Capitolweek #540 6/15/01
((Melissa))
Hello, I’m Melissa Crowley. Thanks so much for joining us. Jack Kavanagh will be back next week…
We’ve
gathered together to examine teen pregnancy.
While the Center for Disease Control and Prevention finds that numbers
are down nationally, there are still nearly one million teenagers that become
pregnant each year…
Could more
prevention geared towards males help? Joining
us is Bonnie Erbe from the national PBS show, To the Contrary.
Welcome
back, Bonnie. You were here with us
last fall.
((Bonnie))
Good to see
you, Melissa. It’s great to be here
again, and this time around, we’ll start this discussion talking about teenage
boys.
Most teenage pregnancy programs are aimed at
girls, but some experts say that young men should be the real focus.
I visited
one such program in Chino, California. California,
of course, has the second highest teen pregnancy rate in the nation.
PREGNANCY PREVENTION PROGRAMS FOR YOUNG
MEN
“The parade” as the young prisoners call it at the Heman G.
Stark Correctional Facility in Chino, California…
While here, they go to class, learn business and work
skills, and even gain college credit, but they also learn a lot about social
responsibility and they talk frankly about healthy sexuality…
((Robert Havens, Match Two Program Administrator))
(Addressing classroom full of young men) Prior to you incarceration, what
type of behavior did you have in this area that we’re talking about today? Was it high-risk behavior? Did you use a lot of unprotected sex?
((Randy Ponce, Match Two Program Coordinator))
(Addressing classroom full of young men) Who suffers the consequences? Anybody?
((Estaban Valdivia, Ward))
It all depends because if you got a kid, and you’re the type
that keeps getting locked up, the kid suffers on, you know, missing their
father.
These young men are in their early twenties, but experts
know it’s important to aim teen pregnancy prevention programs at teens and
adult men because teen girls usually have sex with older partners…
In fact, according to Family Planning Perspectives, nearly
two-thirds of 15 to 17 year old girls have partners within two years of their
age. 29% have sex with males 3 to 5
years older, and 7% have partners who are six or more years older…
Despite serious social pressure on young men to have sex,
there are few programs such as this aimed at males…
((Dr. Freya Sonenstein, The Urban Institute))
At the moment, there are hardly any services devoted to
pregnancy prevention services for young men.
The situation is improving, but there’s still very little on the ground.
And
the pressure is harsh as Sean O’Donnell explains…
((Sean O’Donnell, Ward))
Say you’re at a party or whatever. You’re having fun and drinking, and there are girls, and you’re
with your friends or whatever, and they have their girlfriends or whatever, and
they’re doing stuff, and if you’re by yourself, they’ll kind of push somebody
on to you, and it’s kind of just the thing to do.
((Bonnie Erbe, Reporter))
Most teen pregnancy prevention programs are aimed at
girls. Should more of them be aimed at
boys?
((Sean O’Donnell, Ward))
Truthfully, I think the boys are the ones that really need
more of the work than the girls. The
stigma is not on us; it’s on the girl.
If she gets pregnant, it’s her fault; it’s not the guy’s fault.
((Jose Chavez, Ward))
It’s the responsibility of the guy that if he wants to get
in love with a girl, he better think again with the risk of getting her
pregnant or contracting an STD.
((Bonnie Erbe, Reporter))
In your neighborhood do most people feel that way?
((Jose Chavez, Ward))
Nah, uh-uh. They
only think about music, sex, and having fun.
No responsibility at all.
((Randy Ponce, Match Two Program Coordinator))
A lot of them have sisters, daughters, and I want to make
them aware that, you know, they can get out there and they can lay with
anybody, and it’s a cycle that needs to be broken. A lot of them are here because they didn’t have a father. They didn’t have that father, that positive
person, that positive message in their lives.
((Dr. Freya Sonenstein, The Urban Institute))
They also are highly likely to have initiated sex early, to
not use contraception, and, therefore, to be involved in unintended pregnancies
and births, so these behaviors all fit together into a very complex pattern.
END PREGNANCY PREVENTION PROGRAM FOR MEN
((Bonnie))
Melissa, as
you probably well know, three out of four babies in California born to teens
are also born to unwed mothers, according to the Department of Health Services.
((Melissa))
Unbelievable
statistics, and we’re going to talk about in much more detail in just a moment,
but first, let’s introduce our guests…
Joining us
this week with their thoughts on what we can do to solve the problem of teen
pregnancy,
Assemblyman
Herb Wesson, sponsor of the “Male Involvement” bill, 
Republican
Assemblyman Keith Richman from Northridge.
