Scenario 2 - Teen pregnancy

Let’s say you’re a teenage girl. You know your parents will take care of you no matter what happens (Contrast that to the familiar American phrase: “I was kicked out when I was 16.”) and your oh-so-cute boyfriend is pressuring you to have sex. To make things realistic, let’s also point out that real marriage is acknowledged after the birth of the first child, and that means a HUGE party in your honor. And also, your mom will raise the child. So once you finish breastfeeding the tiny squishy adorable little doll, you can resume your own life however you wish. Now, that paints an unfair portrait ofr most women in Palau, but the idea here is to consider TEEN pregnancy, so I’m using my words to show a sort of "worst-case scenario" of the consequences a teen would (or wouldn’t) face in the event she followed her boyfriend’s lead and had a tumble in the jungle.

So, what IS the worst-case scenario?

You get pregnant, have a party, you’re now a woman, with a husband and you can visit the baby on weekends if you really want to. What are your parents going to do? Shame on you, now I have so much more work to do. Let’s have a party to celebrate. Who receives the consequences? Could you argue that the parents should be guiding the girl through good and bad choices, therefore they ought to face somewhat equal consequences? What if the parents in question aren’t present because the teen herself is being raised by her grandmother – who clearly didn’t get the message across to her child? Or maybe this is her 2^nd chance and she’s more likely to emphasize that lesson in this go-round? Or maybe she’s ready to give her own daughter a taste of her own medicine?

Or maybe the Palauans are onto something – I keep hearing new grandparents say, “If I had known how much fun grandkids are, I would’ve skipped having kids and gone straight to grandkids.” I think that summarizes this cycle pretty well. But what if the result isn’t pregnancy? How does that change when the problem becomes HIV/AIDS? What’s the motivation for abstinence? Or is there any?