LUMBERTON — At the end of a long, muddy dirt road in Rowland, in a purple single-wide trailer, beyond a screen door tied shut with string, lives a mother and her three children — one of whom is about to become a mother herself, at the age of 15.
“I was scared,” Katelynn Oxendine said of when she realized she might be pregnant. “Scared that I may have messed my life up.”
Katelynn didn’t tell her mother, Kimberly Oxendine, or her sister, Tenisha Eddings, her fear. It wasn’t until Eddings, who had a daughter at 18 and noticed things weren’t quite right with her little sister, made her take a pregnancy test that Eddings knew she would be an aunt. By the time Katelynn saw a doctor, she was three months along.
“I was really upset and mad, and worried about how we were going to handle it,” Kimberly said. “But then I had to stop and think, and everybody does stuff when they’re young, everybody makes mistakes. We’ve all done it, we’ve all did things we regret we’ve done and I can’t punish her for that. We’re just going to have to work on this together.”
Katelynn’s story is frequently told in Robeson County. According to the Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Campaign of North Carolina, during 2011, about one girl aged 15 to 19 became pregnant every day in Robeson County — a rate of about 69 per 1,000 girls, almost 58 percent higher than the state rate of 43.8.
The numbers, however, are down — the 355 teen pregnancies in 2011 reflected an 18 percent decrease from 432 the previous year — a drop that plunged Robeson County to No. 11 statewide in teen pregnancy rates. In 2008, Robeson rose as high as No. 2 in the state with 494 pregnancies, a rate of 98 out of 1,000 teenagers.
The rate per 1,000 teenagers in Robeson was 39 for white teens, 93 for Hispanics and 76 for blacks. Statistics for American Indians are not provided by the campaign, but a 2010 study by the state’s Center for Health Statistics found that from 2004 to 2008 the average teen pregnancy rate for American Indians in all of North Carolina was 85.7 per 1,000.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the 329,797 births to teen parents in 2008 in the United States cost an estimated $11 billion, including health care, lost tax revenue, foster care, public assistance and the higher likelihood of incarceration associated with teen pregnancy.
More than one third of all households in Robeson County live on less than $15,000 a year. Growing up in poverty is one of the biggest risk factors for teen pregnancy, according to the CDC.
“It just puts a lot of extra burden on the family, taking on this whole new thing of one of their children being pregnant and now they’re bringing into the world another child that they may or may not have the resources to care for, ” said Cindy Herndon, program administrator for the Robeson County Health Department’s Nurse-Family Partnership program. The program places a nurse with a first-time mom to help her take an active role in her and the child’s health.
Darlene Gold, another administrator with the Nurse-Family Partnership, said the program provides mothers with information on child safety that might have been lost in a generational gap because “a lot of folks in this county aren’t raised by their biological mother.”
“Typically there is a male missing in a lot of high-poverty areas,” said Bill Smith, the county’s health director. “There is no father figure. That could lend itself to females being attracted to older males, or it also could be that she wants to have the baby to keep the guy around — you have a lot of different dynamics at work within the family structure.”
Administrators at Eckerd, a nonprofit with an office in downtown Lumberton that works to provide life skills to young parents, often see young mothers who have been in relationships with much older men.
“I think it’s because they’re looking for that attention from a male and if that’s the only kind of attention that they feel they can get, then that’s what they’ll take,” said Erin McQueen, a supervisor with Eckerd.
According to the CDC, the children of teenage mothers are “more likely to have lower school achievement and drop out of high school, have more health problems, be incarcerated at some time during adolescence, give birth as a teenager and face unemployment as a young adult.” Only about half of teen mothers graduate from high school by the age of 22, as opposed to about 90 percent of adolescents who are not parents.
“To me, the poverty is a cycle that they’ve learned from maybe more than one generation of poverty, which is hard to break, but normally you don’t break a cycle like that unless you have some guidance and some help,” Herndon said. “You have to have a mentor and be mentored through it — and that’s what we’re trying to do, is break the cycle of poverty.”
To experts, breaking the cycle is all about arming teens with information about the consequences that having unprotected sex can bring.
“I think it comes from a lack of education as far as birth control goes, and I’ve listened to the girls as they talk, and a lot of them, their parents don’t discuss birth control,” said Becky Bullard, coordinator of the Adolescent Parenting Program at Eckerd. “Their parents don’t discuss sex before marriage. And they learn a lot of it from friends.”
Kimberly Oxendine said she had a talk with Katelynn and her boyfriend about sex.
“I told them, she’s too young to be on birth control right now, I don’t believe that she should be having sex,” Kimberly said. “She’s only 15. … I tried to talk to her and I tried to talk to the boyfriend about having babies, that it was not a thing for them to do, to wait until they were more mature to be making that decision, and they still did it. So it doesn’t matter what you tell them, they’re going to do what they want to do anyway.”
Smith credited a modification of the state’s sex-education curriculum that went into effect during the 2010-2011 school year with the decline of pregnancy rates. The curriculum, which is part of the Healthy Youth Act, requires that schools include information about STD rates and contraception. But, he said, Robeson County schools should be doing more.
