Michael and Brandon Keilen

[justodd]

I went to a private, Catholic school with a student body of ~800 students in the early/mid-nineties, and though we didn't have a *ton* of teenage pregnancy, there was a more or less steady stream of someone being pregnant at some point or another. A junior friend of mine got pregnant when I was a freshman, a senior I didn't know very well got pregnant when I was a sophomore, another senior and one of my junior classmates the next year, and I think we had three pregnant students (sophomore, junior, junior) when I was a senior. There was also at least one instance of a guy at our school finding out he'd gotten a girlfriend at another school pregnant, but those were obviously a lot easier to hide. That doesn't cover any of the girls who suddenly left school or may have miscarried/aborted, so I wouldn't be surprised if the real number of teen pregnancies was actually higher. 

[PianoPounder]

18 hours ago, nastyhobbitses said:

Suburban/posh CT here. No pregnancies as far as I know when I graduated. There were rumors that a girl two years behind me had an abortion, but no one had kids. Even now 7 years later, I only know of one person who graduated with me who is confirmed to have a  child.

My previously mentioned cousin was rumored to have had three abortions by the time we graduated. I never had the balls to actually ask her. It's a small town, and everybody talks. Her sister had given me a rundown on the number of sexual partners she had when we started our senior year (my mind was blown), but that's all I ever knew about her sexual exploits other than when and with whom she first did the deed (and the blanket it happened on, which skeeved me out because I had a matching one).

I'm sure there were other girls in my class who had abortions. It's not terribly uncommon around those parts.

9 hours ago, backyard sylph said:

We had very few in my high school, that is, that anyone knew about. I graduated in 1983. I remember a girl who was quite pregnant at the graduation ceremony, which was held in the football stadium. She burst out laughing at some point, so loud and hard, other people started laughing, too, and they had to pause the ceremony. Someone yelled, "the baby's tickling her in her arm pits!" and laughter erupted again...

Good times.

My mom graduated in 1986, and I think one of her classmates had a baby by graduation (she was breastfeeding during the ceremony), and one or two were pregnant. 

[kjmackin]

I graduated High School in 2008. In my grade there was one for sure knocked up  in 8th grade. By graduation I would say probably 5-10 been knocked up rather they kept the baby I don't know or care. Also one confirmed case of knocked up on Prom night.

Since high school one some what good friend in high school has had 3 kids between ages 6-2. That friend purposely got pregnant so that the guy would marry her and known as a dependent due to hubby being in the army. Outside of that there probably around 5% of my Facebook feed that have kids but after age 21 and 2% from after being married for awhile. There is probably more of who I would have placed bets on having a spawned a kid by this point but haven't yet classmates.

 

With friends from college only 4 have gone on to have kids.  

 

Since I relocated to Oklahoma it's miracle if me and my husband meets a person that spent their whole life here that haven't had a kid or five by the time they reached 20. So far in the 3 years the total is at 3 that haven't reproduced. Also yesterday I meet a kid ( between ages 10-12) that was amazed that at 26 I didn't have kids of my own.

[Exjw2015deed]

Damn. I live in south western Connecticut where it is pretty socially liberal. I graduated in 2008. There was only one girl who had a baby. She was really religious and got married to the boy before the baby came.

I do know for a fact a lot of the girls my age group did get abortions though, and were heavy on birth control. Planned parenthood came to our class in the 10th grade with a vagina model in tow and showed us all the forms of birth control. We were then tested on it and given out information. I had a cousin who lived in rural Virginia, same graduating class as me, and was shocked that planned parenthood were allowed in a public classroom. Not saying that other conservative states are uneducated or ill-informed, but girls popped birth control and the morning after pill like they were skittles.

however, my brother graduated from the same high school in 2001, and there were literally like 15 girls who got pregnant and had babies. My cousin graduated this year and 2 of her friends had babies. (I call them Instagram babies, they take photos post about the kid and tossed them to mom and dad).

I think it's all about trends and timing. lol, it could be like that pregnancy pact in Massachusetts . 

[47of74]

The high school where I went once held the record for the most girls getting pregnant. That was back in the 70s. I think there was about 1/2 dozen girls who got preggers in high school up here. Some of my classmates are becoming grandparents now.

