Unknown Speaker 00:02 We are placement speakers for Tracy ULINK, who was to speak on this with teenage pregnancy. And we were asked earlier in the week, we do this in both Connie and I work at the Academy for educational development, where I direct the school and community services division that works with schools and community based organizations around the country on issues of educational equity and educational excellence. And we do a lot of programs that are innovative programs that community organizations and schools work together on issues like teenage pregnancy prevention, dropout prevention, we try to take a life options approach, which is being a feminist approach to teenage pregnancy prevention. And Connie is the director of the Support Center for Educational Equity for young mothers, which is in our division, which works on improving educational options for pregnant parenting teenagers, so a shorter time to prepare, I thought that what would be perhaps helpful would be if I would talk a little bit about. Unknown Speaker 01:25 Start again, welcome. Why teenage pregnancy is such an emotionally charged issue, and such an emotionally charged policy concern. And what are some of the current controversies and then take an example of one of the myths and the area that I wanted to focus on was welfare and teenage pregnancy. And do sort of a little examination of that as a as a as an illustration of it. And then Connie is going to talk about issues of education and teenage pregnancy. And then we'll talk then we would love to have a discussion on social policy implications. And any other kinds of questions or disagreements are, as I said, it's an emotionally charged issue. And it's also very controversial issue. I've tried to think about over the last five or six years. So I got into work and teenage pregnancy in a different way than most of the people who were working, who were working on the issue, when I started working on it in 1984, I wound up working with a lot of women who were coming out of the reproductive health movement, particularly out of family planning and abortion rights in a range, that sort of stream. And I was coming out of work with women in poverty, and community organizing. And we had, what we were sort of work moving toward this, the synthesis of looking at the fact that there was some kind of connection between women's roles, the feminization of poverty. And teenage they have very high rates of teenage pregnancy and tennis childbearing in the United States, but that neither of our respective we want to call them movements or, or anything from movements to occupations, occasional areas, had the complete picture to addressing this, that community organizing and working around issues of economic justice was addressing a, a, a significant structural problem for women, but it wasn't looking at women's lives as women and the feminist feminist issue. And then this whole other movement, the whole the whole other movement, that the majority of women were coming to teen pregnancy field, out of memory, family planning, or reproductive health, wasn't looking at the difference in class and racial experiences of women in in our society, and therefore, how they responded to women's roles to the roles that were the options for them. So I think that coming to it from a different place than then many. And then the reproductive health movement really made this sort of sharpen this for me, and I began to be very interested in why this was such an emotionally charged issue. And what I thought about was that there's really it really is centered on the conflicts, among about changing sexual mores and family patterns over the 1970s and 80s. And relationship to its relationship to its pregnancy and its relationship to issues of poverty and welfare. And it's a parameter or something that charges a whole range of things, people's people's views on what's happening to the family, or people's views about what's What's happening to, to poverty and welfare? Very much come about it come about when you think about teenage pregnancy, and the myths, the myths of teenage pregnancy? Well, one thing that's not a myth that seems to be fairly well documented, and we'll talk some more about the exact differences and experiences, but is that 60% of women receiving AFDC? In almost every study that's takes a snapshot of MMTC began receipt as a teenage mother. So that finding, began to jump out at people ask, what is what, what is this? Does welfare cause teenage pregnancy? You know, is this increasing teenage pregnancy because of welfare, which was the conservative response? Unknown Speaker 05:48 Just does teenage pregnancy Doom women to welfare? So this really becomes kinds of questions of causality questions, and, and then consequent consequence questions. And the causality questions, I think are a couple of them that I put together for today, where do the poor become teenage mothers? Or does becoming a teenage mother lead to poverty? It's really a great circular question of our of the of the field. Secondly, is the conservative question, which is does welfare provide an incentive for teenage mothers? And then on the consequences effect side? Does welfare dependency become a trap that substitutes for acquisition, acquisition of skills and work experience necessary for single mothers to better poverty? Or are there any benefits to becoming as a mother as a teenager, or in a in a kind of different putting a different lens on that other opportunity costs that girls experience in delaying parenthood? Do they see some opportunity costs? So I want to just explore this for a few minutes. And then we'll talk about education. Well, causation issues are obviously complex. I don't know how many of you have been following the recent Arlene geronimus. Had this anybody followed this during the teenage pregnancy? And then I don't have to go into it. I haven't read up on it this morning, just because people wouldn't read it, and would whip it out. What about Arlene geranyl? Early in Toronto, Mrs. A researcher at the University of Michigan, about two weeks ago, came out with a with a report at the American Academy of Sciences, National Conference attended two pregnancies is actually positive, each other is positive. And her reasons were that you're the many, many teenagers are healthier, especially black women when they're younger than in their 20s. And secondly, they're going to be poor anyway, which is the main point, be poor anyway, so they might as well have kids when you're younger, when they're healthier. Okay. That's a kind of extreme of linking of teenage pregnancy and poverty and essentially saying, Well, this is what the story is. So let's look for some other things like health indicators, the causation, the complex issues about causation. And let me say something, I think that the root the one truth, in my view, or the one point that that Deronda says, eliminate, which many people have been saying, besides her teenage pregnancy, is that it's not causal. It's not, it's not causing poverty in the sense of this shouldn't be blamed that every girl who becomes a mother, you know, is causing her own poverty. So I think that that that kind of argument is actually accurate. It's just that that doesn't necessarily mean that it's also a social good, either for the woman or for the society, or that it's not related to poverty. Okay. So the first question about just welfare is welfare and incentive to teenage pregnancy. I imagine there's not too many people here who really believe this, but it was a subject of many, many studies in the 1980s. Because it was, it was a very strong social policy orientation and did cause not cause teenage pregnancy causes an increase in the incidence of teenage teenage childbearing. And we've we have found out particularly that Bain and Elwood who've done most of the scientific studies on social science studies, welfare received that there is no connection than only that the patent law they looked at patterns of in low and high benefit states, and welfare receipt and teenage parenthood, and found that there was absolutely no difference that seemed to have even when benefits were raised, there was no change was really an independent effect. However, there was it did influence levels of welfare did influence the propensity to form your own household, which sort of putting on hold over your community meant that that if you When, when when benefits were when states were benefits were higher, teenagers went off on their own, with their mothers, with their mothers households more often. And that is considered very challenging. Many people are in full range of family issues that affect the relationship to poverty. Clearly the poor become teenage mothers in much greater proportions than, than their counterparts. However, not all teenage mothers are urban and rural for more than two thirds of teenage mothers live in cities, smaller than 100,000. And they, this is a an indication that Unknown Speaker 10:47 they're not all living, they're not all coming from New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, or Arkansas. You know, in terms of the rural area, there's there's a diverse population, but they are more likely to be poor start out with. And similarly, at the 10% of the poor, a small slice of the poor in America 10% of the of the poor, whose incomes are below 75% of the poverty line is the poorest poor in America are overwhelmingly more than 80% of them are young mothers and their children. Under 23. So and they became mothers as teenagers. So what we what we kind of see chalky, but what we kind of see is that there's Unknown Speaker 11:34 lots of circles, sort of circles, that Unknown Speaker 11:37 that's why it's been hard to figure out this is problem it