“They’re supposed to teach abstinence and then consequences,” he said. “Unfortunately, it sometimes winds up being what the teacher feels comfortable with, so they may not talk a lot about bodies or sex at all, they may lean more again on abstinence, but that’s left up to the teacher. But from a Board of Education standpoint, they should be teaching consequences.”
According to Linda Emanuel, assistant secretary for curriculum and instruction for the county’s school system, the state Board of Education gives local school boards the right to choose between abstinence-based sex education or a more “comprehensive” plan.
“I think there’s a place for both types of education, on the dangers of having sex and on waiting until marriage to have sex,” Emanuel said. “We respect the parent’s decision to make that call.”
Emanuel’s sentiments were echoed by Jason Suggs, the county’s athletic director and health and physical education supervisor, a title that puts him in charge of the county schools’ Reproductive Health and Safety Education. Suggs said parents of students in grades 7 to 9 can object to their children receiving sex education by submitting a letter to the principal.
“In this county, we want to make sure we give the parents the right to opt out if they don’t want the schools to teach them the curriculum,” Suggs said.
According to Suggs, abstinence is the focus of the curriculum, but schools still “have to do the lesson, and what the state requires,” which is a “document-only” presentation about local, state and national rates of sexually transmitted diseases, and contraceptives and their success rates.
According to the state Board of Education, individual school districts have the option on how far to push sex education. The last time the policy came up for a vote, Robeson County’s Board of Education supported education with a focus on abstinence.
Board member Dwayne Smith said his vote was prompted by “how he was raised, and his beliefs.”
“Here we are living in the Bible Belt, and what the Bible teaches is that you shouldn’t have sex until you’re married,” Smith said. “There’s no sugarcoating to it. That’s the way it has to be.”
Smith, the parent of an 8-year-old boy, said it’s not the school’s place to teach students about sexual education. Such learning, he said, “starts at home.”
“You can have all the sex education you want to, but it’s up to the parents to sit down with them and tell them what’s what,” he said. “… Parents have to take some responsibility too.”
Nineteen-year-old Catrina Collins, who walked across the stage of her high school graduation at six months pregnant, recalls her sex education.
“They told us abstinence was the best form of birth control, but obviously, in today’s world, that’s not exactly a choice,” she said.
Collins said students were given condoms, and “the pill” was mentioned as another form of birth control. She said she never had “the talk” with her mother.
“She just thought it would be handled in school,” she said. “… But it’s not the parent’s fault. Never. It was my choice.”
Shahnee Haire, Robeson County Teen Outreach Program coordinator, said the high-rate of teen pregnancy locally shows that teenagers aren’t getting the information they need from their parents.
“I believe, being the Bible Belt-type of county, I think the school system doesn’t want to interfere with parents,” she said. “They want to be on good terms, so they do bare minimum. I believe they are scared about parents, they don’t want an uproar. But to me it seems they … don’t want to see the problem.”
Haire said she can only speak at schools if she is invited, and that rarely happens. When it does, she said it’s evident by the number of pregnancies she sees that the strategy is flawed.
“They have people that aren’t trained. It’s P.E. teachers doing the (sex education) training,” she said. “They don’t want to do condom demonstrations — they don’t want to go in-depth about that kind of stuff.”
Collins believes that schools should employ more preventative measures, such as giving a student a doll that mimics the experience of taking care of a baby.
“That would be nice, because I bet a lot more people would start using condoms or birth control and just not chancing it,” she said.
Collins said raising 3-month-old Apache Jacobs, whom she calls A.J., tests her teenage patience, and is mostly her job because the father works such long hours.
The Teen Outreach Program, which operates on a federal grant, provides teens with exercises about the difficulties of being a young parent and helps to answer questions about sex. The program also offers incentives such as field trips to its participants — as long as they don’t become pregnant. Smith said the program is successful because it “fills time in a healthy manner.”
“When people get out of school and their parents work, there is a lot of idle time,” he said. “This keeps them active. And in this program, everyone graduated high school. They didn’t drop out, they didn’t get pregnant, so it’s working.”
For teenagers who have had a child, Smith said, there are programs whose focus is on delaying a subsequent pregnancy. About 29 percent of Robeson County teenagers who gave birth in 2011 were already mothers — a rate that has been steady and is on par with the state.
“The first one is not much of an issue,” Smith said. “It’s the second one that kind of comes on the heels of the first one that confines you to a poor economic outcome. So if you have one you can probably go back to school, but that second one — that’s what a lot of our programs do is try to prevent that second one, try to give you some spacing.”
Eckerd, both privately and publicly funded, is one of those programs. Bullard and McQueen try to impart a sense of self-worth to the teen parents they serve, and to convince them that having a baby does not doom them to a life of poverty.
“A lot of the teens I see, especially the girls, they feel down on themselves because they are so young and because they do have babies,” Bullard said. “And a lot of them think that they can’t continue education. A lot of them think that this is it.”
