Victoria Okafor
Dr. Stainbrook
English 111-121
02 December 2015
Do TV Shows Like 16 and Pregnant Promote or Discourage Teenage Pregnancy?
Teenage pregnancy has become a major issue in today’s society for our adolescents. This is a major problem for all who are involved. It creates hurt and a struggle for on the parents, especially for the mother (Gonchar and Schulten). Also for the parent(s) of the teenager this creates struggles for them because more often than not, they end up with the load of caring and looking after the child while the teenage parents are at school or out doing other things that teenagers do. Raising a child as a teenager is not easy. Teen parents are more likely to struggle to deal with parenthood, and the child …show more content…

I watch these shows devotedly and in of the shows and almost every episode you see how the girls struggle and the depression and sorrow they go through almost daily. Sometimes their tears and unhappiness come from how hard and stressful it is raising a child and sometimes it comes from the issues the young women face with their baby’s fathers, but either way they would not face these problems if they hadn’t become teenage mothers. Reality television concerning teenage pregnancy serves as a “birth control” educator for anyone who watches the show, so people can take the opportunity to really understand teenage pregnancy and create awareness through the power of media (Painter).
The producers of 16 and Pregnant and Teen Moms also offered a commercial-free, thirty minute spinoff episode centered around one specific girl from 16 and Pregnant, Markai Durham. They called this episode 16 and Pregnant Special: No Easy Decision. In this episode of 16 and Pregnant it highlighted the teenage girl who had given birth to a beautiful baby girl. In her episode we see the issues Markai has with her baby’s father, James, and the financial issues that they face. This episode was introduced to show a life changing, difficult decision that Markai and her boyfriend James had to confront when the teen mother was faced with a repeat pregnancy just 9 months after the birth of her first child. Markai and James decided to make this decision because after having their first child, they saw