Reports: Teen girls made pact to get pregnant

[Mumita]

A pact made by a group of teens to get pregnant and raise their babies together is at least partly behind a sudden spike in pregnancies at Gloucester High School, school officials said.

Principal Joseph Sullivan told Time magazine in a story published Wednesday that the girls confessed to making the pact after the school began investigating a rise in pregnancies that has left 17 girls at the school carrying a child. Normally, there are about four pregnancies a year at the school.

Sullivan told Time that nearly half of the expecting students, none over 16, were involved. Sullivan said students were coming to the school clinic multiple times to get pregnancy tests, and "seemed more upset when they weren't pregnant than when they were."

Some of the girls reacted to the news they were pregnant with high fives and plans for baby showers, Sullivan said. One of the fathers "is a 24-year-old homeless guy," Sullivan told the magazine.

Superintendent Christopher Farmer confirmed the deal to WBZ-TV, saying the girls had "an agreement to get pregnant."

He said the girls are generally "girls who lack self-esteem and have a lack of love in their life."

Christen Callahan, a former Gloucester High School student who had a child when she was 15, said on NBC's "Today" show that some of the girls would ask her about her own pregnancy.

"They would say stuff like, oh, I think my parents would be fine with it and they would help me, stuff like that," Callahan said.

But she said she had no firsthand knowledge of a pact between the girls to get pregnant.

"They were just kind of like curious about it, they never actually came out and said it," Callahan said.

The first reports of the students' apparent plan to get pregnant were in the Gloucester Daily Times in March, when Sullivan said students were reporting that the girls were getting pregnant on purpose.

The rash of pregnancies has shaken the seaside city about 30 miles north of Boston. Last month, two officials at the high school health center resigned to protest the resistance from the local hospital to the confidential distribution of contraceptives. The hospital administers the state money that funds the clinic.

[Mumita]

I'm never going to agree with teen pregnancies, but this shows a HUGE social mess in our country.  Kids thinking that being a teenage mom is cool, Teens need help.

[luv2bmommy]

lol what?! i dont even know what to say...high fives? you've got to be kidding me ! did any of the girls confess why they would want to make such a pact?

[babyscience]

OH MY GOD....how sad!  Who in the world would do that.  And ewww a 24 year old homeless man as your baby daddy!!!

[luv2bmommy]

lol *some* teens need help. not all teens are total morons. those girls obviously have something wrong with their brains or something. hope they like waking up all hours of the night and getting up for school in the morning! and good luck trying to get child support from a homeless guy. they will snap into reality, they will. and then i bet some of those kids will be adopted. by grandparents or otherwise. they dont know what theyve actually done.

[chitten]

Stupid girls

Children shouldnt be trying to create children. End of story

[agomez333]

I have to say I was a teenage mommy and I was not high fiving when I found out. I was hiding... This world is crazy... But when you have teens actresses in hollywood doing it and making it seem glamourous this is what happens... I'm sorry but this is the kind of thing that happened after the whole Clinton sex scandal.... The kids stared saying oral sex isn't sex and doingit on the school buses...
Its a sad day in this country to see for sure... Those girls will live with this decision for the rest of their lives. Some will grow up and some will screw up. I fel sorry for their parents and their unborn babies... However where are their parents when they are out concieving? Scary thought when you have teens at home...

[sweetangel7]

I heard it had to do with the fact that Gloucester was going to provide contraceptives(bc...not just condoms) to their students through the nurses office WITHOUT parental consent...you just go and the nurse gives...AND the parents were upset because the school can't even give tylenol without parental consent but I guess the school had found some loophole where they could do this without parental consent...maybe some sort of partnership with planned parenthood...IDK...ANYWAYS, this is supposed to be a backlash in the face of the superintendent and the school committee and the community...That is how I understood the situation...CRAZY!  So basically, the girls are saying, "okay, you won't give us bc...we'll show you!"  Immature!

[nikko*ttc]

Absolutely crazy. All the more reason to buy a chastity belt for my 9 year old (soon to be 10). And when her period starts, we may just consider putting her on bc. I had her at 18 and I just don't want her having a baby that early. I want her to wait until after college. Instead of doing it backwards like I did, kid then college. Kids now a days are becoming sexually active so much quicker than in the past. I am glad that we have sex education so early, but exposing our children to the ins and outs of sex at such a young age, to me, has contributed to this growing epidemic. It is a sad day in our country. More teen mothers and less God in our schools.

[gokuangel]

Wow that is just crazy!! I knew this country is going to the crapper but that really proves it!! I hear stories all the time about my lil cousin she is 16 and if she gets preggers im just gonna lose it literally i really cringe at that thought!! she was like my baby and if she has one b4 me it would be super hard!

[LauraB78]

Yikes..

I am 30, pregnant, and still freaking out on how I am going to do it.. Kids shouldn't have kids.. Period...

[durhamjk1]

I am a high school teacher and we had a similar situation this year at a neighboring school.  The school is extremely small (graduates maybe 45 a year).  Senior girls made pact to get pregnant before graduation and 8 of them were (which was close to half of them).  So sad - we live in a small remote area and I think these girls just wanted to do it b/c it is all they know.  Women become wives and have babies. No one mentions college to them or anything about getting a job.  I make sure my students KNOW they have choices - they may be expected to get married and start popping out kids (I don't agree with this it is just the demographic of our area), but they don't have to.  They can go to college, go to technical school and get trained and earn their own money.