Bullard, a native of Robeson County, is able to use herself as an example. A month after graduating from high school, at the age of 18, she became pregnant — but she was determined not to be a part of a cycle of poverty.
“I didn’t want to stay in that shape,” Bullard said. “I didn’t want to be poor. I didn’t want to live from paycheck to paycheck. I wanted to be able to provide for my family. It took me a little while to do it, it did, but thank God that I did it. I just wanted better not only for my child, but I wanted better for myself.”
Some resources exist in the public schools, Emanuel said, such as the Learning Acceleration Program, which provides online instruction to at-risk students, including those who are pregnant.
“In severe cases, or maybe because of complications during pregnancy, we have a Homebound program,” Emanuel said. “We send a teacher that makes periodic visits and delivers assignments to the home.”
On Tuesday, Katelynn was home from school with a backache. Her mother was hoping she could be placed on Homebound early.
“I’m thinking her back pain is coming from all this walking up and down this dirt road, because she has to walk down the dirt road to meet the bus at the end of the road …,” Kimberly said.
Katelynn is already receiving one service from home, that of the Nurse-Family Partnership. Nurse Kelly Deal visits twice a month, makes health checks and lets Katelynn and her family know what to do in case of complications.
“We encourage self-efficacy of the mother so that the mother can sustain the family,” Herndon said. “In doing that we find out what the mom’s ‘heart’s desire’ is and we figure out where she wants to go in her life and provide her with resources so she can make that happen for herself.”
Katelynn, an honor roll student who said she “loves school,” hopes to have a career in law enforcement or medicine. Collins wants to be a nurse practitioner.
“We can still find a way for her to follow her dreams,” said Jessica Harris, a nurse who works with Collins. “She can still do what she wants to do and be a good mommy at the same time … we try to make it a positive outcome.”
Collins said she wouldn’t change her path.
“I’m in love with A.J.,” she said.
1.) My parents raised me quite conservatively in this regard, and in fact, I was not even allowed to walk more than a block unaccompanied until high school. However, I was fortunate enough to live in an incredibly diverse neighborhood, and attend one of the most muti-ethinic, -cultural, -lingual, and –religious high schools in the country—which, ironically, has a surprisingly low rate of racial tension. This experience was invaluable to me both personally an professionally, and truly opened my mind to the world in all its glory and variety. While I still retained my core values (“morals”) as you say (eg. an anti-drug, pro-abstinence, pro-life Christian) I have learned not to judge others for their own choices or try to tell them what to do for their own situations, as I would not want them—or the government—telling me what to do in those areas either. Although it is and should be your right to live where and associate with whom you wish, I would urge you to (with proper supervision, of course) to at least try associating with others with perspectives and backgrounds different from your own, and try to understand why they think and believe the way you do. It was a pivotal turning point in changing my view of the world from very self-centered to more community-, faith-, and tolerance-centered. Try it—you might just learn something.
2.) While I don’t disagree that some parents might think that way, I stand by my assertion that in many cases, disadvantaged parents simply may not find the time (from working long, hard hours at a minimum-wage job), resources (from inadequate training/education, historical bias/discrimination, or fewer opportunities), or education (from lack of meaningful sex ed at their likely poor high school) to properly instruct their children on sex and teen pregnancy. Further, in most cultures in America today, sex/teen pregnancy is an uncomfortable, taboo topic and simply ignored or dealt with by simply saying “don’t do it” without strong reasons or alternatives. Whether they actually wanted their kids to or not, whether they make an effort or not, it is still up to the kids to succeed, and in an urban, gang- and drug-ridden environment, many may feel powerless to escape, even though they have some chance of doing so. Parents are the most important people in their children’s lives when it comes to sex and teen pregnancy, and a large number are not doing their jobs as well as they could—black, white, and Latino. However, the environments that minorities tend to grow up in—poor, urban, high-crime, and drug-ridden—are less conducive to their success, especially without parental support, and thus greatly contribute to the discrepancy. As a fellow Christian (I would assume), it is not our place to go around blaming certain groups of people for this problem—it is up to God can judge that sort of thing. Rather, it is our Christian duty to help and support them through proven methods of reducing teen pregnancy—like abstinence and, yes, contraception—wouldn’t you agree?
3.) You are making an invalidated, unsupported assumption about my personal beliefs and character, similar to DavidLocklear’s unsubstantiated ad holmium attack on yourself above. Yes, race is a part of the story, as it is where I live. The statistics don’t lie. However, your conclusion that I am “enraged whenever anything is mentioned in a negative light about minorities” is quite unfounded. First, it is unfair to say “whenever” considering your sample size of one (that comment, above). Secondly, although I object to the validity of the implications of your statement, and am offended by its stereotypical characterization of all minorities, anger was not the predominant emotion I was feeling, either at that time or now.