isn't that all teenage mothers are poor. But if you're poor, you're more likely to become a teenage mother. Unknown Speaker 11:48 It isn't that Unknown Speaker 11:51 you become poor by becoming a teenage mother, but but of the poorest of the poor, mothers and their children. So to try to figure this out numbers of scholars have economist and a whole range of things. What's going on here? And essentially what I think we what we found, is that there really is a disparate experience happening. That everybody isn't the same, the teenage mothers are not a, a uniform group, that they have some things in common. That is you are more likely to bear a child as a teenager, but from supply from five to 10 times more likely, if you're in the lowest quintile of income, family income in the country and low basic skills. No matter what race or ethnic group got done across blacks, Hispanics, and whites. So there are many there characteristics in common, but within that, within that subgroup will become of the 480 or 500,000 Teenagers who become mothers every year, there's a wide difference of their experiences. And that difference includes whether they have family support is about a third of teen mothers. It's actually 32 mothers. Now, that means two thirds don't. So how do they support themselves, some from earnings, some from marriage, there are others your husband supports the family or something their parents. So you can have the experience of being on your own being in your mother's family being in a marriage being in another arrangement being in a group Unknown Speaker 13:54 home. Unknown Speaker 13:56 Really a divergent from a diversity of experiences of those who go on welfare. In Frankfurt and Berg's longitudinal study, he did a study, over 17 years of team members of those who went on welfare, which was there for welfare as well, of those third 12% stayed on, we're still on welfare at 17 years. Now, that's very small. I mean, they weren't long term welfare. On the other hand, about two thirds of them had more than one period on welfare within what the demographers call spill on welfare. So what they sort of had was that there's one group that kind of stayed and then another group that had been on welfare, earnings, on welfare and very limited kind of an experience of going in and out of poverty. It never was a third group that had Unknown Speaker 15:09 openings on welfare for first two Unknown Speaker 15:10 years. What were the differences among this group, the key difference, and some first emerge studies and in the end, and also the the being an inward study. So he's his sample that he thought for 17 years, which is a longitudinal study. And also this study of welfare roles, the key difference between who stays for a long time. And who has this other experience of being much more similar to working for families working for people in America was whether we had any labor force experienced before with the kind of high school education that is three plus. Three plus the state on student welfare. So what you begin to see is that teenage mothers, just like any other group, are diverse. They don't have exactly the same experience. But that experience of becoming a teen mother is also not not a nothing experience, it actually does affect the life and presents a challenge and a range of ways, repeated it if your first few, your onset of teen childbearing is the onset of of 123 children, then you're, you're you're moving further and further away from the prospect of any kind of economic independence. Now why is this important, really requested is really, because I think in trying to unravel the myths of teenage pregnancy and come up with some decent social policy, to assist young young mothers and also around teenage pregnancy prevention, think we have to understand what are they experiencing? What are the sort of social roles that are open to them? And then also, what's the what's the, the political context in which this is where policies are developed in our own society? And to me that, that that social role issue is really very much an issue for feminists to, to think about, because it's the issue of labor force experience and education. That's really very much the notion that it's not age so much, unfortunately, experiences. Unknown Speaker 18:09 But Genie outside of the team, other so great. So that's from their experience. But second thing is, from the experience of social, social policy, what kind of welfare system? What kind of income supports? What changes? What kind of income support programs would be needed, if we actually looked at the disparate experiences of teen mothers, rather than talking about teenage pregnancy is this phenomenon that just is it is a uniform phenomenon? And we looked rather at what's actually happening? Well, we would get something different from what's what's out now, but something that probably would have some elements in common with the family support. Why do I say that? Well. First of all, the the four letter word concerned with being in poverty, feminization of poverty, and also the women and children living in poverty for a long time, being on welfare for 10 years or more, means you're in poverty for a long time. Especially, you know, that two thirds of the states have have AFDC. I'm talking about if they have to see benefits, lower than 80% of the poverty line. So some group for some group of women, the welfare experience is not a transitional it's variants, experience with AFDC is an experience of long term poverty. This has also been increasing. Throughout the 1980s, we've been seeing more and more children in poverty for longer periods of their childhoods, particularly black children, particularly children, in big cities and rural areas. And secondly, it's an experience that is diverging from the experience of other women. And I think that's the other one that I wanted to talk about, about the the midst of teenage pregnancy. When AFDC Unknown Speaker 20:35 was initiated Unknown Speaker 20:42 in the 1930s, it was often called Mothers aid, or a range of programs like that. And it was really set up as an income for women whose husbands died for widows. And they were, it's in a funny way, not only not only expected that they wouldn't be working in the labor force, but they were almost expected not to work. And so it was seen as a supplement for widows, who was also very racially and, and, and in sexist ways. Stereotype this program, the, in the south, all of the regulations in around AFDC, were enforced for blacks, and were not enforced for whites. So they're in the regulations. For those of you who haven't studied it, or are too young to remember, the big ones were suitable home, that is a mother, if my mother had an illegitimate child to be put off welfare men house couldn't have a man in the house, and you're subjected to inspections at any time. And numbers of states, particularly in the south, started the eligibility after age seven that accrued a child seven years or older, that you were considered able to work in the fields. Okay, and that was always enforced, just for black never enforced for whites. So became a program in which white women were expected not to work in black women were expected to be available field labor, and when that work was not available, then there would be some kind of minimum substance Put, put, put forth. So clearly, it was a system of but social workers would call less eligibility, but what really means it had to be less attractive than working in the fields, or being married. You do either of those things, you'd be better off, you got married, you'd be better off. And if you went to work, you'd be you'd be better off at women's wages. Now White women had a different wage scale than black women. But the whole notion was that it had to be a stigmatizing program. Sure. Welfare AFDC began in 1935. And the change didn't occur any of those rules until 1968. The welfare rights Excuse me, have written down and give it to you too. But it's less excuse me, it's it's suitable home, man in the house. What are the rules now? Oh, no, those were all there were class action students, there was a welfare rights movement, we could talk about a lot of things that happened in the 60s. And now, now that those really have to do with, with you working, it's very complicated, but in numbers of states that can even have two parents and they've all they all change, but but it was, but but the point I'm really trying to make is that it was supposed to be the secret program for the and therefore you keep costs down. And therefore women who were used that program AFDC historically, have probably Unknown Speaker 24:22 been using it the same way this group of Unknown Speaker 24:27 young teenage mothers who want it which is you use it when you have no other choice, okay, that is when you have no other way of getting either earnings or support from a family member or husband or or parents. Okay, so that it's been a stigmatized program, and it has remained a stigmatized program, and that any social part any discussion of teenage parenthood and welfare raises up so many myths partially because two is continuing in the social policy frame of the fact that these are not the deserving poor, the deserving poor, or the white widows and orphans, and they are not the stereotyped, black, unmarried, teenage mother. That is in the minds and in the discussion of many of our political leaders. So, what are the social policy issues that come out of this? There really are what is what is our real view, what is an alternative view to why teenage parent motherhood appears to be related to long term work there See, in part of that, is that, as I was just saying, it's such an a stigmatized and ungenerous program, that teen teenage mothers who have the