[Fundie Bunny]

I'm two years out of high school. As far as i know, a girl who got pregnant at 14 or 13 (I think she's in her second now), a girl of my class that had a confirmed abortion at 16 and a rumored one two years before, and a girl that moved out of the country when we were 13 and by the time she came back at 18 she had just had a baby. And a couple of gipsy girls that left school in order to get married because god forbid a woman finishes at least obligatory school. And on my best friend's high school, a girl that got pregnant at the start of her last year and had the baby right after graduation. She didn't even admit the baby had been an accident until the child was like a year old.

[nausicaa]

18 hours ago, nastyhobbitses said:

Yeah, I'm three years behind you; according to my co-workers at my last job, I haven't hit Wedding/Baby Shower Circuit age just yet. I still have a couple years until then (according to her it's around 27-28).

Wedding circuit started at 26 for me and hit full blast at 27 to 28, tapering off around 30. Baby shower circuit starts a couple years after. I'm 32 and still in it right now, but it's not as bad. My friends aren't all having kids at once the way everyone seemed to decide to get married the same damn year. 

As for pregnancies in high school, I went to a public school in Virginia. We had three pregnancies I can remember, and only one from my grade. A fourth girl I now realize must have been pregnant at the end of our senior year. It was definitely considered a big deal. 

And a weird, sort of funny anecdote: We had this super conservative home schooled girl join our high school junior year. She and one of the pregnant girls were in my Journalism class. The day pregnant girl could no longer hide her belly she just started talking about it, the father, their plans. Home schooled girl purses her lips and then pulls out her journal and starts furiously writing about the girl right there, five feet from her, while we all look on and know exactly what she's writing about. Awkward.

Also, homeschooled girl is now an atheist LGBTQ advocate who lives in London.

[princessmahina]

I graduated in 2010. My freshman year we had a senior who had multiple abortions every year (she ended up having to repeat her senior year because of a lung infection). It was her only form of contraception (which seemed really odd then, and even odder now). She joked about it a lot. Otherwise I don't think I would have known.

My sophomore year, one girl said she was pregnant, but no baby ever materialized. She moved to California and later said her parents made her have an abortion. 

I went to a pretty small school, but we didn't seem to have a lot of issues with sex and pregnancy, other than those two girls. I always got the feeling we were more awkward than people at other schools and that kept us virgins.

[GreyhoundFan]

8 hours ago, 47of74 said:

The high school where I went once held the record for the most girls getting pregnant. That was back in the 70s. I think there was about 1/2 dozen girls who got preggers in high school up here. Some of my classmates are becoming grandparents now.

I graduated from HS in 1983. My HS had the distinction of having the highest pregnancy rate of the four public high schools in our city. We were known as "The Love School".  There were usually at least 10 girls walking around in maternity wear and lots of rumors of others who aborted. I've lost touch with most of my classmates, but caught  up with one not too long ago and found out that one of our classmates is now a GREAT-grandmother...at 51.  That freaked me out.

[47of74]

3 hours ago, nausicaa said:

Wedding circuit started at 26 for me and hit full blast at 27 to 28, tapering off around 30. Baby shower circuit starts a couple years after. I'm 32 and still in it right now, but it's not as bad. My friends aren't all having kids at once the way everyone seemed to decide to get married the same damn year. 

As for pregnancies in high school, I went to a public school in Virginia. We had three pregnancies I can remember, and only one from my grade. A fourth girl I now realize must have been pregnant at the end of our senior year. It was definitely considered a big deal. 

And a weird, sort of funny anecdote: We had this super conservative home schooled girl join our high school junior year. She and one of the pregnant girls were in my Journalism class. The day pregnant girl could no longer hide her belly she just started talking about it, the father, their plans. Home schooled girl purses her lips and then pulls out her journal and starts furiously writing about the girl right there, five feet from her, while we all look on and know exactly what she's writing about. Awkward.

Also, homeschooled girl is now an atheist LGBTQ advocate who lives in London.