He is also a family practitioner…
((Bonnie))
Also with
us,
Gloria Soto
with the Family Life Department of the Catholic Diocese of Sacramento,
Joseph Ford
with Planned Parenthood,
And Norma
Munroe with the California Department of Education.
((Melissa))
Glad to
have you all with us. Thank you for
making time for us, and, Herb, we’ll start with you. Why did you think it was so important in light of everything
going on at the Capitol to have a “Male Involvement” bill on the table?
((Assemblyman
Herb Wesson, [D] Culver City))
Okay, let
me start by saying this. I’m generally
not that good with statistics, but these are kind of glaring. In California, 59,000 teens have babies every
year. That means that every nine
minutes, a baby is having a baby, and what people don’t realize is that teen
pregnancy affects the entire state. It
affects our education system, healthcare system, welfare system, and criminal
justice system. Thank God back in 1995
the state decided to do something about it, and we created a section within the
Department of Health Services to address teen pregnancy prevention, and it was
very successful. To this point, I believe
there’s been a reduction of almost 30%, so education works. One of the problems, one of the flaws is we
have not spent the funding, the time, and the effort on educating young men,
and that’s what this male involvement program is all about. It educates them and it teaches them about
the responsibility of parenthood and being a father.
((Bonnie))
Norma
Munroe, perhaps you could tell us a little bit about what the Department of
Education is doing? You seem to have a
very widespread program aimed at young men.
((Norma
Munroe, Department of Education))
Yes we
do. We have a very comprehensive teen
pregnancy prevention program that was initiated in 1995-96 out of some
legislation by Senator Locke here, and the focus that project was to delay the
onset of teenage sexual activity as well as to reduce teen pregnancy.
((Bonnie))
How do you
do that?
((Norma
Munroe, Department of Education))
Well, we
were looking at research-based strategies.
In other words, we were looking at what the Center for Disease Control
had just published a report by Susan Filibert on what the characteristics of a
very good prevention program was, and contrary to what we had been thinking
about prior to that, the one shot approach does not work. We needed to have more comprehensive
programs that reflected locally developed implementations and problems that
really reflected the needs of the local community, so our department developed
a program that reflected youth development strategies. It was very comprehensive because, again, when
you’re looking at delaying onset, it’s not just about giving information; it’s
also about changing attitudes, perceptions, and norms, so we do have 37
school/community partnerships in the state, and they serve 450 schools
statewide with approximately two hundred thousand students.
((Melissa))
Gloria,
you’ve been very involved in efforts that have been very successful in terms of
outreach. Do you think that males are
getting the message? Are we doing
enough to tailor the message for males?
Is there a different way, maybe, that they can receive information on
abstinence and education and prevention?
((Gloria
Soto, Catholic Diocese))
I don’t
think it’s enough information. One
of the duties of my position is to visit parishes in twenty counties. It’s very, very big, and I’m the only Hispanic
coordinator, so it’s very, very difficult to provide outreach to so many,
but one of the things I do is to see the needs in the community and then see
how we can assist, and one of the things I find is that we need to bring this
information to parents. Parents are
the ones that are really seeking and begging for the education, and one of
the programs I started is Active Parenting, and it’s also for the teens. One of the problems that Hispanics have is
that we don’t have enough material in Spanish yet.
((Bonnie))
Joseph,
getting back to the male versus female reasons for becoming pregnant, do the
young men that you deal with have different reasons for why they father a child
as opposed to the young women?
((Joseph
Ford, Planned Parenthood))
They have
different reasons because their attitudes are still based on gender socialization.
We really have to start looking at how we view the gender roles, and
the male role is to carry on the line, so that’s the view that they’re carrying.
((Bonnie))
And the
female role is?
((Joseph
Ford, Planned Parenthood))
The female
role is often to nurture and carry on the line as well and have someone to love
as well as be loved as he said. As he
said, it’s about babies raising babies, so that’s my comfort zone as a
female. I would take the baby, and that
would be my zone. I want to add
something if I may to what she said in talking about males. We need to also look at how we’re targeting
males in our marketing strategies because that’s also one of the areas in which
we’re falling short. Our marketing
strategies are still focusing on the female and putting the responsibility on
the female, and we might want to stretch out and go a little further than that.
((Melissa))
Glad you
mentioned that. Thank you. Assemblyman Richman, from your
perspective—you have sort of a dual role here as a legislator and family
practitioner—when a pregnant teen comes to your office, it would probably be
more likely, obviously, to be a female.
When do you think is the best time to do outreach to males, and from
your perspective in the medical field, why do you feel that this may be an
important group to reach out to?