least resources, the least work experience, education are more likely to have no other means of support, and if this was the only thing that we're offering them. And the second thing is that and they're also the least likely to marry, we have time to spend some time talking about why that's true. And then, in this analysis, the the social policy orientation, then not is not toward that, whether they're deserving or not deserving, but rather, it's toward how to make it short term rather than long term, how to give support during a period. Which does not translate into assigning people to a part of the society that remains in poverty. So the the issue that's facing us to think about a number of myths concerning to mothers is how do you think about their experience in a way that looks at how different it is from other women, for women who don't become mothers, one of the ways is, if they get they get like, experience or if they don't get experience. Now, that's becoming even more extreme, because the Unknown Speaker 27:28 more you're out of the labor force. Unknown Speaker 27:31 In the past, the more you were similar to the majority of women that were out earlier. But now, most women are working for most of their lives, and most of their children see their work, you're Unknown Speaker 27:48 working before you Unknown Speaker 27:49 transform, they're more likely to be working. So that their experience is is departed from the mainstream experience. And they are They therefore in in danger of becoming consigned to the stigmatized in low, low wage area, low income area of society? I think that the the underlying challenges of this really have to do with what we think about as whose responsibility child rearing is, is it private responsibility, mother's incident is what are the implications of making it a more social responsibly responsibility? What kinds of roles are open to women? What kinds of roles are open to the poor education's? What do they see as their the possibilities of what are open to them? And then secondly, how did they how do this thirdly, rather, this is and this is the one that cuts across class, but it's most damaging to young women who become mothers in our core, which is how to make you come to terms in our society with sexuality with women's roles. At the same time, that the economic opportunities are limited for what other kinds of roles would have other than traditional traditional roles and access to reproductive health into planning services are limited. So let me stop there and come back questions and case kami to talk about the education. Please. Unknown Speaker 29:55 Michelle, I hadn't actually written out where I come from From in talking about adolescent pregnancy, and my My background is in education policy. And I think I was really very much shaped by a book that came out in the early 60s called death at an early age, which is about the school system in Boston. And where, although I certainly don't think of myself as somebody who ever really liked school, school was always an experience for me to grow. And I'm suddenly aware of immediate death in early age that education could be for many children and destructive experiences. And that led me into both study as an academic pursuit and also work in in the Education Policy system into looking at where education fits in both American dream and American mythology. So that I really, ultimately feel that the education system embodies the overall contradictions of our society, between a verbal commitment to equality, and yet a procedural commitment to utility and efficiency. But education is and we always go back to education as the engine of social reform, I think that it's part of our, our notion that we can make people equal and that we have this great belief that education can be the mechanism for providing that. And I'll return to that at the end. There are a number of misconceptions 10 that I've put down today about the relationship between education and adolescent pregnancy, and high school dropouts, and they obscure our understanding of the real problems that face teen parents and how public policy or to respond to the problems of teen parents. correcting these misconceptions is more than a kind of academic exercise. If we don't really know the facts, then we're likely to develop public policies that, at the very least don't help but at the most can hurt. The first misconception is that most high school high school dropouts are male. When you see a story in the newspaper about high school dropout, they're gonna do three dropouts, they do two males, one female, they do two dropouts, there's a 5050 chance that they'll both be male. And certainly if they do one drop in profile, told us in reality, our boys and girls drop out of high school and almost equal numbers. And it's not clear why our perception is at odds with the fact it may be because boys are a bit more aggressive in displaying their dislike of school, while girls often sort of drop out within the classroom before they actually disappear. But when you actually check the numbers, New York City is about at this point 5149 boys to girls, it's very, very close to 5050 split. And that's true nationwide. The second is that the lack of a high school diploma is a more serious problem for boys than girls. Most women now work as Michelle was saying, including the majority of mothers of young children, and most girls who are in high school should be prepared to work and think of themselves as going to work outside their homes for significant periods of their adult lives. For teen mothers as a as a subset of young women, the ability to gain employment is even more important because they are likely given what we know to be the sole economic support of their children for some long period of their life. In fact, despite our popular images of mothers at home, mothers have often needed employment outside the home in American history, what has really changed is the labor market. Without meaning in the 1950s, which is where a lot of our popular imagery comes from, we were in a period of economic boom, and they were enough jobs available with high salaries, that families could survive on one income. And even then, salaries usually didn't survive on one income, it was more like one and a half. Now, without a diploma jobs are difficult to find in today's labor market. And many jobs that you can get with only a high school diploma, even if you have two earners working are not going to bring you to an above poverty level. Unknown Speaker 34:11 And that's something that really has an effect on how kids view their future in education. third misconception is that the real problem is not so much that adolescents are having babies but that they're doing so out of wedlock. And often when in the field of adolescent pregnancy, you hear out of wedlock pregnancy used almost interchangeably with teen pregnancy. Although a fair amount of teen pregnancy, not not the majority is still within the context of marriage. But increasingly, babies are being born in a situation that is not one of legal marriage. But perhaps in earlier times, when in the 1950s when one income was sufficient to support a family. An early marriage was a way to soften the negative consequences of an adolescent birth. But today while it can provide some small amount of addition middle income, the marriages are really in fact, more likely to lead to divorce than marriages that occur later. But even with, as I said, two incomes in today's labor market, it's not likely, and particularly what we know about teen parents, that those two incomes together are going to bring that standard above the poverty level. So young mothers really need to complete high school in order to have a chance to even compete in the labor market, to the kinds of jobs that will enable them to support a family in this regard, completing high school, marriage have a negative effect, those young women marry as teenagers as a result of teen pregnancy, are more likely to leave school and cannot complete education than those who remain single. And I think that this is a whole argument that that plays into the conservative politics of the day about the traditional, the whole notion that there is a traditional family, and that what you're seeing in adolescent pregnancy is an issue that's fundamentally one of deviant morality rather than a work of social and economic causes. It really does. Color the way people view adolescent parents really makes them seem to be seen as inferior, humans, and morally deficient, when in fact, there are a lot of other issues going on. The fourth misconception is that most girls who drop out of high school do so because they're pregnant. Although it's a substantial proportion, who leaves school for reasons related to pregnancy and marriage about 40%. The majority of young women who are leaving high school are doing so for other reasons. So while the education system really needs to do more about helping young women who are pregnant or having babies complete high school, they also really need to address the educational issues that are causing a lot of young women to leave school when they are not pregnant and not having babies. And they often are similar issues to what's causing your mentally in school, and sometimes they're not. And one of the things that we see in New York when we talk to young women who have left school, and they talk about a program that they come back into the first thing they say about the program that they've returned to, is like feel safe, large and feel safe, people know me and care about me. And the third is the school addresses things that are meaningful to me. And those three statements to me are condemnation of what it was they love, and the kinds of schools that we have