Teenage pregnancy has been a hotplate issue for many years.

In the past few months, I have scrolled through my Facebook and Twitter feeds, and all I have seen are pregnancy posts and pictures of pregnant bellies.

All of them belong to teenage mothers.

It is heartbreaking to see that some teens don’t understand their whole life will be different. I understand that some are accidents, but there are precautions to take to prevent that, such as contraception. Despite these precautions, some teens believe they are invincible to everything and don’t use them.

It almost angers me to see so many pregnant teenage mothers. The first thing I think is: Where are your parents? Didn’t they ever have the “talk” with you? I believe there are three different types of parents in the world: the ones who are protective and know what’s best for you; the ones who don’t care what you’re doing half the time; or the ones that know but don’t care. 

What’s the rush with having a child so young anyways? Don’t you want to go to college and get an education and a job, then get married and have kids? Those are my goals right now. I wouldn’t be able to financially take care of a child. I have way too many things to mark off my bucket list before I even get married. Once you have a child, all of those things get put on hold. Some young mothers wait until their child is old enough to take care of themselves to go to school.

Adults look down on our generation for a lot of reasons, teenage pregnancy being one of them. It’s a disappointment to see so many young mothers without any support or education. But who’s willing to change the cycle?

Contact Lauren Gump at [email protected].