Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 19, 1994 TAG: 9407150014
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BETH MACY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Her 15-month-old daughter watches the screen idly, a bottle of milk dangling from her teeth. Teens and toddlers mill around outside - in the afternoon rain - watching cars pass by, stereos thumping long after they pass.
``I don't think most of them knew what they were talking about,'' Ellen Farrell says. ``All those rich white people - I mean, this is the '90s, things have changed.''
That's her critique of the task force's second session May 25, during which members discussed why teen-agers get pregnant and activities that might divert them from having sex. Farrell, 17, says she was bored during the meeting - though she participated in the discussion and obviously paid close attention to what was said.
``I'm happy to be in the group because it's something extra to do besides sit around the house watching TV,'' she says. ``Besides, I want to try to make things better for my daughter.''
Her hopes for Ty-Iesha?
``To finish school and not get pregnant like I did.''
Does she think that's possible?
Farrell pauses, looking down at the scarred linoleum floor, then back at the TV.
Avoiding eye contact, she whispers, ``Probably not.''
Boredom and hopelessness - social workers see it on the face of nearly every teen mom they work with.
Teens who actually look forward to going to the Women Infants and Children office, waiting for hours for their monthly stipend of formula and food vouchers.
Teens who fight over who gets dropped off at home last in the van that takes them to medical and social-services appointments.
Teens who were so bored and without hope that they thought having a baby would be the answer - and maybe even the means for getting a monthly check.
Readers saw it on the faces of Shannon Huff and Tasha Walker, the two ``pregnant and proud'' teens who enraged the community by telling a newspaper reporter and photographer they were happy to be pregnant. Sex gave gave them something to do, they said, and a baby gave them someone to love and hope for.
People responded with more than 200 letters and phone calls - berating both the teens and the newspaper for printing ``such garbage,'' as more than a few people put it.
``The climate in this town has been to look the other way for so many years,'' explains social worker Debbie Henderson, the co-chair of the city's new task force. ``There was the attitude that, `Teen pregnancy's not really happening here in Big Lick.'''
Now, she says, people are moving forward. Roanoke's pregnant- teen school is expanding its day care and offering parenting classes for teen dads. First Baptist Church is sponsoring summer workshops on self-esteem and parenting for teen moms.
At Patrick Henry High School, peer educators have been tapped to counsel peers about both abstinence and birth control. The school has also started a support group for teen mothers. ``The schools are calling me up quicker on girls'' for referral, Henderson adds.
``It's not that people didn't care before, it's just that now there's more of an awareness. It's like it's OK to be aware of it now, whereas before it was hidden under the rug.''
But there's still much to be done. Not only do the services - both prevention and after-the-fact - need beefed up, but somehow the mindset that it's cool to be pregnant must be reversed, experts say.
It's hard to combat teen pregnancy if the teens themselves don't think it's a problem.
As school official Annie Harman put it at a recent task-force meeting: ``You can teach kids to eat with a fork all day long, but if you send them home and there are no forks, what's the use?
``Until these kids have hope, I don't even know why we're meeting.''
\ The first two weeks that social worker Bob Henderson offered the parenting class for males, no one showed up. Finally, when both transportation and pizza were provided, four teen fathers came to the class - but two of them brought guns.
Unprotected sex is such a given among the girls with whom Sharlene Hodges works that she tells them they should know two very basic things about their partners before they engage in it: the color of his eyes and his birthday. ``You'd be surprised at how many of these girls couldn't answer either of those questions.''
``If you're not comfortable asking those two questions, you definitely shouldn't be comfortable having sex,'' she tells 16-year-old Indigo Hill, who has a 6-month-old son.
``Yeah, but most girls I know will do it anyway,'' says Hill. ``They have babies just to get help'' from AFDC.
Hill, a sophomore at Roanoke's Maternal and Infant Education Center, has dark hickeys on her cheeks from her 15-year-old boyfriend - ``so when I go out people will know I have a man,'' she says.
Hill says her mom taught her about protection, but her boyfriend refused to wear condoms. ``I didn't listen to my mom because I thought I was grown, that's what it was.''
What should the task force do to teach these teens and others like them that pregnancy is the first step to a life of poverty and hopelessness?