built for adolescents. The fifth misconception is that the factors most commonly associated with adolescent pregnancy are rate, race or ethnicity, a teenager's mother's age when she first gave birth and urban residents. Again, the images that the media shows of adolescent pregnancy is that it's a multi generational pattern among urban African American and more recently, Latino women, particularly in the cities. But the majority of adolescent mothers are white. And some live in poor rural areas like upstate New York, where you look at the rate of birth to teenagers and exceeds the rate of birth teenagers in New York City. In some of the poor rural counties, but nationally vital statistics data that's the data that's collected by the health department with birth certificates shows us that two thirds of the teen births are two teams from communities with under 100,000 people. Given the small absolute numbers that you find in rural areas. This suggests that small cities and suburban areas have far more adolescent pregnancy than they're commonly thought to have. In reality, the two most important precursors of adolescent pregnancy are poverty and poor education. A study of data from a large national longitudinal data set showed that regardless of race or ethnicity, young women with poor achievement and family incomes in the lowest quintile are five to 10 times more likely to become parents, his teams than their peers in the middle and upper ranges of both family and community. The racial and ethnic differences washed out when you look at the combination of education in Unknown Speaker 39:08 the sixth misconception is that most teen mothers who don't finish high school left during their pregnancy, that is they became pregnant and they were either forced out, or they were more suddenly given the message that they were unwelcome. Although that might have been it was certainly more common before the advent of Title Nine. Pregnant teenagers now are more often out of school than in school. Nearly two thirds of the adolescent mothers who don't complete high school left prior to their pregnancy, but became pregnant soon afterwards. This pattern varies with us and ethnicity. However, we have much more than two thirds of the African American teenage parents staying in school after the birth of a child for as much as a year or longer and more than three quarters of Latino teen parents out of school before the pregnancy occurred. Really wildly different to parents to more than two thirds, about 70% of African American teenage parents stay in school during the pregnancy and even stay as much as nine months to a year longer in school. And all this research didn't point out to it mean, it's either that the mean, there are two possible reasons that we can look to for wedding not staying beyond that. Number one is that most of the kinds of services that schools provide to help teen parents stay in school and short term, they're not long term. And if they've got more than about nine months to a year ago, the eight is not sustained. And then when the A goes, then they they leave. And the other is that about 20% of teen mothers have second birth during their teenage years, so that what we may be seeing in that data is that even when they have a second job, or something that trend, Unknown Speaker 40:58 because it used to be true. And now it seems to be consistent over the last five years. And we don't know what to say. Unknown Speaker 41:14 Some point it's clearly due to legal changes, you're not being pushed out. Very Unknown Speaker 41:20 pleased to have the opportunity to stay Unknown Speaker 41:25 in the Senate and another aspect of disappear are more Unknown Speaker 41:29 programs and services that are short term. Growth. Now the opposite. stance Unknown Speaker 41:42 is consistent. It's Unknown Speaker 41:47 an experience that change in Unknown Speaker 41:55 the early dropout rate among Latino women is really staggering. It's over, I don't have any put the number in here, it's over three quarters, have actually left school before they're coming, become pregnant. mean that the organizations that look at Latino dropout rates actually really fought the general research on high school dropouts, which looks at a cohort of ninth graders and whether or not they complete school, when the reality is there are many kids who are not even walking through the door to the high school. They may be over age, particularly if they've come as an immigrant, I've had language difficulties in it last time, they first of all, may be almost school leaving age by the time you're ready to enter ninth grade. But but many of them are not even making the transition into Mexico. Particularly to lucky Unknown Speaker 42:43 to just to add to what you're saying Unknown Speaker 42:45 that statistic points out that, particularly in places we're talking about Latinos, that should see is the size of athletes. I mean, that's a signal I just go back to school, Unknown Speaker 43:01 right? I mean, the data on the on the temporal connection between dropout and pregnancy is that I mean, rather than what people commonly think, which is that you have in virtually all cases, the pregnancy and then the dropout, you have the dropout, but very shortly thereafter, you have the pregnancy. mean there are of those young women who drop out of school. A significant proportion of them are getting pregnant shortly after they drop out of school, that then makes it much harder for them to return to school. But it also suggests that there's there are among those young women who are becoming pregnant as teenagers, some different groups educational. So those who are dropping out before are much more educationally alienated. mean for them. They haven't been particularly given the fact that in general, young women are more passive about displaying their dislike of education, they dislike it enough to have gotten up and go on before they get pregnant. Then they are the group in the middle who get pregnant and leave. And in some cases, you're dealing with school issues. And in some they were waiting for, for something to give them the excuse to leave. And if you talk to some teen parents, they'll say, you know, I'm like school anyway. So I figured now was the time. But then there is a small group, it's about a six, who actually stay in school, through the pregnancy, and who are not disconnected from school and who really need support services that address their particular needs. And they need two kinds of support services they need childcare, health care, income support, but they also need educational services because one of the things that we know, those of us who have become mothers is that your life experience changes pretty radically when you have a small dependent child. And schools don't tend to deal very well with that change in in adolescents reality. Unknown Speaker 44:56 The second misconception is that teenage pregnancy is a temporary social service In health crisis, the most attention that's been paid to adolescent pregnancy really has been from the health care system, where there's been real concern with this as a health problem. And from the social services system where we're, I mean, as you're not possibly have missed prior to this, if you watch any television or read any newspapers during the last decade, there's concern about it as an issue that has to do with receipt of public assistance. whether intentionally or not, this has led the schools to assume that it's not been an issue for them to address. But despite that, the reality of the economic social services and health consequences in the near term, if we look at the long term negative consequences of adolescent pregnancy, they have to do with the failure to complete a high school education or, or more than a high school education, and the ability to then secure the kind of job that will enable one to get out of poverty, and to raise one's children out of poverty. And if one was, I mean, this is if you were in poverty, and if you weren't, the likelihood that you will have have put a block in your own economic progress. The eighth misconception is that teen parents are doomed to welfare dependency. Michelle has discussed this amply? Well, as many as 70%, according to some research have to mothers will need some assistance for some period of time. Most only need help, or have only needed help for a few years. But there's a small substantial group that Michelle discussed of young women who begin to receive a prior to labor market any kind of labor market experience or completing high school, who are increasingly on public assistance for long periods of time. But in programs that have worked with teen parents, who have not completed high school, and employment preparation programs that have worked with people in high school, the reports had been that although the service needs of these kids are, are complex, but they're among the most motivating participants, but they want complete school, they want to be able to get jobs because they want to make better lives for their children, and that their life all mothers. And in fact, in almost as many ways we can look back are more alike than unlike other other mothers, which have an identity as mother only during their non school hours. The experience of those programs that have successfully worked about less than parents has been that the source of their motivation is the desire to make a better life for their children. But unfortunately, a lot of school based programs assume that upon entering a school and delivering their child to the school based childcare center, that young woman should cease to be a mother and revert to being a student. There are many new york city there are school based childcare centers, where the only time