Reminds me of the one girl who featured in a photo shoot of girls who took part in purity balls with their fathers.  She went from purity pledger to openly gay feminist.

virginitymovie.com/blog/2014/05/how-i-went-from-purity-pledger-to-queer-radical-feminist-courtesy-of-my-cotillion-class

[elliha]

As a non-American I find it puzzling to hear about such high number of pregnancies. I am sure girls got pregnant while I was in our equivalent of high school but I assume the vast majority of them had abortions and no one ever knew about it. I know one girl a year older than me who had a baby at 15, it was beyond shocking in my little town and most people thought she was stupid for keeping the baby. My second cousin got pregnant her last year of high school and gave birth soon after graduating (we graduate the year we turn 19). I also know a girl who had babies at 17 and 18. She has a condition that can put her into menopause after a pregnancy and her grand-mom and mom only had one baby each because of the same condition. At that time egg donation was not legal in Sweden and the doctors told her that the only way she could improve her odds of having more than one child was to have them very early. Her mother always grieved only having one child so she supported her having a babies young if that was her choice. It felt very weird to meet the father of these children at the beach when I was 24 and he 25 and he had kids old enough to be in school and I was still more or less a teenager as I was still going to school (university). It felt like we were 10 years apart rather than one. (Their relationship only lasted until they were 19-20 but they have joint custody) Other than these people I know no one else who had a baby that young. Some girls had babies 1-2 years after they finished high school though which still felt extremely early to me. 

I am in a group where most people had their first children in their late twenties to early thirties so this is about the age I expect people to have kids in, at least not before 25. I was 29 years and 365 (leap year) days myself when I had my baby... She was born just hours before my 30th birthday. Baby number 2 was born a couple weeks after my 34th birthday. I feel like a relatively young mother but I realize my mom and sister had baby 5 and 4 at 37 and 38.

[47of74]

4 hours ago, elliha said:

As a non-American I find it puzzling to hear about such high number of pregnancies. I am sure girls got pregnant while I was in our equivalent of high school but I assume the vast majority of them had abortions and no one ever knew about it. I know one girl a year older than me who had a baby at 15, it was beyond shocking in my little town and most people thought she was stupid for keeping the baby. My second cousin got pregnant her last year of high school and gave birth soon after graduating (we graduate the year we turn 19). I also know a girl who had babies at 17 and 18. She has a condition that can put her into menopause after a pregnancy and her grand-mom and mom only had one baby each because of the same condition. At that time egg donation was not legal in Sweden and the doctors told her that the only way she could improve her odds of having more than one child was to have them very early. Her mother always grieved only having one child so she supported her having a babies young if that was her choice. It felt very weird to meet the father of these children at the beach when I was 24 and he 25 and he had kids old enough to be in school and I was still more or less a teenager as I was still going to school (university). It felt like we were 10 years apart rather than one. (Their relationship only lasted until they were 19-20 but they have joint custody) Other than these people I know no one else who had a baby that young. Some girls had babies 1-2 years after they finished high school though which still felt extremely early to me. 

I am in a group where most people had their first children in their late twenties to early thirties so this is about the age I expect people to have kids in, at least not before 25. I was 29 years and 365 (leap year) days myself when I had my baby... She was born just hours before my 30th birthday. Baby number 2 was born a couple weeks after my 34th birthday. I feel like a relatively young mother but I realize my mom and sister had baby 5 and 4 at 37 and 38.

With my maternal Grandparents Grandpa was 40 before the first child he had with Grandma was born and was 52 when their youngest was born.  Grandma had been married before and there was one older child from that marriage.  Grandma was 28 when she had that first child with her first husband.  She was 33 when she had her first child with Grandpa, 35 when my Mom was born, and 45 when her youngest was born.  He was 63 and she was 56 when their first grandchild was born.  Grandpa died in 1980 at the age of 76, Grandma in 2003 at 91.

My paternal Grandpa was 24 years old and Grandma was 23 when they got married.  Dad came along a year later.  They were 42 and 41 when their youngest daughter was born.  I was their first grandchild - Grandpa was 52 and Grandma was 51.  Grandpa died three years ago just a couple weeks from his 90th birthday, and Grandma followed in early 2015 at the age of 90. 

[backyard sylph]

6 hours ago, elliha said:

As a non-American I find it puzzling to hear about such high number of pregnancies. I am sure girls got pregnant while I was in our equivalent of high school but I assume the vast majority of them had abortions and no one ever knew about it. ...