Further, how can you conclude what you said in your third and fourth sentences regarding “the only time [I] want to hear about minorities” based on a single statement of mine regarding a single statement of yours? That is the definition of stereotyping; forming one’s opinion of another’s character based solely on one visible aspect of themselves. In fact, I particularly dislike reading, listening to, or watching media that attempts to incite its audience by portraying incidents involving race, religion, gender, etc. as something more than they are as part of a certain agenda (which includes both MSNBC and FNC). Further, I mention minorities, including specific groups, a number of times in my statements above, and think that in many cases, politicians, the media, and citizens are far too squeamish about treading into potentially “offensive” waters. However, what I object to is your unqualified characterization of all minorities as “engaging in activities which perpetuate the problem” when in reality, fewer than one in ten do so. I persist in my belief that simply saying what you did is not racist, nor hate speech, although it make encourage a reader to think ill of all minorities. However, I allege that the spirit of the statement and its implications are unfair toward the great majority of minorities.
4.) “You whiney excuse maker?” I’d ask you to join me in refraining from name-calling and in maintaining the civility you clearly seem capable of from your response to the drug allegations. While poor and working-class parents carry the same burden of parental responsibility as do those of middle- and upper-class parents, they often have much fewer resources to support them in carrying that burden. Single parent households are far more common among with lower incomes, which doubles the burden upon a single parent and leaves at least one potential role modal out of a child’s life. Even with sufficient time for parenting, they themselves might not have the upbringing to know how to raise a child properly, as their parents may not have been able to provide for them. Further, with such a dearth of knowledge and strong cultural taboos regarding teen sex and pregnancy, especially among (yes, I’m saying it) minorities, parents may not be the best teachers of their children in how to behave properly. However, I certainly agree that with proper awareness, education, and support, any parent can overcome these deficiencies. That is why we are trying to empower them—not through handouts, but through education—to be better-informed and more active teachers and role models in their children’s lives.
Yes, there were more poor people 50 years ago than now in the US, and no, we didn’t have this sort of epidemic—it was almost three times worse. According to the CDC, our teen pregnancy rate peaked in 1957, 54 years ago, at 96.4 per 1000, compared to 34.3 per 1000 now.
5.) If you are going to quote me, actually quote my words and not your interpretation thereof—I might recommend copy and paste for that. Nowhere did I say “there[sic] gonna[sic] do it anyway;” in fact, I was essentially refuting that very assertion. In response to @Viewer’s statement, “they are gonna have sex,” I stated “around half do and half don’t.” Fact, according to the CDC and the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancies, which advocates abstinence as the primary teen pregnancy prevention strategy. Further, a study by the Mississippi Department of Health—yes, the same Mississippi that is among the strongest proponents of abstinence-only education and with the highest teen pregnancy rate of any state in the US—found unequivocally that “increasing emphasis on abstinence education is linked to more teenage pregnancy and higher teen birth rates.” While I personally believe in abstinence, the facts make it clear that it can’t be the only, and perhaps not even the primary option we offer our teen population.
Comparing teen sex with drugs is not a valid analogy. There is no cheap and easy way to prevent the great majority of the impacts of drugs upon our brains and psychology, and sex is not something we generally pay for anyway (or at least, we shouldn’t be). And again, I believe abstinence should be our primary method of contraception, but unless you advocate government control and monitoring of every aspect of our sex lives (which I doubt), it is, like drugs, very difficult to enforce, especially given easily available options for curtailing its negative effects.
6.) I agree that teen fathers need to be held accountable, and I fully support your belief that a father needs to be held equally responsible as the mother for the child. However, I don’t think requiring the mother to name the father would do much good on its own—to actually ensure child support and responsibility was exacted from the father, the government would likely have to spend considerable taxpayer dollars tracking down teen fathers and ensuring they fulfill their paternal responsibilities. Further, the deterrent effect, which would of course be the primary goal of such a policy, would likely be not nearly as effective as you hope. Many teen parents simply believe that whatever contraception methods they are using will work without sufficient education on how to use them properly, or else not see the need for it at all, thinking “it won’t happen to me” or “it’s just one time.” Even in cases where the female does not want pregnancy and knows it is a possibility, the male often does not, thinking he can just leave (and again, he can, unless the government spent the money to track him down and continue monitoring him for the duration). That is why I believe our strategy strikes far closer to the heart of the problem for all races, income brackets, and education levels: stop the problem at the source, conception, through education, awareness, empowerment, and, if necessary, proper contraception.
I don’t want to turn this into some religious debate, but by suggesting we let the poor and suffering languish in their misery, you disregard the basic principles of the Christian faith, which I would gather you subscribe to. I would refer you to the Bible verses in Matthew 25 if you are wondering what I mean. We’re Christians, not anarchists, true? Then let’s show it. Thanks.
"Feel good Crap" All that explaining about teens and pregnancy makes people "like you" feel wonderful about yourself while thinking YOU are much smarter than the "ones" you are supposedly helping. You think, "they don't know any better, we do, and we must help them". A typical democrat.