during the course of the day that the young woman is allowed to return to the centers, which comes back at lunchtime so that the paraprofessional gets a break, Unknown Speaker 47:53 that she really is expected to go into her classes. And to shed her identity as mother. I mean, it's not the case in all other centers. But it's really the dominant idea. And it's reflected more subtly in the in the rest of the way that the school system deals with these. With very few exceptions. Although there will be support services, we education will remain unchanged. Because not only flies in the face of the way adult mothers intermingle their identities and roles throughout the day. But again, it ignores the very basis on which these young women have come back to a system that for most of them was one where their experience had been characterized by failure, alienation, and in some cases, humiliation. We need a lot more attention to Creative Curriculum and program design, to help build on this motivation as mothers, as well as to help build this younger man's identity as an individual. The final misconception is that education can make it all better. As I said, I did return to that. It's easy to believe in part because we so much want to that we can through the schools change individuals without having to change the context within which the schools operate. In fact, with a labor market that's increasingly dichotomous with low wage, low benefit, low horizon jobs for those with minimal education, including those with high school diplomas, and jobs with higher wages, better benefits and opportunities for advancement for those with with higher level education and training, that there are real ceilings on what we're going to be able to accomplish even with the best of intentions and a wide use of resources in the schools. Young people historically have been fairly sensitive, although perhaps not in a very articulate way to what's out there beyond the school system. Mean studies of shifts in my college students study, choose to major in based on what's out there show that even without reading demographic reports or the newspapers on what's going on in the labor market, they know where the jobs are, where the jobs aren't. And high school kids are not a whole lot less sophisticated. Even if they see that the people they know with high school diplomas are not getting jobs that have health benefits that can match Medicaid, where there is no future. And three years from now, if they've even made a cost of living increase, and have the same low status that they haven't to come out, it really reduces the motivation to do well in school, and to complete high school. So that while we very much need as educators to address what's going on within the education system, we also need to address what's going on outside the education system. The minimum wage at this point is moving at a glacial pace. That's a piece of the problem. But it also means that when we think about where education fits into the rest of the system, we can't do it in isolation. It may be that when we talk about what kind of education benefits are available under something like the family supporting that high school diploma, is not something that should be considered sufficient to give somebody the kind of economic security that they will be able to have a consistent experience of not needing public assistance. And that if we really want to guarantee that people are going to stay off public assistance, that we really need to think about investing more in training, and education. So community college education, and even for your college education, because increasingly the kind of jobs that you can get in the labor market, that have the kind of benefits that families need that pay the kind of salaries that families need to acquire more than physical education. Have this Unknown Speaker 51:48 experience of speaking often, and I've told Connie and Barbara read before this is very disturbing. Experience yesterday, and which continued a teenager, a friend of my daughters, husbands and daughters. And I realized that I can barely remember what I'm talking about. And I can be distracted during it. And then I have the paper written in that. If anybody wants the paper, you sign like a yellow sort of yellow sheet and go around and I will sit will send it to you. I found myself being so distracted that it was okay, but I wasn't I couldn't eat less. I was sitting there, I couldn't quite remember what we were talking about counting I do work together. And we work with many programs, we like to just have a discussion. Maybe Unknown Speaker 52:40 this is not me, you'll know a lot about but I was also in high school for energy counseling and sexuality teams. And what I'm most concerned about is that when these kids get out of bed, what happens when they fall into that dead zone between 18 and Unknown Speaker 53:06 21? Where they were used to go into the service or in the military used to go to college with the kids for whatever reason or not in high school, graduated or they they stopped on school? Do you provide any kind of services for that age? I'm finding more and more that is less than less than services for that group? On with the intervention there? Do you do any of that work? Unknown Speaker 53:30 It's interesting because one of the one of the real problems in services in general for young people is new at kinds of age levels that that cut at various points. I almost have the reverse experience of having kids who are too young to get into some of those, those programs that are older, it depends on what kind of what kind of services, we don't provide direct services so much is work with service providers, whereas Unknown Speaker 53:55 an intermediary we raise funds in designing programs and then give out the funds for innovative services. But I think that the point that you're raising is a really critical one to that group that I was talking about. Because we didn't used to have a group that was not in the labor force or in school or in marriage and parenting, within average married to a average wage earner who could in those days support a three person family the average income of of average wage earners to eat what let me say this different way 90 the income that was the average production workers income in 1975. One now takes 1.3 average incomes to make which means that it takes a person and a third of a person working or a person working part time to Make the same income than the average production worker in seven years. So we have a combination of incomes declining, and also a job dislocation, which has left, what you just refer to. And I think it's very important that you refer to it that way as it's dead time. But that didn't used to exist. I mean, we this is not a not something that we used to have better schools, work transitions. I mean, we then had better drop out to work transitions in the in the past, and then we have now and the kinds of services I think that are needed, are a combination of transition to post secondary education, transition to employment. And what we don't have at all in this in this country, a family support policy. That is it is very difficult to earn to earn enough money with an infant to support that child that child adequately and that we don't, what why would we expect? What Why do we expect in our in our country, that there'd be no period of dependence? Right? Unknown Speaker 56:16 Well, because the kids are showing up when they need individual show up again, it's usually on public assistance, or prison. But it is something happens in between, for whatever reason. And I'm just really concerned about that particular and I thought, Unknown Speaker 56:34 well, I guess just to get back to it as I was going to ask you what happens to them when they graduate? Do they have skipped? Do you think they did? They've achieved educational skills? Unknown Speaker 56:44 Oh, well, that's a whole nother discussion. But are they employable? Is when they get to high school? You can Well, what do you think? In a lot of instances, they are not for the jobs that are available? They have some skills, they have skills, yes. But for the jobs that are available? That's probably the question. Unknown Speaker 57:05 Right? When I went to high school, no more than a third of the girls, I graduated from high school and went on to any kind of post secondary education, college, secretarial school, modeling school, anything. And everybody went to work. I mean, but there was work, he was plenty of work, work in stores, you worked in insurance companies, you worked in all kinds of things with a high school diploma in the city. And that was, that is not true. Now, it's not the same. Now. There's a combination of both the schools have regressed in terms of their achievements. And their ability to achieve well with with students, and the economy has shifted in that you need different kinds of skills. So I think that there, so I think the programs are youth employment programs, their transitional programs, but they're also I think that we need to change how we support families and how we support children, that all throughout Europe, Western Europe, you have family, family allowances, children's children allowances, which are given to every child, as a basis, you have a range of tax systems that provide taxes, you know, provide tax cuts for families that have low incomes with children, and you have single parents support Unknown Speaker 58:28 services, you have, you have childcare, so when we meet, the working woman in this country can can expect to spend as much as a third of her income on childcare alone. And then after that have to pay for lodging medical care. Unknown Speaker 58:45 Right. So I mean, so I'm saying that it's not, it is