((Assemblyman
Keith Richman, [R] Northridge))
Well, first
of all, when a pregnant teen came to my office, it was always a female.
((Melissa))
(Laughs)
Thank you for clarifying that. I guess
I meant females alone without male support.
((Assemblyman
Keith Richman, [R] Northridge))
No, I think
by that time it’s too late. I think
what you want is to not have that situation occur, so I think it’s important
that young people get educated and that the education starts early. Not only education about pregnancy but
information about the risks of unprotected sex and the health consequences that
can come along with that and all of the rest of the issues that affect the
youngsters for the rest of their lives if a teen pregnancy occurs, whether it
be the risk of dropping out of high school, the risk of not completing college,
the risk of not making as much money as they get older, or the way they may
have a less successful like the way we all measure that as time goes on, so I
think that’s important.
((Bonnie))
Also, I was
going to ask, and I think I just throw this out to everyone. How many young California men know that if
they father a child out of wedlock that they’re likely to make five thousand
dollars a year less than if they wait until they’re in their twenties? And how do you get that message out?
((Joseph
Ford, Planned Parenthood))
A lot of
them don’t know because we’re addressing it as a pregnancy with the female, and
what we’re starting to do now at Planned Parenthood is discuss how it’s not
just a teen pregnancy for the girl.
It’s a teen pregnancy for both of you, and we’re using components to
talk about what the difference is in the financial scale when you graduate and
when you don’t. We’re talking about
paying child support because the attitude with a lot of the males is that the
mom will get on welfare and the system will take care of her, and the male gets
to walk away, so now we’re telling them, “Are you aware that there is child
support that has to be paid and how that is going to function?”
((Bonnie))
Is there a
separate message for the Latino community?
((Gloria Soto,
Catholic Diocese))
Not at
all. The way I address this issue is I
don’t make any difference. It’s for
both. The whole family because the
whole family is affected.
((Melissa))
Yes, it’s
difficult for the whole family. Herb,
we want to get you in this as well because, as Bonnie was saying, there are
some disturbing statistics. The
California Department of Health says that children without a male or father
involvement are at greater risk for pregnancy, drugs, and criminal
activity. Their future looks less bright
than those who wait. How do you feel
that your bill might help?
((Assemblyman
Herb Wesson, [D] Culver City))
Well, last
year the male involvement program received seventy applications, and we were
able to fund twenty-five. What the
program does is identify areas with the greatest numbers of teen
pregnancy. If we could fund just the
seventy, I think you would see a difference of significance.
((Melissa))
So it’s
just a matter of getting the awareness out there?
((Assemblyman
Herb Wesson, [D] Culver City))
Well, we
need additional funding so that we can get the awareness and education
out. Education is the key. To piggyback on something that he said,
unfortunately, we as guys seem to be knowledge-wise behind the curve in
comparison to their female counterparts, so we really need to go out and start
talking to these young men when they’re twelve and thirteen years old in order
elevate their knowledge just to keep up with the young ladies, and up to this
point, it’s been very successful. It’s
a matter of having money, and it’s a matter of having dedicated people like the
ones sitting around this table.
END
DISCUSSION PART ONE
((Melissa))
Okay, we’re
going to continue this in just a moment.
Thank you for those thoughts.
First, we
wanted to hear from some young people on this topic. We recently sat in on a health class at a Sacramento high school.
TEENS ON SEX
((Girl #1))
My parents, I remember, just sat me down, and we had a
conversation about it.
((Boy #1))
A lot of kid’s perception is based on what society tells
them no matter what their parents say.
((Girl #2))
I think teen pregnancy is a major problem for a lot of other
teens out there because I think a lot of teens are ignorant about it.
((Boy #1))
Guys don’t really have as many consequences as girls do, so
it really doesn’t bother them as much.
((Girl #2))
I would never trust a guy because I know that guys don’t
think a lot before they take reactions, and they don’t care. They don’t care about the girl.
((Boy #1))
The peer pressure is, like, you want to be cool or
accepted. You want to be like your
friends. It’s kind of like a
competition to see, like, who can do it more.
There’s a lot of pressure from society to not wait.
((Girl #2))
Both genders have to think about it. It’s a serious problem, the consequences of
sex.
END TEENS ON SEX
((Melissa))
Gloria, I
want to ask you a question. We have a
statistic here from the Alan Guttmacher Institute that says 78% of teen
pregnancies were unplanned or unintentional.
Are we doing a good job of getting the message out that maybe some teens
should just wait? Is abstinence still
part of the picture?