It's somewhat regional, this being an enormous country, and is also not a common experience for all of us or for our offspring. Depends on when and where we grew up. Too, in some areas, abortions are barely accessible, whereas in others, there are choices. And economics is a factor there. Sex education varies somewhat, as well, and all of this is because the individual states set the rules for many of these things, rather than the federal government. It seems a little crazy from the outside, but theoretically, it makes sense because each state is dealing with a different geography, industries, economy, populace, etc.

[sophie10130]

If anyone is confused about the state of sex ed in the US, I would like you to take a look at the maps at the following link.

In Tennessee you only have to teach sex ed if there are more than 19.5 pregnant teens per 1000  between the ages of 15 and 17. That's a high school of about 2000 students with 20 pregnant girls. And if they teach sex ed in Tennessee it doesn't have to be medically accurate and they must teach about abstinence only and not necessarily on contraception. 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/08/sex-education-requirement-maps_n_5111835.html

[Melissa1977]

In Spain most pregnant teens abort. Abortion is legal and even free for teens (at least, it is for poor ones). A teen actually having birth is related to very poor families or families with problems, but there are exceptions of course. Most families, even catholic ones, think that having a baby destroys the teen's future, so abortion is often involved .

Here it's very rare giving kids to adoption. If a teen has a baby, she will keep the baby and probably the grandparents will rise it. 

 

[InThePrayerCloset]

5 hours ago, sophie10130 said:

If anyone is confused about the state of sex ed in the US, I would like you to take a look at the maps at the following link.

In Tennessee you only have to teach sex ed if there are more than 19.5 pregnant teens per 1000  between the ages of 15 and 17. That's a high school of about 2000 students with 20 pregnant girls. And if they teach sex ed in Tennessee it doesn't have to be medically accurate and they must teach about abstinence only and not necessarily on contraception. 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/08/sex-education-requirement-maps_n_5111835.html

I knew abstinence only was huge in the USA (its laughable where i live... not even the Catholic schools here teach it), but i never realised it could be deliberately medically inaccurate when they did discuss STDs etc. Wow. 

[elliha]

8 hours ago, backyard sylph said:

It's somewhat regional, this being an enormous country, and is also not a common experience for all of us or for our offspring. Depends on when and where we grew up. Too, in some areas, abortions are barely accessible, whereas in others, there are choices. And economics is a factor there. Sex education varies somewhat, as well, and all of this is because the individual states set the rules for many of these things, rather than the federal government. It seems a little crazy from the outside, but theoretically, it makes sense because each state is dealing with a different geography, industries, economy, populace, etc.

Yes, of course, and that is also clear from some of your answers, that it varies a lot. At one point I discussed this with an American guy who had lived in two different places (don't remember where, it was about 15 years ago) and he said he saw this variation too and linked to sex education. In the first place he lived they had sex education in school but in the other place they didn't and he said his classmates seriously did not really understand what could make them pregnant or catch STD:s which he said was a non-existant problem in the first town he lived in. Here sex education is obligatory and cannot exclude things like learning about birth control and such so I assume that helps too (Sweden was the first country in the world to have obligatory sex education in schools by the way).

[formergothardite]

Luckily the teen pregnancy rates are dropping. 

http://www.cdc.gov/teenpregnancy/about/

Sex education in huge parts of America is a joke. 

[RosyDaisy]

his classmates seriously did not really understand what could make them pregnant or catch STD:s

It's the same at my niece's school here in Alabama. My sister had a lengthy discussion about sex and STDs with her kids, just like our mother did with us.

[tumblr]

Even for the states that require it to be medically accurate, that's only for the textbooks. I went through sex ed in NC and the teacher just openly lied to us and the school didn't provide any textbooks for the class. Looking back I really wish I had had the confidence to challenge him a bit when I knew the information was false. 

[sophie10130]

It's pretty sick to me that even in the wake of the fear-mongering and terror of the AIDS epidemic that they don't even have to teach about it. Or their teachings can be completely false. I wish just once America would learn from their mistakes.