Hey pal, we don't think they are less than us, we think everybody is capable of making informed decisions. And if the free money would stop going to these "kind" of people they would stop with the stupidity. The more you help some, the more they will do whatever it is there doing. Keep giving a fat kid cookies and he'll keep getting FAT. Cut out the cookies!
Let's see, this is so easy to do, so here goes. You said your parents sent you to a "very multi-whatever religious school" Very good sir, but you left out the witty bitty part of it being a "PRIVATE SCHOOL". You slipped when you said religious, we know a goverment school would have nothing to do with that. And of course everyone got along great, it's culture not color, surprise.
Like minded kids from like minded parents of like minded neighborhoods. Works everytime.
You stats from the CDC are, well let's just say you did it again. You left out a witty bitty part that says, most were already married. They married at 17 or 18 some even younger, but MOST WERE MARRIED. unlike the single uneducated "moms" of today. You have an incredable ability to leave out very important info while trying to make a point. Lets hope you don't leave out witty bitty stuff at your preggo teen club meetings.
And again, when I made my points about minorities, I NEVER SAID "ALL".
And you gave incorrect numbers about the rate and the races. You need to reread the column and pull your fingers out of your ears and see that rates are much, much higher for minorities than whites. I know that stat angers you, but a fact is a fact. Couple this with minorities are poorer less educated, and more likely to be involved in risky behaviors and "Houston, we have a problem".
I'm not the one making the stats, I'm the one saying the stats. Instead of people getting angry at the person who talks about the stats, they should focus their anger at the ones creating the stats.
As I have said time and time again, we're not about blame--that's not our job. We're there to try to prevent teen pregnancy from happening to young girls in the future by giving them the information and empowerment they need to succeed by themselves, on their own merits--not off the kindness of taxpayers. We're all about avoiding these situations that you don't want to be paying for in the first place, rather than being stuck in the past, blaming people after the fact.
Nothing wrong with "rules and regs." We have some pretty hard and fast advice for all the teens out there: "Don't have sex, or else use protection." Pretty simple but pretty darn effective if you hear it from the right people in the right places--like your parents. Again, that's what we are trying to do: give parents the awareness and information they need to bring their kids up properly. Why do you seem to have a problem with that?
I don't control your tax dollars. I'm just trying to reduce the number of pregnant and parenting teens and thus those our government--and your tax dollars--needs to support. I'm not spending your money--I'm saving it.
"Nobody cares about these girls," maybe that's the problem. They think they don't have a choice, they can't escape, and the only person who even tries to love them is their boyfriend. What if, just for a moment, someone else who really does cares for them--their parents, friends, or teachers--gives them some good advice and tells them that they can break the cycle? Oh, and where are "love your neighbor as yourself," or Matthew 25, or the Beatitudes in "No one cares about these girls, all we care about is OUR MONEY!" Would Jesus really agree...or would the Pharisees?
Considering that Mr. Ross has not gone off topic to plug the drug test issue, then how about we just let it go for now. If he doesn't bring it up, then what harm can it do either way?
Don't be mad at Mr. Ross--no matter what he says, he, like anyone, still deserves your respect as a person, even if you totally disagree with his ideas. If you do so, it would likely make both parties into as much stubborn, hateful antagonists as they believe the other person is, and nobody wins--we all just end up angry at each other, which doesn't do anyone any good. I think we're all capable of rising above that; you, Mr. Ross, and (yes) myself included.
Thanks.
My mom and dad had rules and regs for us to follow, and now as an adult there are rules and regs to follow, but in your world there aren't any rules. It's not their fault, they didn't do it, it's ok, etc......
Well, we're sick of it. If they would pay for their mistakes, we could care less what they do, who they do it with, or how many illigitiment children they chose to make. Nobody cares about those girls, all we care about is OUR MONEY FUNDING THEM.
I was mad at Ross because he keeps saying that people should have to take a drug test to vote and he has made that comment on so many pages that it really upset me because he knows he is being hypocritical.
P.S. Ross, if that is not you that stays in a trailer park on yedda rd. then I apologize. But if that is you, and you are the only person that pops up on my search engine then I would have had more respect for you if you would have just admitted it.
P.S.S. just admit it.
Mr. Ross did not say so in the course of this discussion, and regardless it has no relevance to the topic of the article. If you wish to dispute that with him, then go ahead, but please do so in a more appropriate venue. Thanks.
We don’t think we’re “smarter” than them, at least in terms of natural intelligence. However, we are fortunate to have education and training regarding the issue, teen pregnancy, that we can share with those who don’t have the resources or information we do. They aren’t less than us, you are correct, but I find it quite ironic *you* say so when you’ve called them, “these, umm, people...” “these parasites” and that you “won't even hold the door open for [them].” I don’t exactly see how you have any right to tell me you “don't think they are less than us.”
