R-Jeneration: Media portrayal of teen pregnancy raises questions of glamorization

Waiting to check out at the grocery store, you pick up a gossip magazine to pass the time and are surprised to see who made the front cover: teen moms.

In another medium, MTV's reality television series "Teen Mom" follows pregnant teenagers, focusing on the hardships of teen pregnancy and the struggles that occur in a teen's first year of motherhood. It also shows how relationships with family, friends, boyfriends and school change. The popular show has millions of viewers, and the cast members of "Teen Mom" have appeared in magazines including US Weekly, OK! and Seventeen.

With that kind of publicity, is teen pregnancy depicted realistically on TV, or has it been glamorized?

"These teens are getting paid for what they're doing, and they are getting some type of help or support," says Carrie Carpenter, 17, a senior at Legacy High School. "Their experience is on television, so it has to be somewhat staged. Pregnancy is something that you keep to yourself or close ones, not something that you share with the whole world freely."

Adult experts say all the attention could hurt efforts to stop teen pregnancy.

"The media could do a better job, because people are going to do whatever they want anyway," says Michelle Valdez, a guidance counselor at Legacy High School. "They should show the consequences and the reality of the situation."

Amaraini Reyes is a Legacy senior with two children, Greica Victoria, 2, and Aiden Victoria, 1. Reyes participates in Valdez's parent-teen support group, which the counselor started to teach moms and expectant moms about pregnancy, community resources, nutrition and child development. Reyes also speaks to the health classes at her school about her experience with teen pregnancy.

"A lot of people have sex with a boyfriend or girlfriend, and it's so easy not to use protection, but they don't realize in that split second, they pay for it for the rest of their lives," Reyes says. "It's not a temporary thing that you can just wake up to and it not be true anymore."

"I gave up my youth the day I had my daughter."

A typical teen mom's experiences often are stressful, trying to juggle school, friends, relationships and social life.

"Further into my pregnancy, it got a lot more difficult," Reyes says. "I started having to support myself financially, and everything I did was on my own time and my responsibility. Trying to be able to afford all of the stuff for the baby, trying to get prepared for it and going through the morning sickness ... and seeing your stomach grow month after month, having to deal with your clothes not fitting anymore."

"It was somewhat of a depression that you go through because you see that you're not skinny anymore," she says. "You're kind of like, 'Oh man, there's a big ol' belly in here, there's a baby inside of me.'"

She adds that the girls who participate in Legacy's support groups can confirm that pregnancy is nothing like it's portrayed on television.

"Those shows irritate me, because you don't get famous off of that, you don't get popular off of that," Reyes says. "You basically just messed your life up. A baby is beautiful and it's a blessing, but at a time when you're stable in life. Like now, I'm barely finishing high school and graduating. After that, I go back to my normal life, or what people shouldn't be worrying about until they're like 25 -- having a kid, supporting a family. Other people (without babies) get to live it up, party, travel and start college, and I just really can't do any of that."

Reyes says she believes that MTV, at least on the surface, wants to send an anti-teen pregnancy message with its "Teen Mom" show. But with the stars gracing magazine covers for "getting boob implants, or getting cars or beating their spouse, that's just publicity stunts right there. I think it's just really dumb."