I went to school in Illinois, and I remember that we had to get our Sex Ed forms signed and our parents could opt out of us going to class when they taught us sex ed. That was true in the 4th and 5th grade when they taught us about periods and stuff and that was true in 6th grade when we got real live sex ed that included the teacher stomping into class the first day and writing on the board super loudly ABSTINENCE ONLY, then rapping on the board with her knuckles and saying "It means not having sex. This is the only way to keep yourself safe." Meanwhile in that class, although we got taught about abstinence only, the teacher DID tell us about how they do breast enhancements complete with diagrams. You know, because that's the important stuff.

Looking back on it, maybe I would opt my kid out and give them something, I dunno, relevant and comprehensive. 

[eandre31]

I was one of the girls who got pregnant in high school... I am 25 now and have a 9 year old. 

There were quite a few other girls who also became pregnant in my HS at that time, with many choosing to parent and some choosing abortion. I don't know anyone who chose adoption. I lived in a fairly small suburb of Chicago and I knew at least 15 girls who became pregnant around the same time I did. This was 2007. Our HS practiced "abstinence only education" and we were not given any information on birth control or teenage pregnancy. I honestly don't know if it would have made a difference with me if we were educated on BC though. I knew about it..just couldn't get it. I am 100% against abstinence-only education though, although I don't blame it for my unintended pregnancy.

 

Edited to add that my school also passed out "abstinence cards" or "purity cards". They were this credit card looking thing that stated the holder would be waiting for marriage. It was mostly seen as a joke by the students.

[nausicaa]

I'm not sure if my high school sex ed counted as abstinence only. We got a list of birth control methods with their prevention rates for pregnancy and STDs, and abstinence of course was at the top with 100%. But they mentioned condoms being 98.9% accurate. We went over STDs A LOT. I believe all of it was medically accurate but it was definitely emphasized to scare us.  We also went over healthy and unhealthy relationships and watched a video about a girl in a verbally and mentally abusive relationship. 

We didn't go over how to use birth control though, no look at birth control pills or putting condoms on bananas. Definitely no mention of being gay. 

As for opting out, in Virginia at least you can opt your children out of any class that conflicts with your religious beliefs. I know a girl whose mother was a Christian Scientist and opted her out of Sex Ed, Biology, Health, Life Science, D.A.R.E presentations (because of mentions of toxicology) and I believe even Chemistry. She just took Physics and had an Astronomy class tailored to her for senior year.

[princessmahina]

6 minutes ago, nausicaa said:

I'm not sure if my high school sex ed counted as abstinence only. We got a list of birth control methods with their prevention rates for pregnancy and STDs, and abstinence of course was at the top with 100%. But they mentioned condoms being 98.9% accurate. We went over STDs A LOT. I believe all of it was medically accurate but it was definitely emphasized to scare us.  We also went over healthy and unhealthy relationships and watched a video about a girl in a verbally and mentally abusive relationship. 

We didn't go over how to use birth control though, no look at birth control pills or putting condoms on bananas. Definitely no mention of being gay. 

As for opting out, in Virginia at least you can opt your children out of any class that conflicts with your religious beliefs. I know a girl whose mother was a Christian Scientist and opted her out of Sex Ed, Biology, Health, Life Science, D.A.R.E presentations (because of mentions of toxicology) and I believe even Chemistry. She just took Physics and had an Astronomy class tailored to her for senior year.

It baffles me so much that they can have the title "science" in their religion while simultaneously rejecting SO MUCH of scientific knowledge. It would be a laugh if it weren't so depressing. 

[backyard sylph]

In my high school, there was a class, I forget what it was called, about being an adult, basically. It had a family planning component, as well as budgeting and so forth. We had egg babies we had to carry around, and we had a several weeks' long semi-weekly day care, with preschoolers to watch, and the teacher showed us how to use all the barrier methods, and talked about pills, we saw what babies look like as they're forming in the wombs, and we watched films about STDs. I don't remember if abortion was discussed, but it was at least "brought up" as a thing. That was in the early 80s, in Kansas City, Missouri.

And as I've gotten older, it has astonished me how some of the regions have gone backwards in time instead of forward. My peers and I watched young men around us wither away from AIDs throughout the rest of that decade and into the 90s. It's unforgettable. That's only one of several risks which can now be stopped in its tracks, and the information is just not nearly as costly as living without it.