The negative stereotype that teen mothers are irresponsible is commonly depicted in popular fictional television shows. One popular show that revolves around this stereotype is The Secret Life of the American Teenager. Shailene Woodley’s character Amy Juergins falls pregnant the summer before freshman year of high school by a bad-boy drummer she met at band camp (Hampton). After everyone at Grant High finds out that Amy is pregnant from sleeping with Ricky without a condom, immediately the blame is put on Amy for not knowing better, despite it being her first time (Hampton). Eventually Amy has the baby and begins raising him with her fiancé Ricky. Another popular fictional television show, Degrassi: The Next Generation, also depicts the negative stereotype of irresponsible teen mothers. Manny, who is 14 years old, has sex with her boyfriend without a condom and discovers later on that she is pregnant (Moore). Unlike Amy, however, Manny decides that the best option for her is to get an abortion (Moore). The common idea between the two shows that teen girls only become pregnant because of the irresponsible decisions they make is a harmful general assumption. If teen mothers are only depicted becoming pregnant from lack of contraceptive use, then others will believe that the general assumption is true. In reality, Advocates for Youth reported that only 23% of sexually active high school students stated that they used no contraception or relied on the pullout method. The other harmful general assumption that these shows create is that teenage pregnancy most often occurs to younger teens. However, in 2014, 73 percent of teen pregnancies were to 18 and 19 year olds (U.S. Dept. of Health & Human Services). With television shows depicting teens getting pregnant early in their high school careers, society assumes that that is the norm, when in actuality most teen pregnancies occur to older teens. The assumptions that television shows make promote negative stereotypes because they do not cover all experiences of teen pregnancy, and the ones that they do cover judge younger women for being young and irresponsible for getting pregnant. Teen mothers are also viewed by society as bad mothers who are incapable of taking care of their children because of the negative stereotypes promoted by fictional …show more content…
As depicted by a British PhD research project, 20 teen mothers were interviewed at various times after the birth of their child, and all 20 mothers that participated in the study said that felt stigmatized by the general public, with a majority being able to recall specific situations that ranged in severity (Yardley 674). In addition, the women said that they felt stigmatized by the media, because of how the British media unrealistically portrays teen motherhood (Yardley 675). This study shows that the portrayal of teen motherhood in the media, whether British or American, actually affects real teen mothers’ experiences, and that even the teen mothers believe that there is a problem with the way they are represented in the media. Regardless of the stereotype, some teen mothers figure out ways to be successful in their own lives while simultaneously raising a baby. An article by Valerie Williams, a writer for Oxygen, lists 10 celebrities that were teen parents. One of these celebrities, for example, is popular actress Sofia Vergara, who had her son at the age of 19 (Williams). Sofia is just one example of a teen mother who was able to find success while also experiencing motherhood. Despite the amount of success stories of teen mothers, television producers do not depict success because there is not enough drama to be entertaining. As a result, society believes the stereotypes in television shows and does not consider the other possibilities of the situation, causing uncalled for judgement of teen