employment that's needed, and it's job training that's needed. But there's a whole other support level that I think is needed, or the burden is too much on the individual. Unknown Speaker 59:02 I have two questions, I Unknown Speaker 59:03 go back and watch Unknown Speaker 59:05 the relationship between poverty. Unknown Speaker 59:09 And I think about work. So I also went to high school to get a job, walked out, graduated and got a job. Didn't take that now. There's such a structure about being prepared for that job training on the job. And I think of course ratio, because that is the time when the majority of kids coming out of school. Black kids were much much more able to get into the workforce going all the steps to train you socialized. There's a misconception that stereotypes about what they say I think that's part of why the 17 kids graduate from high school. That doesn't that training, most of the jobs don't leave the country. We think they do, because we've been told that they do. Most people got totally on their jobs. And people get information and you get socialized. And all that, then that attitude toward what we do? Unknown Speaker 1:00:24 Yeah, I think I agree you were partially what I was where I don't disagree, but I think it's a separate experience is that just that's blocked, we're moving into production jobs, have a unionized, good production jobs, they decline in cities. Unknown Speaker 1:00:42 And secretaries that walk in off the street and get the job, one time experience, job training. I'm saying no, you asked me been and that's when I want to say something about I think there's some very concrete things being poor experience, which leads to teenage, which I wanted to hear you talk more about, for example, access to health care, access to birth control, information, not just the information in a classroom, but actually being able to walk out the door and find the place to go where you don't have money or time to get the actual material thing, Unknown Speaker 1:01:28 which adults can do. And I think those obstacles are very much tied and then, you know, a lot of kind of other directions. That kind of Unknown Speaker 1:01:47 I think that's accurate, that when I know the research better from the sort of flip side of it, and Dr. elder's has had a lot of experience with this now with the clinics in Arkansas, that when you make the services available on site for teenagers, that they use them. The I think your important misconception that it's in the paper, but I forgot to mention it is this point which we sort of glossed over is the difference between teenage pregnancy and genetic childbearing. That is we have a million teen teen pregnancies a year. And we have about less than 100,000 births. And so it means we bought a portion of close to half of girls getting abortions. And so it's access as well to abortion. But it's access to reason to have an abortion a sense of a sense of what where your life is going and what are the options. But I think that the issue about health care is, is it's absolutely true. What you're saying Barbie, it's just that I think it's more more more gradations. Because we've such high rates of teen pregnancy and teen abortion among middle class whites, whites of all classes among blacks and Hispanics that take that our healthcare system to contraceptives, probably through health insurance, through Unknown Speaker 1:03:24 city health department. Birth control, you know, all teenager has to do with walk in, especially one. But what I'm saying, Unknown Speaker 1:03:31 but you know, in many cases, it's it's easy if she can talk to her parents get it, your health insurance does not. I have a prescription card, the one kind of medication I cannot get with that prescription card that's covered Unknown Speaker 1:03:45 on it as oral contraceptives. Unknown Speaker 1:03:47 But you know, what you're saying to me is that in the health department, a teenager, by herself can walk in and Unknown Speaker 1:03:54 discriminate on the basis of a race color, or if so they'd be 10. Unknown Speaker 1:04:00 That was documented. Against Unknown Speaker 1:04:03 the wall. That's what a lot Unknown Speaker 1:04:05 of these you know, to get around set up so we can say that we would get groans in school. You know, we have a clinic in school we can play that we can get, you know, the parents, we can not give birth control. If they sign statements, and they don't want them to have the facts at school. You have to send them so you refer them now. So I said but all you have to do is I tell them when they can go to them. But so you get into the problem with rural areas with transportation. So how are they going to get back? And so this is why we don't do merge wrong with the need to have them at school where they're easily accessible. Unknown Speaker 1:04:52 I think right where I would like to explore further with you is where we may have a different different to one who said, like most teenagers are not getting the health kind of health services that allow them to be able to control their reproduction. As teenagers, it's just that there are some of them who are having abortions. And there are some of them who are not having abortions, then there's so so it isn't that we have a this really good group of contraceptives. Right. We have and the poor are just not contraceptives. I think that there is a distinction. Okay, so they don't have health care. They don't have time. So for some other kids get health care, but they don't get Unknown Speaker 1:05:38 new information here. I don't get a sense from my phone. That I know that most that I don't know. And so that's when they don't know what there'll be that I Unknown Speaker 1:05:48 don't know until they are parents, I Unknown Speaker 1:05:52 don't know it all. Sit down. Unknown Speaker 1:05:56 How to get you get a really Unknown Speaker 1:05:59 important because I think what we offer is that, how the lack of access to information that teenagers have. I mean, I remember being a teenager, and I was white, middle class and terrible educated. I just want to read a little while she told you, I brought all my friends in the New York urban center is very cheap, those are all incredibly stupid. I think it was just Unknown Speaker 1:06:27 my boyfriend. When I was 15 question that information, they feel a Unknown Speaker 1:06:35 bit goes beyond information. I mean, you know, I'm a lot older, and it may have been less than thought. I mean, I had I went through nine months of unprotected sex before I got birth control. And it wasn't until I was in college, and had an upperclassman, tell me where to get it, that I that I found out I think that means we also have to think about the social context in which we view sexuality and Unknown Speaker 1:06:56 sex is a shift teenagers be having sex, right? You give them information about birth control? Well, that whole thing starts. Unknown Speaker 1:07:05 This is our expert on Unknown Speaker 1:07:06 this issue, basically says is they feel the reason that the Right to Life Group is very much against the reason they're against contraceptives, is they feel that our child is adequate punishment, or fremer, to unmarried delay, so as long as we'll be childbearing as a punishment for having unmarried. But that's it, that's really a basic problem. And, and that's really for their fight. And I really feel that, you know, we should all be pushing insisted that we, you know, sex education from kindergarten through 12th Grade Center, by the time the kids really need to know, we even talked about in Oakland, and they didn't really know, most of our teenagers don't know even for adults don't know that they can come in and say that they want birth control and get it. And the reason most of them are the first time is a pregnancy test. I Unknown Speaker 1:08:10 mean, less we once we put too much blame on teenagers, we've been a couple of really interesting cross national studies. Of none of my first that was the study a number of years ago, on unwanted or unintended pregnancy among teenagers that showed how how much the birth rate here was higher than countries that were comparable industrial economy economies in Western Europe, I mean, and that if you took the white birthrate alone, it was more than double the highest of any of the European countries in the study. For two years later, they did the analysis for adults and American adult women do not much better job of contraceptive than American teenagers. I mean, that that I think the kind of, of schizophrenia we have about sexuality in this country affects all women. Unknown Speaker 1:08:59 I think the one point that is very important that we don't want to lose sight of what you were saying is that access to general health is a group in to having access about any other kind of health care. So that if somebody's coming to see Dr. Elders, for regular health care, she has the opportunity to ask them what they're going to do about sexuality. Unknown Speaker 1:09:28 So when they first start having breakfast, I mean, I really became very aggressive talking about sex with the mother and mother, every mother Unknown Speaker 1:09:37 I was sitting next to me Unknown Speaker 1:09:38 it up and down. Yeah, I didn't know it. And so they had me first period, you know, being moralizing about you know, I was gonna sit there. You know, I do not want to Unknown Speaker 1:09:49 go back planning. I have since we are married, as you know, we just happen Unknown Speaker 1:09:55 to have a baby with that and I just can't deal with that. So everybody, you know, they were on birth control pills. And if I thought that they weren't reliable, we put them on depo provera, which meant, and they may not have come back to me because they're there. But they came back to get