They can linger over photographs from the wedding of Leah, 18, and Corey, 20, twins in tow (Us Weekly, April 4). They can follow the exploits of Jenelle, 19, whose mother has custody of her toddler, and who was videotaped beating up a girl (TMZ.com, March 25).
And they may be mighty curious about some of the girls’ seemingly enhanced looks. A headline in the April 11 In Touch Weekly, quoting unidentified pals, warns: “Teen Moms Addicted to Surgery.” It said the girls are “falling victim to the pressures of fame.”
Certainly MTV’s so-called “sister shows” — “16 and Pregnant,” as well as “Teen Mom” and “Teen Mom 2,” which follow some of the girls through early motherhood — have received swipes for glamorizing teenage pregnancy, and conferring girls-gone-wild celebrity on their stars.
But that is not how Megan Clark, who teaches family consumer sciences to high school students in a small Kansas town, regards the programs. They have become a popular element in her freshman life-skills classes, and in parenting courses for older students.
“They’re sucked into the drama of it,” Ms. Clark said, “but they see that they don’t ever want to be in that situation. I talk about abstinence first and foremost, but I listen to them, so I know they’re not abstinent. So the show offers a good opportunity to teach them about condoms and birth control.”
With DVDs and episode discussion guides distributed by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, public-school health educators, church-group leaders, clinic nurses, social workers and parents are using the shows to prompt discussion about sex education, family and romantic relationships and shattered dreams.
In her classes, Ms. Clark notes how MTV’s teenage mothers try to manage school, sick babies, sleep deprivation, rent, errant boyfriends and rearview glimpses of their carefree lives. “Then I ask my students to make up a budget if they had to live on their own with a baby,” she said.
Truly, parents, this is good news. “The biggest debates are over how the girls disrespect their own parents,” she said.
On last week’s reunion special of “Teen Mom 2,” Dr. Drew Pinsky, hand holder to the reality-TV stars, raised that question with Jenelle and her mother, Barbara. The daughter had been videotaped shoving her mother and stealing her credit cards. Was Jenelle lovable? Dr. Pinsky asked. Teary-eyed, exhausted, Barbara replied dully, “No.”
Ms. Clark said that in her class she asks students: “How do you treat your own parents? If you were put in that situation, how would that affect your relationship with them?”
Ms. Clark and other educators say they have never been criticized for using the shows. (The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy has distributed 3,000 DVDs and guides to Boys and Girls Clubs of America chapters alone.) But she said that she didn’t want to test limits by showing last December’s episode, “No Easy Decision.” In that half-hour special, one teenager who has an infant becomes pregnant again. After much agonizing, she and her boyfriend chose abortion.
The MTV episodes, which went on the air in June 2009, show high school girls far along in unplanned pregnancies. Some are good students and pretty, popular cheerleaders; some are self-described party girls. Some come from financially comfortable, two-parent homes; others from homes riven by divorce, alcohol and severe economic stress.
Scenes can be tender, harrowing or headshaking. Relationships among relatives, between the couples, and with the girls’ erstwhile friends change throughout dewy pregnancies, tested by dirty diapers. The third season of “16 and Pregnant,” with 10 new girls, begins April 19.
Despite the tabloid derision and paparazzi attention that are almost a necessary byproduct of reality TV shows, the impact extends far beyond their ratings triumphs. (The season finale of “Teen Mom 2” on March 29 drew 4.7 million viewers, and was the top-rated show that day in the 12 to 34 demographic.)
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