Scrapping the Bottom of the TV Barrel

I am one of the 12 people who still subscribes to TV Guide. Call it bathroom reading, but I admit it, I still like it.

This week’s cover makes me sick, as do all the advertising for the hideous new “FAMILY” show, The Secret Life of the American Teenager, brought to us by the makers of 7th Heaven.

My question is: Whose family is ABC attempting to attract with this show? What does ABC expect us to do? Gather ‘round the TV during the “family hour” from 8:00 – 9:00 pm and explain to our pre-teens all about sex and teenage pregnancy?? I predict those watching the show will be the girls from dysfunctional families looking to identify with a family that is definitely not their own. Pregnant teens wishing their moms were more like Molly Ringwald than Lynne Spears.

My favorite aspect of the show is that the pregnant girl is not the “stereotypical” knocked-up teen that we usually see in the real world: a poor girl raised in the hood by her single mother on welfare with no dad in the picture; a broken family where dad has moved on to his new family, and mom is more concerned about finding the next “him” than raising her kids; a dysfunctional “intact” family where there is sexual abuse or drug addiction/alcoholism that no one really talks about; or a family where the parents are so self-absorbed that no one is raising the kids.

In ABC’s fictional family, the daughter is the “good girl,” and while the family is not perfect, these parents are definitely not members of the Spears or Lohan clans either.

ABC wants to indoctrinate America that those of us who are the “nice” families are susceptible to teen pregnancies. Of course we are, but it is far from likely or typical. ABC wants us to accept that families like mine, where the mom and dad love each other, are affectionate and spend lots of times with the kids will end up with knocked-up teens. Really? Then what’s the use of parents who will actually raise their own kids rather than letting someone else raise them? Parents who provide the necessities, and more, but also instill core values that will aid their children in making their own good decisions in life? How about this is what we do to inoculate our kids against the garbage of ABC.

Come on, now. Is this what we need on TV today? With 17 girls pregnant at a Gloucester high school, whether they had a pact or not; with ex-USC student Holly Ashcraft, who keeps tossing her babies in the trash, getting off with only a slap on the wrist; with 70% of black children born out of wedlock. This is the best that ABC has to offer America?

According to the CDC:

In 2005, Washington, D.C., had the highest teen birth rate in the country (63.4 per 1,000), and states Texas and New Mexico with the highest rates (61.6 each); New Hampshire had the lowest teen birth rate (17.9).4 In 2006, the overall birth rate for 15– to 19– year-old females was 41.9, but— the rate was

• 83 among Hispanics (twice the overall rate),
• 63.7 among non-Hispanic blacks (however, blacks have a slightly higher
  teen pregnancy rate than Hispanics),
• 54.7 among American Indian or Alaska Natives, and
• 26.6 among non-Hispanic whites.

But back to ABC and their “family” television circa 2008. I just don’t know whose family they’re talking about.

I thank God that growing up I was exposed to the idealized families, whether it was Ozzie & Harriet, Leave it to Beaver, Little House on the Prairie or even the The Addams Family. They gave me hope that there was a different family structure than mine.

Oh, and don’t get me going on Swingers. As a child growing up in that part of the 70s, I can assure you that self-absorbed parents more concerned about “finding” themselves and doing whatever “felt” good at the moment, well, those are the families that end up with teenaged-pregnant daughters, drug addicted sons, and alcoholic pre-teens who are lost in the midst of it all.

I really challenge ABC to tell the true story of what teen pregnancy in America really means:

When teens give birth, their future prospects and those of their children decline. Teen mothers are less likely to complete high school and more likely to live in poverty than other teens. Pregnant teens aged 15–19 years are less likely to receive prenatal care and gain appropriate weight and more likely to smoke than pregnant women aged 20 years or older. These factors are also associated with poor birth outcomes.