their shot. So they wouldn't get pregnant. And I'm just saying, but you have to admit that, you know, this one, somebody walked in and saw for the first time, there's at least for family, Unknown Speaker 1:10:30 they had ongoing health care, ongoing health care relationship, which most Americans at this point don't disappointing, and certainly Unknown Speaker 1:10:42 aren't that, you know, they're Unknown Speaker 1:10:43 embarrassed or embarrassed or asked sexually related questions. But, you know, they aren't supposed to talk about that. So they really, really on train, Unknown Speaker 1:10:57 plus I was making something else and that is that most of the people that I know don't have clinical when you're kids, Unknown Speaker 1:11:08 little you're taking on a teenager that aren't great Unknown Speaker 1:11:11 that you don't have to take the lead. Because you're you don't know what's going on. You're I don't know, women that wouldn't be able to see your doctor. How long wait, is that in adolescence that we don't have health care, and that's what I that's the different places that the healthcare issue Unknown Speaker 1:11:31 seems to Unknown Speaker 1:11:33 care issue is central, because if we have a decent health system in which people participate in a preventive health system, then Unknown Speaker 1:11:45 that's right. Think about? Absolutely. All. Eric. Do you know how much this country's taxes we're talking about health care, we spent $660 billion dollars this entire team on health care, that's 12% Gross National Product. Out of that $660 billion. We spend 90% 90% On the last month, last night 90%. And out of the know we only spent 0.8% on preventive. Unknown Speaker 1:12:39 That's the problem. And preventive health is things like prenatal care, immunizations, family planning. I mean, that is the problem. And I think we got demand. But our nation began to deal with that. We we have we do provide our children the worst health care of any industrialized country in the world. And we don't do much better for anybody else. And then we you know, we don't we wonder well, why don't people come in for checkups? We they've never had a checkup from the time they revive until they have heart attack. So why should why? You know why. And we wonder why don't they come in for prenatal care. We've never taken them in for any other kind of checkup when they weren't sick. Unknown Speaker 1:13:26 I mean, this is not just for people. This is everybody. Health insurance policies are built on the whole notion of indemnification, which is, is it pays off against a risk, it's a gamble. So that if you get sick, there's a safety net, it catches you, it pays for my personal health bank, well, it doesn't function as an ongoing, preventive system. So then most even some of the best private health insurance policies don't cover preventive care. You take your kid for a routine checkup. And unless the doctor can figure out something to write on on the Insurance Board that looks like the diagnosis, you won't get paid back. And then we wonder what people don't really care. About right. Unknown Speaker 1:14:13 Next to the 37 million Americans have no health insurance. So that's really a real problem. About 25% of our people were covered really by Medicaid in some form or the other. But even with Medicaid only in Arkansas, only 8.7% of the people meditate looks like anything from a checkup to a heart transplant. Only 8.4% of the people use that's awful. That's downright frightening, but it won't be anymore. We've gone from 8.4% to 40%. And we know if anybody walks in our health department if they haven't had a screen regardless of what they come in for their sleep And out of that out of 8.4%, the other 92% of this group was seen in our company, for some reason. So we're, you know, they were coming through the door, we just weren't doing what we were supposed to do. But one of the other things, we're really pushing for the national health insurance, but I want you to know, the national health insurance does not, Unknown Speaker 1:15:22 does not equal good care Unknown Speaker 1:15:23 does not equal care it out. Just because you've got insurance, what I'm saying. I'm saying that only 8.4% of the people that had Medicaid was paying all the care of paying for everything 8.4% of them are Unknown Speaker 1:15:41 free to do via to re educate the medical system. You know, there were, Unknown Speaker 1:15:48 I think one of the things that you've done, that's really speaks to this, and this is a model of what PCP is, that EPSDT is, is early periodic screening, diagnosis, and treatment, and was used before school based clinics, only 3% of the funds for every use for adolescents. Folks, it's forever 2.1 21. Right, it's only used baby for wellbeing clinics. Medicaid is public funding for preventive care was never used for veteran for adolescents. Now let's focus clinics, particularly on that. So just been a model of doing this. You can use it to bring everybody Unknown Speaker 1:16:29 you can really, really, really looking at the legislation, but 1991 50% of the people that are eligible is going to have to be seen as playing a 1994. It's got to be up to 80%. Nationally, let's match doesn't matter. It's not out it's kind of output, it's really matter. But those are the two. So they're saying that we're going to have to do it. Or you're gonna have to you can I don't want to Unknown Speaker 1:17:01 put you in the loop. But there was an attempt in Brooklyn where I come from black community that had a school based plan. There was a lot of opposition. How, what were the kind of major obstacles, opposition's among the black family? Well, the school faced, and how to train. Unknown Speaker 1:17:27 It comes down to three cups, but that was a woman. And then in fact, I said, you know, that, you know, I mean, I was the right person in the right spot at the right time. Unknown Speaker 1:17:39 So all of those things, so many black women. Unknown Speaker 1:17:42 Well, no, I'm not saying that. I'm just saying that. We didn't see you see what happened. And what happened, I'm sure is that very far out right to life came in and brainwash your ministers, brainwashed your leaders. So consequently, they went in late and they wait, wait, came out and sold your kids down the river. That's what happened. And that's what they tried. But listen, I've lived up there longer than they could. No, no, no, they actively lobby. In fact, they were going you know, thinking that we were putting in a clinic clinic, go and talk to the preachers and talk to everybody and really get on TV and the bear, the health department will put in a six clinic and be performing abortions or your children. You know, they were just really downright seven. And they would come to the legislature. They live in one school district, they went up and it was in the paper and then the legislature, you know, just happened that I brainwashed him better than they have. And so he said, you know, she this lady came she was testifying about but they were having this clinic and all in which he got through. He said Madam, he says I wonder why do you feel it wrong? That we provide comprehensive health services like nutrition, immunization, 3d, physical assessment and all for our children and you're up there I know it's Leola talking and knowing more about it, but I do when I lived there all my life. He you know, he said i He said so he's in Well, by that time, you know, for whom credibility, black life because you're saying that now most of our right to lifers have been white, but that's but now they're Unknown Speaker 1:19:31 known for that back to when it seems that Unknown Speaker 1:19:33 Oh, no, you if you trace in Brooklyn, if you trace some of the issues, they go back to one particular board member who really mean Which isn't to say that there weren't there weren't some receptive eaters and then there isn't some some fairly unpleasant history. You know, I'm Michael Carrera, who was who's has immunity has put it very well that, you know, people look at at Central Harlem and the problems of Central Harlem, and they don't come in with better housing and they're coming With better schools, they're coming better services, they come in with birth control. I mean, there's been a history where contraception has been seen, you know. So I mean, that's Unknown Speaker 1:20:12 a lot. But Brooklyn teamed up for one of the organizations that I attended some of the meetings, there are some community based school based clinics. And there are a couple of dispensing contraceptives, they don't just put contraceptives, but the information is there, Unknown Speaker 1:20:29 but it is, what the agency that I work for I have been working Unknown Speaker 1:20:36 at abortion, whatever the need is, but what was also important, especially if we're going to because we keep trying to target the girls, I love the Assam programs where there has to be role models, that is men. And I mentioned in the book, The Teen Network program, because they are known to try to bring in more blocky the African American or African Caribbean men into these programs to work with these boys. Because for so long, but control has been a woman's issue. That's the way the clinic setup when you go in and looks like the right a woman with a whole bunch of things to play here. Unknown Speaker 1:21:15 And one of the other things that I think is really very distracting, only 37% of black males in America. I mean, you know, that's just that's just downright appalling. Unknown Speaker 1:21:28 But that goes off to one of my babies got down. Unknown Speaker 1:21:30 Oh, no, not well. That's the only way in the world I have left and expressing their manhood, you know that. That's all I've ever seen. I mean, the only thing they've ever