((Gloria Soto,
Catholic Diocese))
I’m in
charge of (can’t understand). These are
the couples that are going to get married, and one of the questions that I ask
is, “How many of you have heard of contraceptives?” Everyone raises their hands, and when I ask, “How many of you
have heard of abstinence,” there are very few hands, and I think that that’s
one of the biggest mistakes that we’re doing.
I think that, as adults, we should be more conscientious about it. Abstinence works. It worked for me. It
worked for many, many of my friends. It
worked for many people in the community, and it’s still working for many young
men and young girls that are practicing abstinence today. I have been involved in a search group where
many young kids are involved, and many of them are still practicing and it
works.
((Melissa))
Is
abstinence part of the curriculum, and what are we actually teaching across the
state? What are the guidelines?
((Norma
Munroe, California Department of Education))
Well, let me explain. The ed code is
there; the California ed code states that, first of all there is no requirement
in the ed code for sex ed or family life ed.
However, the Ed code states that where sex Ed is provided, it should be
abstinence based and also provide for some information on contraception. I think one of the things that we have to
remember is that sex ed or family life education is on a continuum, and,
obviously if you are looking at students who are previously sexually active, we
want to emphasize the need for them to think carefully about what they are
doing and to focus on their education and their goals for the future. However, as teens get older, obviously they
need to have more specific information, particularly to help them avoid very
risky situations. However, the decision
as to what is taught in the school district is really made at the local level.
((Bonnie))
What
information is it that you feel it is most important that young men should be
getting?
((Jospeh
Ford, Planned Parenthood))
I think we need to talk, again as we said, about decision-making. We do talk from an abstinence-based point,
but what we’re not emphasizing with abstinence is why they are abstaining. So, we’re using the “just say no” approach
without saying, as you pointed out, the statistics like the $5,000.00
less. What’s the importance of
abstaining? What’s your future look
like? What kind of future will you be
able to provide for your child?
((Assemblyman
Keith Richman, [R] Northridge))
You know, I
think it’s very important that we teach abstinence, but I also think it’s also
very important that we teach contraception and the importance of
contraception. There are numerous
medical studies that indicate the benefits of teaching contraception in
addition to abstinence only, and I think that we would be remiss as a society
not to teach contraception. There are
too many health concerns, AIDS, HIV, Herpes, and lots of other sexually
transmitted diseases that are not only an immediate concern, but also in many
cases are life-threatening, and I think it’s very important that we teach both
abstinence and contraception.
((Bonnie))
Whose role
is it to talk to young men and boys?
You have a fifteen-year-old son.
Do you think that it’s your role, the school’s role, or…
((Joseph
Ford, Planned Parenthood))
I think it’s both. I think it’s the
parent’s role. I think it should be a
joint effort with both parents making the effort. I think the school should—
((Bonnie))
Even with
boys?
((Joseph
Ford, Planned Parenthood))
Even with
boys?
((Bonnie))
Or should
it be more fathers than mothers?
((Joseph
Ford, Planned Parenthood))
I think it’s both. Because when we talk
about boys, at some point we assume that they’re going to be involved with
girls when we’re talking about teen pregnancy, so they need to get the female
perspective; they need to get the male perspective, and it has to be a healthy
perspective on the sexuality issue.
((Bonnie))
What about
you? You have daughters.
((Assemblyman
Keith Richman, [R] Northridge))
My
daughters felt much more comfortable talking to my wife, but I think it’s
primarily a family responsibility, but I also think it’s important that we not
only teach sexuality in the schools, but also community organizations and media
campaigns. Whatever we can do to reduce
the incidence of teen pregnancies, the health impacts that occur, and the
future impacts on those youngsters is, I think, important.
((Melissa))
If we
don’t, what is the impact on the community in your opinion, Assemblyman
Wesson? Why should, say, the seniors in
the district you represent care about this topic?
((Assemblyman
Herb Wesson, [D] Culver City))
Well, I
think I said at the beginning that teen pregnancy affects the entire
state. When you have individuals that
are uneducated, they have to join the welfare system. That means that grandmother is paying for that. They go to county emergency room hospitals,
and that means that grandmother is paying for that, and if they, unfortunately,
go to prison, that grandmother is paying for that, so this is a problem for all
Californians, and if I could say one thing related to family involvement. Of course, that’s critical, but as I said earlier,
we are talking about babies having babies, so you need to set up surrogate
situations like the male involvement program, so that they can come in and fill
the void left by inexperienced parents.
((Bonnie))
How are
programs aimed at boys different from programs aimed at girls? You talked about discussing responsibility
issues, but how do they differ in other ways?
((Joseph
Ford, Planned Parenthood))
With many
boys, we have to go back and look at their roles as males because they’re
taught that their role is to be sexual, be promiscuous, not just sexual—
((Bonnie))
Who teaches
them that?