[Crysi]

Hahaha, some one else was reading Perez Hilton!

I saw this last night  and what got me was that one of then fathers is a 24 year old homeless man. This is a little on the messed up side...

[mami1323]

This is so frightening.  You know who will wind up raising these babies...the parents of these girls.  I feel bad for these parents who are basically now forced into taking care of another baby.  

I wish it were legal and parents were allowed to take their underage daughter to the doctor and force them to get depo shots every 3 months.  This way there are no "accidents".

[fungirl1011]

It is so sad to see this kind of article, especially since my sons are this age (YIKES).  In our junior high, there is a class that the kids can take, and during this class, they have to take a mechanical baby home for a weekend.  It registers everytime it cries, is held, fed, changed, that kind of thing.  It wakes up at all hours of the day and night and they HAVE to pay a babysitter if they leave it with one.  I have known a few girls who have done this and it definatley set in reality to them.  In my personal opinion, ALL 8th graders should have to do this for the weekend.  It would maybe cut down on some teen pregancies.  Just thought I would share.  My 8th grade son is signed up for this class, so it will be interresting to see what happens.

[JoyRenee]

This is sad and disturbing. In middle AND highschool we were required to have those mechanical babies. In highschool I also wore an empathy belly under my clothes for a day and people were incredibly mean to me (I was new to the school so they had no idea who I was and that it was for a class).

These girls have NO IDEA what they're in for and they'll find out soon enough, at the cost of their children.

[Mommy3Girls]

BABIES HAVING BABIES IS NOT A GOOD IDEA. GRANTED THERE ARE CIRCUMSTANCES SOMETIMES THAT ARE UNAVOIDABLE, OR THINGS THAT HAPPEN, BUT FOR A TEEN GIRL TO PLAN TO BE PREGNANT JUST TO DO SO...I WILL NEVER UNDERSTAND WHY A GIRL THAT YOUNG WOULD WANT TO RUSH INTO SOMETHING LIKE HAVING A BABY!
Please, if you are a teenager (under 18) and you are reading this, and planning on getting pregnant, even though having a baby is a blessing, remember you have a lot of time to do things for yourself and make sure you are ready emotionally, physically and financially for a baby. Its not quite what you think it is. I am not by any means saying you CANT handle a child, but you have so much more of your life ahead of you and growing and maturing and figuring out things for yourself, before you should ever consider bringing a child into this world. Please think carefully before you make that decision. And....please don't allow a homeless man be the daddy of your child. Make sure you are in a stable happy relationship with a good man that can help take care of you and the baby. Please... just think about it!

[MrsGordon524]

I happen to run 2 homeless shelters for families and I see this everyday. These children (because that's what they are) lack the love, patience, and nuturing that we all need and deserve. Babies having babies simply because they just want someone to love them uncondionally and they need someone in their lives that will never desert them. I spend countless hours counseling young women about this subject. Itry to reunite them with their families. Sometimes it doesn't work because the majority of them don't have families that are worth going back to. So then it's my job to keep the family that has been created together. I try to arrange child care so the mothers can go back to school and get jobs. Just by showing these young ladies a little love I feel that I have made a difference and I also get my clients to make speeches at various youth centers to inform those behind that don't have kids yet that there is another way. If each of us can influence one person and that person touches someone else, we CAN make a difference.

[durhamjk1]

I agree with MrsGordon - as I stated before I am a highschool teacher and I mainly work with impoverished kids b/c of our area.  That is exactly what it is.  Most kids want a baby to have someone to love them unconditionally b/c they have never gotten that love from parent so they want to be a parent to have someone to love them.  I tell myself that if I can make a difference in just one kid's life then my career as a teacher has been worthwhile.  

[Mumita]

I just think that its insane how kids think that having a baby is cool and wonderful and they just don't realize the responsibility that it involves.  I counseled many teenage girls for child care scholarships and they just treated the babies as if they were just dolls and puppies they didn't understand the responsibility of it and then the teen mom's parents were usually the ones to end up being responsible for this child.  
its frightening.

[durhamjk1]

Yes it is and what is even more frightening is when the teenage mother's parents aren't very good parents to begin with.  I have worked with teenage mothers who don't have any guidance at all from parents!

[itcouldhappen]

I watched that on the news lastnight! Girls are CRAZY!!!!

[evthing4reason]

This is just so sad

[Mumita]

the also horribly crazy thing that NO-ONE has mentioned is that these girls are getting pregnant by whom?!?! The only one people are talking about is that 24yo homeless guy.  Wouldn't these girls want to at least choose a good father for their babies, AND are these guys over 18?!?! AND do they know their sexual history, they could not just get pregnant but get a horrible STD like, HIV, Herpes, Hepatitis, Clamydia, Gonorrea, syphillis, warts, who knows?!?!
Seems that they are paying more attention to the girls, but where are the sperm donors?  They are just as responsible for this.

[leighanne143]

what do the glouchester parents have to say about this?  especilaly the parents of those girls.  go figure i live 25 minutes away from that city too.