Family Relationships: Weaving Stories

By: Gina Stepp Click author's name for more of his/her articles

The issue of teen pregnancy continues to resurface at home, in our communities and in the media. So much that people all around the world make it a point to discuss in hopes of building continued awareness.

The comment by Yale professor Colin White in the 1964 issue of The American Statistician that said, “The rich drama of birth, life and death becomes, in the hands of the statistical sociologist, a report on ‘marriages, babies dead, broken lives, men gone mad, labor and crime, all treated in bulk, with the tears wiped off,” has sparked interest and agreement within our communities.

Bill Albert of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy in the United States agrees with White’s sentiment. “I think that’s true,” he says. “We’re often very good at issuing reports. We’re not very good at telling stories.” He believes it’s the stories that give a real sense of what needs to change, particularly the stories of what teens miss out on when they find they must defer their own childhood for the sake of someone else’s. But there are other stories teens need to hear—stories about the hopes and dreams that parents have for their children; stories about the relevance of the child’s own ideals and aspirations; stories about realities such as how premature parenthood will affect a teen’s ability to provide for his or her family’s future, or about the realities of infant care.

School administrators do their best to fill the educational void, but school policies often limit them to disseminating technical information, and students may be left to discover the real stories the hard way. In that vein, Juanita Felice-Zwaryczuk, a high school teacher from Long Island, New York, told Vision: “In my high school classes, the pregnant moms are all aglow before, but shell-shocked after the birth of their child. I haven’t had a single one of them recommend the experience afterward. Even so, many of the other girls envy them. I try, within the constraints of district policy, to help the girls find the self-esteem to want more of a future than such early parenthood ensures them, but it is an uphill battle.”

Indeed, it hardly seems the responsibility should fall solely on public educators. Albert acknowledges that schools do have an important role to play in educating children toward minimizing the risks of teen pregnancy, but he also cautions that the most important stories are the ones children hear at home. “To put these issues in the context of your own family’s values is not the school’s job,” he says. “If kids are growing up in a warm, supportive, loving family with clear rules and clear expectations—you could call them the familiar grandmother rules—the research seems to suggest that they’re better off.”

Unfortunately, however, it isn’t unusual for public administrators to minimize the important contributions to be made by family relationships. For instance, Britain’s official Teenage Pregnancy Strategy, which undertook a campaign to “halve the under-18 conception rate by 2010,” doesn’t say much about plans for parental involvement even though the government says the strategy will require the “active engagement of all of the key mainstream delivery partners who have a role in reducing teenage pregnancies”; but it identifies these partners as “health, education, social services, youth support services, and the voluntary sector.” One can only hope that the strategy statement leaves out parents and families because their status as “key delivery partners” is taken for granted.

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About The Author: Author, Gina Stepp, is a writer and editor for Vision.org, an online magazine that examines the issues of society today. Gina has a strong interest in family relationships and the science that underpins its studies. She holds a BA in Theology and currently lives in California with her family. For more information, visit www.vision.org.