As I look around my classroom, ignoring the teacher babbling on about a mathematical process I learned years ago, my eyes do not know on whom to focus. At the desk directly to my right, three seats over to my left, the seat two seats behind me, diagonally in front of my, and in the corner seat in the back row. No, these are not the seats where the most attractive boys sit, but instead the seats of all the pregnant girls in my class.
So let me see, it’s a class of 15, 9 girls and 6 boys. Of the 15, 5 are pregnant which means 33% of the whole class are about to be parents, not counting the possible fathers in the room. Then of the 9 girls, 5 are pregnant, that’s 55% of the girl.
I look down at my own stomach and try to image being pregnant as I sit at my desk, two years from graduating. Even with my outstanding imagination, I cannot picture it. Me with a baby on the way? No way! There are just too many things I want to do with my life before children to risk getting pregnant just because my boyfriend begs for sex.
Let me see, by the time I finish high school their kids will be two years old. Now if I go to college to be a teacher, by the time I graduate I’ll be 23 and their kids will be 7. By the time I should be able to find a teaching job, there kids could be in my class. then if I go to be a child counselor, I’ll be 25 when I get out of school and their kids will be 9 years old. Their kids would be over a quarter of my age.
I look over at my boyfriend, thinking about all the times he’s tried to get me to hit the sheets with him. Saying how much he loves me and that he never plans to leave me anyway, so what’s the difference if we do it now instead of waiting until we’re older and married? I wonder if that’s what their baby daddy’s told them. I wonder if the boys used that worn out line, “you would if you loved me.”
So let me see, the average teen relationship lasts less than four months. So if they did it during the second month then most of them could have been broken up before they even knew they were pregnant. Even if they try to stay together, most teen marriages only last 3 years on average, the kid won’t even be in school yet. Most teen moms choose to keep their, babies, when the majority of teen dad’s do not become that involved in their kids’ lives. So the kid will be about 12 when it starts to hate it’s father for not being around enough. But, there’s still the chance the relationship will last. About 1 out of every 15 high school relationships result in a long lasting marriage. So with five pregnant girls in the class, there is a chance that one of their relationship can work out. A very, very slim chance, but a chance.