicly treat the issue like a deadly disease can result from sex without one.

Posted by: help | September 21, 2008 5:55 AM

This is really realistic - what lesson could you possibly learn from this. It not going to happen - why waste time on such silliness. We all know men do not get pregnant - oop!! I forgot about the man that got pregnant - but he was really a women.

Let's get real this issue is too serious to be fooling around with. Spend some time and money on talking to these young people about how to really avoid becoming teen parents.

I am sure that money you spent on this foolishness could have been used more effectively by teaching these you people a valuable lesson on teen pregnancy prevention.

Posted by: jade | September 22, 2008 9:57 AM

kls...are you being sarcastic or? i seriously doubt any teenager...whatever color...cares at all about taxpayers. it's all about the opportunities the kids have or know they have. it's not my theory based on social observations...read the books.

Posted by: Cheri | September 22, 2008 4:32 PM

If schools would start administering free shots of depo provera (a form of birth control that lasts up to about a year) to teen girls, then we would virtually eliminate unwanted/unplanned teen pregnancy.

I would support my tax dollars going to such a program where this would be implemented at schools, like a flu shot, and just as highly recommended by doctors and other health professionals. Please don't argue this with the idea that with this form of birth control teens would stop using condoms, it misses the point, and I don't believe it's necessarily true.

If you want to stop the madness of kids having kids who turn into ignorant criminals because they're utterly unwanted, not to mention at all kinds of socio/economic disadvantages, then get these teens on mandatory birth control.

Posted by: Kat | September 22, 2008 5:08 PM

Cheri, each shot of Depo is only effective for about 3 months (11 to 13 weeks) - and before we start lobbying for birth control being dispensed in schools (an idea I could support), perhaps we should start by making our kids have access to real sex ed in the first place.

Posted by: cedarhillresident | September 22, 2008 8:59 PM

Cheri I to might support that to a point. But mandated is a little to far. I Do agree with Kat real sex ed! Maybe a one on one thing with Planned Parenthood trained teens maybe. Teens talking to teens. I still believe alot of these kids are not getting the option or really do not have the money to pay for depo shot or the pill...and don't forget about CONDOMS!!!!!! Depo is nice but does not save lives.

Posted by: Chris Gray | September 23, 2008 12:38 AM

You know, I keep thinking about community organizers who go into a community with no agenda of their own and allow ordinary people empower themselves enough to have hope again, if not for the first time, that they get the sum-lords (sometimes the cities) to provide decent living conditions and the whole community starts to pull itself up by its bootstraps.

When you are convinced that thing can change for the better it becomes much easier to listen to your better angels.

The way it is, as long as there is a failure on every level of our society to face the existence of an institutionalized underclass in its cities, which threatens to overwhelm them and the culture of the surrounding areas, and provides no reason for hope to those in it, we are headed for more tough times.

Plus, many more unwanted children.

Posted by: Cheri | September 23, 2008 9:52 AM

What's "real sex ed?" no sarcasm intended...but I think the facts are out there and easy to understand.

If depo provera is only effective for 3 months, then get a shot of it every 3 months.

And as far as "saving lives" in concerned, I thought we were focusing on preventing teen pregnancy, not sexually transmitted disease. Condoms should be used for that purpose, as we all know. Fact is, what we know and what we actually practice are often two different things, especially when we're young and immature, which is why I strongly support urging teen girls/women to get the depo provera.

p.s. I shouldn't have used the word "mandatory" even if I do like the idea.

Posted by: Chris Gray | September 24, 2008 4:41 AM

A life absorbed with supporting a new, unprepared for and, all too often, quickly unwanted life is just one more way sex without condoms can render a life lost.

Not to dengrate child-raising, but I always wondered what my father could have accomplished without a wife and four kids, but I eventually realized that was exactly what he wanted to accomplish. On the other hand, Mom accomplished much with them.

My sister urges me to watch Mad Men with my 92-year old mother and, while I do, I know they are leaving a character out, the married lady from Connecticut who does their market research without accepting for a minute their lurid sexism, who sits nearby.

Still, back to the teen pregnancy issue, I am completely unaware of this use of depo provera, so I am unprepared to comment on it. Again, in my experience with kids (of many backgrounds) they use condoms if they are readily available. I wish I had had access to a stash when I worked with an even wider variety of kids at WYBC but AIDS was hardly known of then.

I always hoped, though I never knew if, the city's needle exchange van (which I helped Mark Aldridge and a bunch of shelter kids from Bridgeport paint) passed out free condoms along with exchanging needles.

Funny thing, I have never used a condom but I now do intramuscular injections once a week.

Posted by: Chris Gray | September 24, 2008 8:07 AM

Oh, I should complete the thought about my father.

You should know that he was raised by his widowed mother (Grandpa was dead before he was born in the War), who lived with her mother in Brooklyn and, so, he had grown up wondering what she might have accomplished unburdened by him or, better still, with a living partner and a full, happy family.

Sound like a familiar scenario?