I would ask how you expect them to make “informed decisions” when they don’t have or don’t know they have access to credible, actionable information on these issues. That is exactly what we are trying to do—empower THEM to take charge of THEIR health and wellness, and they can do what they want with our information, that’s up to them. Also, you keep ranting about “free money…going to these ‘kind’ of people” when we don’t give out any (nor free condoms, for that matter), just information so they can make their own decisions and learn to be better parents. We don’t have anything to do with their welfare checks, so don’t whine to me about it. And yes, I’m a (somewhat cynical and libertarian) Democrat, but the co-leader of the teen pregnancy group is a staunch Republican.
As for your assumptions regarding my high school? To put it bluntly, when compared with reality, I doubt that any school in the country would fit them less than the one I spoke of. The school in question is TC Williams, a PUBLIC high school, and the only one in the City of Alexandria where I reside. You slipped again in your reading of what I wrote--I said multi-religious, i.e. people of many varied religions attend the school. And “culture not color?” Umm, they made a blockbuster movie, Remember the Titans (starring Denzel Washington), about how the black-white divide at our newly integrated school was broken by our football team, ranked second best in the country. How can you call that “culture not color?”
Yes, some individuals included in that rate would likely be married. However, the trend still holds true when examining 15-17 year olds, an age at which it is was not legal to marry without parental and court consent: the rate decreased from 45/1000 in 1960 to 17/1000 in 2010. Again, that’s nearly a 3x decrease.
No, you didn’t say all. But neither did you say “a few” or even “some,” as would be implied by less than one tenth of all minority girls in Robeson becoming pregnant before the age of 20. Where did I give “incorrect numbers about[sic] the rates and the races?” I don’t believe I directly referred to them at all above. Below, I do state that between whites and minorities “the difference is a matter of 3-5 percentage points,” which, according to the article, is true. By simple subtraction: 7.6% (black rate) – 3.9% (white rate) = 3.7 percentage points, 9.8% (Latino rate) – 3.9% (white rate) = 5.9 percentage points. Also, a rate of 98/1000 or 0.098 for Latinos does indeed mean that “fewer than one in ten will become pregnant” in that age group, does it not?
Yes, the rates for minorities in Robeson County are around double that for whites. However, I assuming you have learned enough basic statistics to know that correlation does not imply causation. The color of one’s skin does not simply make someone more likely to become pregnant; there is a matter of historical intolerance, oppression, discrimination, and outright slavery that resulted in blacks (and Latinos) residing far lower on the social, economic, and educational latter than white, a legacy still haunting so many today. Fix those fundamental societal inequities, and you equalize the rates. But that’s not our job—we’re just here to educate, after all.
I’m not angry at anyone, and I don’t know why you keep saying so. After all, I’m not the one name-calling, stereotyping, making personal attacks, and frequently resorting to ALL CAPS shouting to try to make his point. And why focus my anger at anyone? It’s not a blame game here; after all, on this earth, who really is blameless? We should focus on efforts on fixing the root of the problem ourselves, not blaming other groups for it.
The basis of my poiny is ross keeps saying people need to pass a drug test to vote.
Not the wrong ross, nc DPS, pal. Criminal offenders.
I am a retired construction worker from fayetteville that moved to.sadletree about ten years ago. So yeah, I have the time!
My points of interest are housing for the lumbees, assistance with paying for their medical expenses and implement planned parenthood meetings throughout the county and surrounding counties affecting the lumbee community.
I don’t see where I ever disputed that unprotected sex can lead to teen pregnancy or STIs. That information is completely proven and unbiased, and is the central cornerstone of virtually every teen pregnancy education and prevention effort, including mine. We also rightly stress that abstinence is the best option, but we don't without information about contraception as an effective alternative, especially over the longer term.
True, many fathers do run as it is, but while I support accountability for teen fathers in theory, in practice I find it very difficult to establish and will likely lead to even more teen fathers abandoning their children. It is far better to focus our efforts on preventing conception, whether through abstinence (which again, I agree with in theory, but does not work in practice) or contraception. If we can all agree to focus on the root cause of the problem—young girls getting pregnant—rather than on a bandaid solution after the fact, we can truly accomplish something other scaring away young men and further impoverishing young families.
If I have to spend my taxpayer dollars, I’d rather spend them on permanently fixing the problem with pregnancy prevention rather than paying for the “baby daddy police,” DNA tests, manhunts, and litigation necessary for your suggested approach, especially when said methods are proven to work over the longer-term.
I am not proposing roadblocks for dna testing or databases but the young ladies know who theyve slept with so teaching them to step up and identify potential fathers for the purpose of creating a more responsible youth in our society is something i can live with...there has been sex ed for years, programs concerning teen preg, and various ideas throughout the years...this too will quiet back down until the next person notices and takes up the charge and wants to throw more money at the problem...it comes down to basic upbringing and personal responsibilty(in my opinion)
Sorry if I was unclear regarding DNA testing, et cetera. I just wanted to mention some of the potential costs associated with carrying through on Mr. Ross’ proposed approach. I 100% approve of increased accountability for fathers especially, since they so often “get away with it” without any financial accountability. And yes, young ladies do know themselves who they’ve slept with, although I could certainly imagine some not telling the truth/pointing to the wrong guy if they want to get after him for something, or blackmailing them for money etc. That’s why we’d need DNA testing etc. to identify the gentlemen and more police and judicial assets to track them down and hold/prosecute them if they run or else I see a high potential for abuse and corruption within the system (just as Mr. Ross sees within welfare etc.).
