Jimmy Mancusi Dot Com

In Gloucester, perched on scenic Cape Ann, the economy has always depended on a strong fishing industry. But in recent years, such jobs have all but disappeared overseas, and with them much of the community's wherewithal. "Families are broken," says school superintendent Christopher Farmer. "Many of our young people are growing up directionless."

I have to highlight this, because at least someone is pointing to the probable root of this problem. If the majority of these children are coming from homes that have issues and their parent(s) aren't there for them bad things, like pregnancy pacts, happen.

Ireland, 18, gave birth her freshman year and says some of her now pregnant schoolmates regularly approached her in the hall, remarking how lucky she was to have a baby. "They're so excited to finally have someone to love them unconditionally," Ireland says. "I try to explain it's hard to feel loved when an infant is screaming to be fed at 3 a.m."

I wish this girl could have sat down and talked with everyone of these teens before they got pregnant. Maybe thats a way that schools can try to get through to kids more, bring in actual teenage girls that are either still in school, or just graduated that had babies in high school. The idea that these girls had babies so that someone that would love them unconditionally is extremely sad and extremely misguided all at the same time. Having recently had my first child (pictured in one of her first crying moments) they have that thought completely backwards. Children aren't the ones who are suppose to dish out an unlimited supply of unconditional love, thats the parents job. There are a lot of times, especially early on, that anyone, even prepared parents, will be ready to pull out their hair because their child is crying or sick or 1,000 other moments that you have no control over, which is when the responsible parent needs to show the unconditional love to the child, not the other way around. The fact that these teens may have that idea in their mind and be rationalizing getting pregnant for this reason is just scary. I really feel sorry for these girls, their parents have failed them and so has the education system to some extent. I place way more blame on the parents, but the school system needs to do a better job of teaching these children. I am not one to say how they should do it, but I think something needs to be done to help curb teenage pregnancy across the board.

Gloucester's elected school committee plans to vote later this summer on whether to provide contraceptives. But that won't do much to solve the issue of teens wanting to get pregnant.

Contraceptives being handed out in schools is a reality this day and age, and will only continue to be more common I imagine, but as this states it would only hope those not looking to get pregnant. There is no way you can stop a girl from getting pregnant if she wants to, case in point:

"We found out one of the fathers is a 24-year-old homeless guy,"

Really a sad story. Children should not have children, adults should. Actually make that responsible adults should. There are plenty of adults that shouldn't be having babies having them everyday, we don't need 15 year olds having them. These girls need to experience life a bit before they bring a child into it. How are they going to be able to provide for their children? How can they teach their children when they haven't learned anything themselves. High school diploma or not, teenagers don't have the slightest idea about life and really shouldn't create one. Or maybe I am wrong, maybe when teenagers know everything they should have children so they can pass all that information along to the next generation.