The CMA awards and Teen Pregnancy
It is now an American reality, that a growing percentage of today’s adults, were raised by television. Is this a negative or positive? The CMA awards are tonight, so why not bring up so good ole’ country music controversy.
In 2013, this article was published by the CDC regarding teen Birth Rates in the United states:
Two fundamental trends where observed, which where not surprising (Reuters published a similar article in 2010): Teen pregnancy is highest in both southern and rural areas, and it has been for years.
You might have already guessed, but these trends were attributed to a lack of adequate sexual education programs for teenagers in these regions. Are a majority of teens in the rural south just less aware of how to practice safe sex? No? Maybe? So then what else? Well, where do teens (many of whom are now adults) really learn about sex?
The answer may have something to do with entertainment. It doesn’t matter how far out you live in the boonies, the internet will find you. For almost two decades, teens have been surfing the web, exposing themselves to explicit content well before any other traditional means would have prepared them for it. While the content is certainly changing, music has always been present.
Traditional wisdom has also been that young minds attempt to mimic what they are exposed to.
So how does this all tie together? Teens in the urban North are more often listening to hyper explicit content from artists like Tyler the Creator or Childish Gambino, while Southern rural teens are more likely to hear Jason Aldean and Taylor Swift, who are quite tame by comparison. This does not support traditional wisdom. Why are Northern urbanite teens faring so much better in the pregnancy category? Is explicit exposure, better than very little or none at all? Is Yelawolf an effective form of sex ed???
It’s easy to think of this as just a teen issue. But this is not a new, and many of those teens are now adults in their mid-twenties and older.
Thoughts?