As for sex ed; yes, we’ve been going at it for many years now. However, only recently has it been getting more effective, practical, and evidence based, and our teen pregnancy rate has decreased threefold over the years. Still, at least how it was in my school not too long ago, it is nowhere near where it needs to be, and I’d agree that perhaps it never can really get there in the school environment. That’s why we try to target teens individually in a casual environment (peer to peer and in discussions) to empower them with a personal sense of responsibility, as you say, and the ability to make the right decisions. Further, we target the parents for awareness, education, and to open up conversations with them and their children, since as you say the most important part is upbringing and parent influence (and demonstrated by several studies). Finally, our program costs very little to run, since its mainly funded by the community services hours of interested youth and by grants etc, as our only costs are refreshments for our discussion groups and multimedia/educational materials that we distribute—certainly less than the annual welfare cost for even one person.
They will say I want something in life and sex, babies and the restraints will have to come latter.
Great job, when the day comes that a dollar wont matter our kids will.
TIRED OF IT
While sitting at home, while your wife has to work, make time to find out a little bit about me and my family. You'll be suprised. And you DO have the time........
C. A. M. Gerlach
"Homework and make-up work will be made available to pregnant and parenting students to ensure that they have the opportunity to keep current with assignments and avoid losing course credit because of their absence from school, and, to the extent necessary, a homebound teacher will be assigned. A pregnant student is encouraged to confer with the school guidance counselor who shall assist the student with developing a plan to stay current with all schoolwork during the pregnancy and after delivery of the child. The guidance counselor shall also work with the student to establish a plan for resolving any medical emergencies which could occur during the time the student is at school."
If these girls get one hour a week they are fortunate. It is not the fault of the teacher; there simply are not enough homebound instructors to go around for all the girls we have out of school sue to pregnancy, let alone other legitimate medical conditions that require a student to be out of school.
So, when it comes time for them to graduate and they don't have enough credits, what do we do? We send them through LAP, a dream world created by our very own superintendent. The only thing in our school system that is a bigger joke than Homebound is LAP. It's a sad situation. Our kids deserve better.
You said "after school activities", yeah, homework, taking out the trash, cleaning up, while waiting on a mom and a dad to come home from work. "Community events", yep, go outside and play with kids FROM YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD(only).
Family, community(real communities), morals, punishment, mom and dad(male,female), pride...
Ps. There are a lot of people in this county who don't want their kids to do better than they have. YOU know who YOU are, and will set back and allow their kid to become failures so they wont outdo them. The ones who just let their kids do whatever they want they know eventually they'll get pregnant and end up just like they have... Misery enjoys company....
pss. You know who you are, and so do we......
@Mr. Ross: Is your post intended to be serious, or is it satirical in nature? I find it difficult to tell over the vast chasm of the internet. What do you mean by "play with kids FROM YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD(only)" [sic]? If it is satire it would make sense, but if otherwise, I'm interested in know what you are trying to get at. Also, on your postscript, I would think it could be interpreted by some individuals as racist, and thus your "Postscriptscript" [sic] as almost threatening. While I don't believe this is what you intend, could you clarify who you mean by those "lots of people?" Thanks.
@Editor While I think Mr. Lewis' comments were rather inflammatory, I don't see how the article, containing only a single sentence of 19 words mentioning race out of an over 2,600 word article qualifies as significantly dealing with the issue of race. Also I would article that racist remarks are inappropriate in any public dialog, and an article simply mentioning race in one sentence would give someone carte blanche to make racist remarks. I personally find the first two sentences of his first comment to be highly offensive and stereotypical, although perhaps not hate speech as such, and thus whether it violates the site's TOS is not my decision. Such opinions, no matter how much I disagree with them, are covered under the First Amendment we all hold dear, and thus their removal is up to the site owner and its TOS.
@onetwenty "Idiot young people with idiot parents"? Undedicated on sex, pregnancy, and contraception perhaps, but how are they supposed to learn if they are not given unbiased, factual, relevant information in middle and high school? True, parents have a very big role in supporting their children in this area, and I'm sure those in the article could have done a better job as could any of us, but their situations (single-parent, deep poverty, long working hours, and little access to good information) would make it far more difficult than for most individuals.
@viewer: Not nearly all of them--around half do and half don't. Teaching abstinence is important, but there does need to be another option (and I don't necessarily mean abortion) for those who do choose to have sex despite the risks--and yes, it will happen in many cases unless we imprison our entire teen population.
@tempusfugit Agreed, although its a little skimpy on the details. This strategy has worked very well in our community and are among the primary tools in our arsenal.
