Teen Pregnancy: It's all about the Green

I rememeber when I was growing up and teen pregnancy started to rise. It was looked at the most shameful thing to happen in a young girl's life. It was so much of a problem that people and agencies everywhere were trying to see how to stop it, abstinence and safe sex were being promoted. But what I noticed was that the media was emphasizing how bad teen pregnancy was in the minority community mostly in the black community. There were all kinds of statistics showing how fast black teen mothers were having babies and so on. Teen pregnancy is still a problem. But my problem is how it seems to be glamorized now since people can make money from it. The media only wants to show the majority or white people dealing with teen pregnancy. There are reality shows on TV dedicated to it. MTV has teen mom and now TLC has a show called High School Mom. I admit I did watch a few episodes of teen mom, but I stop watching when there were not any blacks or minorities on the show, especially when I found out each girl made around $50,000 to be on the show. I thought to myself if majority of the teen mothers are minorities why aren't they being represented on any of these shows. Why can't a black/minority teen mom who is trying to get back on track benefit from the money and fame that may come with doing the show? It appears that its okay to show the majority dealing with teen pregnancy when they can get paid from it. How can they deter teen pregnancy if these reality teen moms are becoming celebrities overnight sending the wrong message: become a mom and get a show.

I hate to make it about race , but when they want to show the negative aspects of teen pregnancy the focus is on the minority races. Giving the impression that only minorities have this problem but how can that be so when on these shows the majority is being represented as teen moms. It makes me question all the previous information I heard and the statistics about teen pregnancy in the U.S. It would reason based on what is represented on TV that more teen moms are white than any other race.

In my opinion these shows should be cancelled because they are not socialably responsible, they may show some of the consequences of being a teen mom but they are not effective in detering teen pregnancy, and it's obvious because these shows are still on. But I guess when it comes to teen pregnancy being shown on TV the only color that matters is green.