Eagerly Expecting

Something is rotten in the state of Massachusetts. Seventeen girls in the same high school are pregnant. Are these ladies ready to become mothers? Not one of these girls is older than 16; not one of them is married; and one of the teens was impregnated by a 24-year-old homeless man. Did I mention they planned this? If any of this isn't making sense to you, let me recap: Last week, Time magazine covered a story on Gloucester High School, where 17 teenagers got pregnant together, many of them in a pact to do so. School administrators learned about the "pregnancy pact" when an unusually high number of students came to the school clinic to see if they had conceived. While the story has made national headlines on NBC's "Today" show, Fox News and in USA Today, the driving factor behind the girls' pact is still unclear. One explanation: the media.

Do Hollywood movies like "Juno" and "Knocked Up" and television shows like "Gilmore Girls" influence young women's understanding about pregnancy? Certainly. Do they cause girls, such as those in Gloucester, to become pregnant? I don't think so. Pregnancy is glamorized in the media, this is true. Entertainment shows praise the "baby bump," and actresses who are pregnant make it seem like a walk in the park: One day they're pregnant, the next they have a child-minus the stretch marks and extra pounds. Throughout their nine months, these ladies show no signs of morning sickness or swollen feet-just a radiant smile and a handsome man standing beside them. A show like "Gilmore Girls," meanwhile, alludes to some of the discomforts associated with teenage pregnancies but still manages to create a success story. How many women do you know who got pregnant at 16 and managed to send their child to Yale, as did Lorelai Gilmore? Realistically, this is easier depicted than done. Many women, myself included, are subject to this overly simplified and clear-cut notion of pregnancy at a young age, which we later learn just ain't so.

Life's experiences reveal a different and much more comprehensive understanding of pregnancy than the media. A friend I made in my freshman P.E. class had a baby boy in our senior year of high school. A girl I knew in introductory Spanish in ninth grade had a child in her third year of school. And a girl in my A.P. English class delivered her baby boy junior year. Even as other students cooed at their large bellies and tried to feel the baby kick, these girls didn't have it easy. They had to miss many months of school, and one chose to drop out. They were bombarded with questions as to how it happened and why and who the father was. I noticed as each of them wore looser and looser clothing to hide their condition, hoping to alleviate gossip. And after all the attention and birth pains, they each faced the responsibility of caring for and raising another life. Without a partner, without financial support, without guidance, these girls were supposed to manage another human being's welfare indefinitely. I once read an ad dissuading teen pregnancy which read: It's like being grounded for 18 years. Only they can know.

So the question remains: Were all these young women diehard fans of Jamie Lynn Spears? Much more likely, there is a limit to the impact the media can have on our everyday choices. At some point, the influence of glossy movies shifts to reveal the responsibility of the people themselves. A teen's socioeconomic status, childhood upbringing and family background play as big a role as, if not more of a role than, movies on her becoming pregnant at a young age. What happened in Massachusetts or my old high school is not driven by Hollywood. After all, what we pay to see in theaters is not what guides the way we live our real lives. Just think of the well-known phrase: "Don't try this at home."

This disclaimer is as relevant in a daredevil stunt as it is for gestation. The pregnancies of women in Hollywood are as well choreographed as Jackie Chan's intense fighting sequences and Spidey's heralded web-swinging. The distinction between life in Lala Land and on Earth is always there. Characters in movies have the infinite good fortune to receive second chances and to undo their mistakes. Reality is not always so malleable. Ordinary people are forced to learn from their mistakes by living through them-as the girls in Massachusetts will, quite unfortunately, soon discover.