@Mr. Ross: "make the mother admit who the father is, and hold the dad, the mom, AND their parents responsible and make all pay for the kid till 21." That sure sounds like a "nanny state" to me--a whole lot more government meddling than a welfare check. And is this really feasible in every case? What if the father has left town (or the state) or is incapacitated/deceased? I would think it would encourage more fathers to abandon their paternal responsibilities over fear the government will come calling.
Thanks and I look forward to your responces.
C. A. M. Gerlach
I think if we all started speaking our minds, we would see we out number them and by mouthing our concerns we can change the behavior of the un-washed among us. And if we can't change em, It sure makes one feel good after embarrassing these, umm, people........
1) "play with kids from your neighborhhod", YEP that's right, YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD. There's a reason people move to areas with like minded people. Hope that they raise their kids with the same morals as you do. Kids don't need to be wondering off to other neighborhoods playing kids THEIR PARENTS don't know. It's called safety. How do you know what your kid is doing if you don't know where they're at.. Rules and responsibility, that's being a parent.
2) "lots of people who don't want their kids to do better than them", Yep, that's right little fella. Believe it or not, around here poor "moms" are embarrassed that they're poor. Ashamed, they don't have any friends since they've failed at life and are jelous of the friends they had. Therefore they don't want to be embarrassed by their children out doing them, so they allow the kids to do whatever they want coming up, knowing they'll soon be trapped in a life of poverty like they are. Misery love company. Fact.And it wasn't treatening, to say "we know who you are". That was to inform these "moms" that we are on to their game. We know the ones who've prayed their kids end up like them, it's obvious, and everybody knows who those mothers are.
3) You mentioned the race aspect of the story, well, it's part of Robeson county. Why are you so enraged when something is mentioned in a negative light about minorities? The only time you want to hear about minorities is when they are being denied jobs, or police brutality, or that someone didn't get a loan with bad credit. But when it's concerning life, crime, poverty, ect ohh nooo, we musn't mention the "M" word.(minority)
4) You said it's harder for the "poor" to have access to to needed information, you said they work long hours, and that makes it difficult. I'm calling "bullbutter" on that one, you whiney excuse maker. They don't work, and the ones that do, don't work no more that most successful people who work sometimes 60-70 hour per week. Cry me a river. They have more time than most, they just choose to not be decent parents. There were more poor people 50 years ago than now and we didn't have this kind of epidemic.
5)Then you say "there gonna do it anyway", that's a stupid government funded excuse. Heck JUST GIVE EM DRUGS TOO,THEY'RE GONNA DO THEM TOO, right?(the poor ones that is)
6) And then you say "listing the father is nanny state"? What? Hey pal, we're sick of being the "DAD" to these.... You make that girl reveal who the "baby daddy" is or the kid goes to an orphanage, or put up for adoption,period. No daddy, no welfare money.
Boy, you are one big excuse maker, why don't YOU pay for all poor to have kids and I wont open my mouth. Tax payers are fed up with having to pay for the poor people's stupid choices. If we didn't have to pay for them from cradel to grave, WE WOULDN'T CARE HOW MANY KIDS THEY HAVE OR HOW MUCH DOPE THEY SMOKE WHILE PREGNANT. Get out of our pockets and we'll get out of their business. Fair? Ross OBGYN.
Do you have another excuse?
It is the parents fault. They are resonsible for the actions of their kids at ALL TIMES. Don't have a kid if you can't take the responsibility.
You said "after school activities", yeah, homework, taking out the trash, cleaning up, while waiting on a mom and a dad to come home from work. "Community events", yep, go outside and play with kids FROM YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD(only).
Family, community(real communities), morals, punishment, mom and dad(male,female), pride...
Ps. There are a lot of people in this county who don't want their kids to do better than they have. YOU know who YOU are, and will set back and allow their kid to become failures so they wont outdo them. The ones who just let their kids do whatever they want they know eventually they'll get pregnant and end up just like they have... Misery enjoys company....
pss. You know who you are, and so do we......
Now if he doesn't remove this RossisRight fella then that was just a bold-face lie and he is supporting him!
Judge for yourselves if his comments are not full of racism. He needs to go. NOW!
We said we would not allow racial comments on stories w/o a racial element. Race is part of this story.
Donnie Douglas
Editor
The Robesonian.
Look at the numbers between the races.... Why?
All the EXTRA GOVERNMENT money that goes to minorities to prevent such things and still.
I guess once they see government money during these prevention measures they just get addicted to it.......
This is what welfare will do to a community. Look at the stats from 50 years ago before welfare and you'll see there wasn't this kind of epidemic.
You mothers should be ashamed of the kids you've raised that become pregant in school. You should be made to pay for your kids baby.. Moms? yeah right.
Ps. The government programs to prevent teenage pregnancy are not working... Stop the money to these programs now.
pss. Here's a program from me: Cut out welfare, make the mother admit who the father is, and hold the dad, the mom, AND their parents responsible and make all pay for the kid till 21. There, that'll end teenage pregnancy. Ross. MD