seen man do is coming in and donate the sperm and like the number from programs that I had to evolve. And I think Unknown Speaker 1:21:57 part of it is the normal part. But I think another part, which is just so simple, that it's it's it's simple as these barriers that we face, is you don't need to you don't need lunch, except a few directions, but some instructions. And virtually none programs give them a very, very hard time. So what do you bring the boys in for? I mean, it's like there's this really simple thing that they want. And we Unknown Speaker 1:22:31 welcome them, we're trying to do it so that we can guide them to the Health Department. And so we're gonna you know, if we don't get them in all the schools are going to do is talk to Wendy's and McDonald's and worked some put them in, I heard back and not have to do is walk around. Unknown Speaker 1:22:50 In Savannah, the clinic, the clinic is not allowed to dispense contraceptives, but they have these giveaway packages of you know, like, Tampax and all different things. And but they also now in the clinics, in the outside clinics, which are not in the scope and keep them condoms in a big basket in the waiting room. So that you don't have to come in for an appointment, like identify yourself as a boy who's interested in condoms. You know, just pick them up and attack them next video screening already takes over there's a whole range of things just access issues for retainage. Unknown Speaker 1:23:37 College, you have to get back to education. We're role models. Unknown Speaker 1:23:45 Way to get Unknown Speaker 1:23:52 smart people talk about poverty is not as obvious issue. We have battles of Congress to use, because there's a lot of things that go wrong. And there's absolutely no section. There's no sexual conversation. There's no oil on the streets. Period, I went to school. And I had I was fortunate to have gone to private school where we had six, first grade second grade. It was not a big deal. But the first time that when I went to high school, this was their first health Unknown Speaker 1:24:42 by the Health Education and all the public schools have their children in private schools when they do Unknown Speaker 1:24:57 have health education, it is Right. Unknown Speaker 1:25:01 It's watered down it mean, the real example is in New York City. We have we have sex drugs and aids in New York as a videotape and until you're in your senior year, they don't show you the section of condoms. Unknown Speaker 1:25:12 But you're absolutely right if there's so much more than access, but the notion that the way numbers of regular health clinics are dispensing condoms is to make young men or young sign for me I'm just talking about the context of what your point is absolutely valid, we need much more education or people may use them but if you're even saying to them if somehow they Unknown Speaker 1:25:46 were wrong very substantial environmental changes. So common is not a $2 cat not a hardship, per se. You have a widespread or whatever. Those are other issues for those of you that I need to add in my my future jobs and everything. Unknown Speaker 1:26:31 Women my friends who are 38 years old, go out with right educated college educated 26 PhDs will put on a condom, you know, so what are we talking Unknown Speaker 1:26:43 about? Patrick God, where they look like, you know, they're in some kind of lobby to research headset, you know, where I'm helping the world, but not really. And so that educational solution, high school, Unknown Speaker 1:27:29 I think there's a deeper issue. Because the deeper issue has to do with this kind of the numbers on health care. And what Connie was saying about this country has appeal for transsexuality, adult women, teenage girls, obviously teenage girls, adult women can figure out that you know, girls can I mean, and so you're saying some of the issues that people have a fear Unknown Speaker 1:27:57 that and I believe strongly she Unknown Speaker 1:28:01 will have has to do with how the how we learn how we learn in this country, black or white? What about sexuality, which I think is a much more intense issue, which is you have to begin with the medical. The real issue is how could we be such will be in the United States. And of course, teenagers not having to vote not having money, not having access, not having all this other stuff, even if they are the ones who dealt with the issue? See nothing, it is not an issue when we dump all of our emotional stuff on the getting the points for all of us, not just us. We don't say I'm gonna go and get this birth control information that we're very studying. Let me be well informed so that we get in the seconds as well, I hope Unknown Speaker 1:28:55 interested? Or how many men say I'm going to use condom? I mean, I know they do. But Unknown Speaker 1:29:07 it's hold control issue that women sexuality and gender sexualities, because as I tell my girls, is keto diet, if you say use a condom, he says now that you say no. Right, so you have to understand what's happening to see Unknown Speaker 1:29:22 if we were talking about if we'd started the non on teen pregnancy, but on STDs as a risk, or something we would think be talking about sexually transmitted disease sorry, Unknown Speaker 1:29:36 for age group. Unknown Speaker 1:29:40 What we wouldn't be talking about is incredibly rising rates, especially in kind of a rising rates among teenagers. This whole issue of how do you prevent it? What happens around teenage sips? The reason that I began particularly more talking about poverty and its relationship into myths about teen pregnancy in childhood Here's the difference between pregnancy and childbearing. And that we have a really, we have many, many differences going on in our society, but one of them is nobody's handling sex very well. But only some people are having children when they're 15. And the only rate, the only child only rate of teen parents teach housing is going up is 15. And under is a great, okay. So to some extent, partially, it's a separate issue, how to understand what's the life experience of those young women, that's causing them to have that have that experience of what are the consequences of becoming mothers. Now the issue about sexuality is not divorced from them, it's quite obvious that it's actually absolutely central to it. But it's also broader than the issue of poverty, it's, it's intermingled very much with issues of sex roles, with, with with views of sexuality, and with, with the whole the whole way women and men's in a different way, but holy women come to terms with sexuality, with their sexuality and with their control over their sexuality. And that's bigger than poverty, now bigger than poverty, it's, it's, it overlaps much further than poverty. There's, Unknown Speaker 1:31:11 I mean, there's there's a whole range of research that's that sort of come together in the last few years about all the different adolescent problem behaviors coming in. And one of the deficiencies of the research is that it's very individual behavior oriented. But finally, people are starting to look at it as a whole. And say, you know, to what extent is the kid who smokes the kid who also drinks the kid who's gonna be stripes, the kid who, etc. And early sexual activity has traditionally been one of those risk factors. There's a really interesting article in the journal society for adolescent medicine, that, in fact, early sexual activity doesn't correlate necessarily with all of those it's unprotected sexual activity. And that's what what Michelle was saying, the question is not just whether you're having sex, because, I mean, there have been a lot of changes around that. But what kinds of decisions surround the decision to use contraceptives or not, or went to heaven and pregnant to have an abortion. And that has a lot more to do with what young women think about what's going to happen to them in their lives and how I mean, as much as education and poverty are pieces of it, it also has to do with how schools prepare young women, both concretely and what kinds of skills they prepare them with, but also how we prepare young women to think about their lives. Unknown Speaker 1:32:33 We might even say that educating kids or helping girls to feel options in their lives, includes the entitlement to having a good sexual life that they have control over. And whatever age they are, that yes, they are gonna get beneficial. Yes, you're gonna reject this. Yes, possibly get that sexual pleasure now, and do it in a responsible way and do it with the other person or people that are having starts with, with real communication and sharing. Unknown Speaker 1:33:05 The Congress is important Unknown Speaker 1:33:07 as a parent, circle, that's what happens. You're here, you're there, even without the sound, but then you're sitting there looking at your children. And that's when the right to life resonate, a real thing that all parents think about the release of my child to make a very, very minimal decision about their life without my input and guidance and my permission, Secretary, but Unknown Speaker 1:33:37 they're already they're already doing it that way. Unknown Speaker 1:33:42 I'm not talking about a rational response to I'm talking about the emotional response to Unknown Speaker 1:33:49 permission in some way. What about that? Well, you're saying you're releasing your child to do something without your permission. I mean, there's another possibility, which is that you might in some way, give her permission to Unknown Speaker 1:34:04 do that. But I'm also I'm really talking about is that your rational, having that voice inside of you? That's different. I'm not saying that. I know the right answers match, but the child that you face move around