((Joseph
Ford, Planned Parenthood))
A lot of
times it’s right at home without realizing what’s being taught with gender
socialization. When a baby is born, the
first question is, “Is it a male or female?”
If a child falls at five years old and skins its knee, there is a
different treatment for a male and a different treatment for a female.
((Bonnie))
There is?
((Joseph
Ford, Planned Parenthood))
Yes.
((Melissa))
Gloria, do
you agree with that?
((Gloria Soto,
Catholic Diocese))
Part of it,
but I think the media, the music—I don’t see that many educational programs or
something healthy on television. As a
matter of fact—
((Bonnie))
You’re not
watching PBS.
((Gloria
Soto, Catholic Diocese))
(Laughs)
Many of the people I work with don’t even have television, and that’s one of
the reasons, and their children are very good students.
((Melissa))
So, Gloria,
how do we get past all that peer pressure and the influences that Gloria talked
about?
((Norma
Munroe, Department of Education))
Well, I
think a lot of the things that we have to think about are those that we can
control. We can’t control the media,
but we can help our children and their parents to develop at an early age the
skills they need to make healthy decisions.
((Melissa))
How do you
think we should start? What does
everybody think of that?
((Norma Munroe,
Department of Education))
Well, the
teen pregnancy prevention program is really a K-12 program, and we really do
have programs in the second and third grade that just deal with character
development, and—
((Bonnie))
How?
((Norma
Munroe, Department of Education))
There’s a
particular program called “Communicative Caring” that focuses on a whole-school
communicative caring approach, and students focus on certain values like
respect, trust, and responsibility, and those are boys and girls, so that they
begin at a very early age to start learning some concepts, and then you can
start building some knowledge basis on top of that.
((Melissa))
We’re in
our final few moments here, so, please, go ahead.
((Joseph Ford,
Planned Parenthood))
Yes. We’re talking about a full package here
because we do have the media, we do have parents, but if we go back to the
original point of children having children, the children don’t yet have the
tools to pass them on down to their children, and that’s where our breakdown
is, so we have to start very, very early with a very direct approach and a very
clear approach to building decision making and critical thinking.
((Bonnie))
Is
everybody in agreement here that we should be starting that early? Assemblyman?
((Assemblyman
Keith Richman, [R] Northridge))
I think teaching values is very important
whether it’s in home or whether we’re teaching values in the schools. I think we need to impress upon our
youngsters throughout this society that these values are important.
END
DISCUSSION PART 2
((Bonnie))
All right,
and the value that I have to get to is the value that we’re out of time.
That’s all
the time. We thank all of our guests
for being with us.
((Melissa))
And thank
you, Bonnie, for being with us again.
It was great to have you.
((Bonnie))
Good to see
you.
((Melissa))
We
appreciate the insight.
Finally, we
want to close with some thoughts from two teen girls. They are both single mothers and have some advice for other
teens.
TEEN MOTHERS
Denisha
is a bubbly teen…
And a mother.
((Maya, Teen Mother))
We feel that we need to have representation in the state.
18 year old Maya is fighting to have teen voice’s heard…
((Maya, Teen Mother))
So that youth will know what’s going on. When they face a problem, they’ll know how
to handle it.
Her efforts to raise awareness, including rallying for
legislation and representation at the capitol have been applauded. Maya knows what’s at stake…
((Maya, Teen Mother))
I actually got pregnant when I was 13, and I had my son when
I was 14, and I don’t want to put the blame on anything, but I feel that with a
lack of education I wasn’t equipped. I
didn’t know what was going on.
While both mothers cherish their children, they stress that
it has been incredibly difficult…
((Maya, Teen Mother))
I don’t want young girls to go through what I went through.
((Denisha, Teen Mother))
On my way home, I’m like, “Thank God the day’s over.”
These young mothers shoulder big responsibility. Both are unmarried, and both believe that if
they had known what was in store, and what the other choices for their lives
could have been, things would be very different…
((Denisha))
Some teens, they think they want to get pregnant, and then
when they get pregnant, they just wish they never had a baby. Wait.
It’ll happen one day, but when you’re young, it’s not fun.
END TEEN MOTHERS
((Melissa))
We’ll leave
you with one more statistic…
According
to the Partnership for Responsible Parenting, if teen birth rates remain the
same in the next four years, California can expect 80,000 children born to
teenage mothers.
Jack will
be back next week.
Be sure to
look for Bonnie Erbe’s show, To the Contrary, which airs weekly on your
local PBS station.
We’ll see
you next time.