How should it use the $150,000 and four staff pregnancy-prevention positions awarded recently by the state to instill hope in Roanoke's youth?
We posed those questions to the experts - the teen moms and the people who work with them. Here's what they said:
Expand preventive programs like the Teen Outreach Program, which works with at-risk youth and has been proved to reduce teen pregnancy in cities where it is widely implemented.
Make sure every teen mom gets intensive case management to prevent repeat pregnancies and child abuse. ``We've only had one girl get pregnant again this year that we've worked with,'' Debbie Henderson, of the city's pregnant teen/teen parent program, says.
Engage black-community leaders and black churches. ``Most of the girls I get are black, but most of the [social-worker] help is white, and a lot of them don't trust us,'' Hodges says.
``Black churches today are getting saved and going underground,'' says Virginia Tech black-studies teacher Logie Meachum, who specializes in the motivation of at-risk kids. ``Historically, black religion was always a tool of liberation; now it's a tool of judgment. Too few of them are out there feeding and making opportunities.
``Instead of building more churches, build us a toothpaste factory and give us jobs. Give us scholarships. Instead of just preaching, give us exposure to areas outside our communities, talk to us, give us condoms, educate us.''
nOffer safe, free activities to give kids creative outlets. ``Most everything that's happening now, there's fights and they end up getting canceled,'' laments senior Sarah Jones, who has a 2-month-old.
``They should have a nice nightclub for teens with no alcohol,'' adds Donsha Wright, teen mother of a 6-month-old. ``If there were more things to do, we wouldn't be getting pregnant.''
``A place to go and have dances is good, but if you have it in Northwest, the Southeast kids better not show up,'' Henderson warns. ``I've talked to my girls, and the underlying tone is fear; they're afraid of the guns, the drugs.''
``You can't even go to the library without somebody getting into a fight,'' Ellen Farrell adds.
n``Reality-based'' sex ed - meaning, both birth control and abstinence - should be taught at all grade levels. ``Abstinence training is good, but they definitely need to start it by middle school, before the peer pressure starts,'' Hodges says. ``Once they get to high school, most of them, they've already had sex - or had babies.''
Birth-control should be accessible at school and in neighborhoods, especially high pregnancy-rate areas like Northwest and Northeast Roanoke. ``Most people are embarrassed to talk about sex, but they're not embarrassed to have it,'' says 14-year-old mother Christy Farrell, who is Ellen's sister.
``The schools, instead of spending all their money on computers, they need to give us a real nurse.''
More role models, more male involvement, more open discussion of teen pregnancy. ``They should pick some teen moms to go into the middle schools and talk to kids,'' Ellen Farrell says. ``I'd tell them how hard labor was, and raising a child isn't as easy as I thought - especially when I don't have any money and she needs diapers.
``Whites, they try to hide being pregnant, and blacks, they make a big deal out of it,'' she adds. ``But everybody's doing it just the same. Shoot, you can't even look around anymore without seeing somebody pregnant. And the guys out here - they don't see it as a problem at all.''
Expand the city's Better Beginnings Coalition, which has studied teen pregnancy since 1985 - instead of reinventing the wheel with another drawn-out task force study. Hire staff positions for the group - people to carry out the recommendations of the task force.
And hurry up, says the Farrell girls' mother, Catherine. ``By the time they're done studying it, we'll have 40 more girls pregnant.''
Girls like 16-year-old Francine Jackson, who was interviewed in the WIC waiting room, two months before her due date. Jackson was asked what the city should do about its epidemic teen-pregnancy rate - but, like many teens in maternity tops, she didn't think the issue was much cause for concern.
She worries about finishing school, though she has no real idea how she will pay for day care or other infant costs. The 17-year-old father-to-be ``still comes around,'' she says. ``But he ain't got no job yet either.''
``Yeah, we knew about birth control, we just never talked about it. People just do it to be doing it.''
She was surprised to learn that Roanoke has the highest teen-pregnancy rate in Virginia and says most of her friends don't realize, either - let alone care.
``I guess it's a bad thing, teen pregnancy,'' Jackson says. ``But for me, I'm happy.''
Memo: ***CORRECTION***