Children having children
The article ‘Children having children’ by Claudia Wallis aims at drawing society’s attention to the problem of teen pregnancy. Throughout the twentieth and twenty- first centuries, raising of this issue may seem corny. However, people have realized the negative effects of being an under-age parent and started reacting to the problem not a long time ago. Surely enough all the consequences are caused by certain reasons. Accordingly, the author is aimed to find out and investigate both – the reasons and the consequences of teenage pregnancy. One can find a lot of causes mentioned in the article, though a low self-esteem is defined as the main subconscious motive for becoming pregnant in early or mid-teens. The writer manages to successfully combine contrasting points of view, which are given to embrace the problem as the whole.
One of the most striking things about this article is that it intimidates with all those results of different researches and statistics. Now, in the early years of millennium, we can cope with the things that used to be uncontrolled and, on the contrary, we cannot control the things that could mostly be controlled by ourselves only. At the same time, I fully agree with the idea, that teenage pregnancy is the result of ill-breeding as well as the lack of sex-education. It appears to me that sexual revolution has come much more earlier that we could accept it. Consequently, nowadays it is possible to observe situation when parents do not want to realize their children’s sexual activity. Thus, such a skittishness gives a rise to the number of newborns by not-that-old-borns.
I am entirely in favour of all those experiments, which are supposed to prevent teen pregnancy. Firstly, it doesn’t matter whether those experiments are helpful or not - at least we keep trying and we will find one way out of ten how to reduce the number of high-school-mums. Secondly, all the programs for teenagers do not cause any harm. In fact, they are very helpful in socializing and getting more knowledge about sexual life.
In the same way I would like to dwell on the issue of abortion. Chiefly, there are only two points of view on this problem: those who are for, and those who are against it, in other words, liberal and conservative perspectives. I strongly believe (although it may sound very cruel) that our society is already full of indifferent mothers with their lives broken and unbred children, who were given birth just accidentally. Doubtless, if the teen girl became pregnant, humiliating her for having sex would be inappropriate – it is too late for sexual education already. In that case, if she does not want her child to be born, there will be no sense in it at all. Just try to imagine how this child will live (after all the examples I have read in the article, I got sick of the ‘mothers’ who were punching themselves because of the hatred to the unborn child!)
All in all, I believe that we should concentrate on upbringing (which MUST develop a sufficient level of self-estimation of a child) and do not hesitate to give our children the most exhausted sex-education in order to prevent teenage pregnancy.
Dropout nation
Unlike more highbrow article writers, Nathan Thornburgh deals almost exclusively in the language of the everyday, to the point where you often feel that you are present in the conversation. If I were to have one complaint about the article, it would be that it is a little bit out-of-date.
To start with, I would like to remind everybody that we are living in the twenty-first century at the moment. The problem of dropping out of school does not seem a problem to me at all. In the era of hi-tech it is possible to be self-educated much more faster than you could do this attending high school on daily basis. Hence, you can be stuck behind the desk and bear with the rules, or you can choose things you are really interested in and proceed with self-education, studying whenever you want to.
However, to be self-educated one needs to have a good model beside him/her. I strongly believe that one’s education mostly depends on the family he/she comes from. Although it was mentioned in article, that the rich kids are treated better simply because they are rich, I must admit that it is not always because of money. Mainly, this happens, as far as I am concerned, because rich children very often (but not always) are cleverer than children from the lowest income quarter. Anyway, none of this reasons is acceptable – teachers should treat all pupils equally.
Furthermore, I fully support the intentions to quit school if you have a dream – the one for which you can sacrifice your diploma, probably, even your future…or change your future for better, much better, and make your dream come true at all cost!
Besides, I do not see any use in making teens study. If they do not want, nobody will make them. They can be present at the classes, but that does not mean they are studying.
Additionally, coming back to school to get education does not make sense to me at all. Person should be responsible for his/her actions. If you quit school, you must have serious reasons. Coming back means you have not accomplished what you were planning to.
To conclude, only one person should be mentioned who had sacrificed higher education (and I am sure he would do that with secondary education as well) and never regretted – Bill Gates (or Steve Jobs, whoever you like more). Are there any more questions? :)
