Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, September 15, 1995 TAG: 9509150061
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: ROBERT FREIS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Long
When teens become pregnant, the odds of having a good life are stacked against everyone involved. Chances are greater that babies will be born with birth defects and their mothers will experience difficult deliveries. A life characterized by poverty or financial struggles lies ahead.
"Somebody is going to suffer," said Sue Easton, a Health Department worker who participated in a forum on teen-age pregnancy in the New River Valley on Wednesday.
Locally, the latest available numbers say about 390 New River Valley teens are known to have become pregnant in 1992. They present a substantial challenge to themselves, their children, their families and local schools.
The tentacles of the problem also reach into the wallets of disinterested citizens whose taxes pay to support teen-age mothers and their babies on public relief.
Presently, Montgomery County's social services department is handling, among others, the following two cases involving teen pregnancies:
A 13-year-old victim of sexual abuse who has twice attempted suicide and failed twice in foster homes. Now she's in a residential treatment center and her baby lives in a foster home;
A 16-year-old substance abuser who got pregnant while in a treatment center. She has since been placed in an emergency shelter and now lives in a residential facility.
"The social and economic ramifications are just incredible," said Easton, who counsels pregnant teens on life and parenting skills.
Not everyone who participated in the forum, conducted at the Blacksburg Municipal Building by the League of Women Voters of Montgomery County and the Better Beginnings Coalition of the New River Valley, had a negative view of teen-age parenthood.
Tanya Austin, 16, mother of a 10-month-old daughter, called "ridicule by the public" the biggest problem faced by teen mothers.
"I think I'm a great mother," Austin said. She attends school in the evenings and receives child-care help from her family. The only public assistance Austin said she receives is an allowance to buy baby formula.
Other panel members told Austin she is lucky. Too often, families aren't available, cooperative or capable when teens need help raising children, they said. More than a few pregnancies are caused when teen-age girls are raped by fathers or other male relatives, an issue that complicates domestic support terribly, Easton said.
Even supportive, middle-class families of teen-age mothers and fathers carry a heavy burden, said panel member Charles Eades, the father of a teen-age parent.
It's a difficult situation to confront, Eades said. "There's a lot of mixed emotions and stress. I blamed myself." Also, his income as a Blacksburg police officer made him ineligible for public assistance, forcing him to absorb about $10,000 in birthing expenses.
"Everywhere you go, you get a door closed in your face. I got a real sour taste in my mouth," Eades said.
Adolescents, who are notorious risk-takers, are receiving the wrong kind of encouragement about sexuality from a variety of sources, panel members said. Movies, videos, peer pressure - all contribute to teen-age pregnancies as the stigma of being pregnant at that age lessens.
Ideally, the proper cautionary information about pregnancy should be passed along in homes, churches, neighborhoods or within peer groups, panel member agreed. "Education about sexuality should begin in the home," said Brenda Burrus, a Health Department nurse supervisor.
But the frequency of teen-age pregnancies indicates that's not happening often enough, several panel members said, including Eades, who commented: "They don't want to hear a parent talk about this."
Responsibility for providing information has increasingly fallen on schools, where adolescents spend much of their time. There, the practice of teaching sex education and family life education in schools has become politically controversial.
Burrus said all schools systems in the New River Valley handle the question of teen-age pregnancy with sensitivity, but mostly act as a referral service to agencies that deal more closely with the issue. Many teachers aren't personally comfortable discussing sexuality with students or adequately trained to do so, she added.
School nurses would handle the situation better, but too few are employed by local school systems to make a difference, she said.
Teaching family life in schools is mandated by the state, but the mandate has "no teeth" under the Allen administration, said Kathy Haynie, president of Planned Parenthood of the Blue Ridge. Burrus said New River Valley school systems approach teaching the family life curriculum in "a somewhat restrictive manner."
Upcoming school board elections will largely determine the future of teaching family life in schools, Haynie said. "Those who are opposed to it are deliberately running candidates."
"My clients want information. Not only about birth control, but about their own bodies," Easton said.
Other panelists agreed. "I just wish that people talked to you about contraception," Austin said. "At my school, they did not ... they just wouldn't speak of anything pertaining to sex. You can't not speak of this issue."
"If you don't do something about it, it's going to continue, one way or the other," Eades said.
by CNB