Gerry Garibaldi, Teen Pregnancy and Hope Cottage

We don't normally post on Monday, but every now and then you feel compelled to comment. 

Over the weekend, the Dallas Morning News carried a reprint of an article by Gerry Garibaldi.  The article originally ran in the City Journal, a quarterly magazine that covers urban affairs.  The article is entitled "Nobody Gets Married Anymore, Mister".  For many years, Garibaldi was a screenwriter in Hollywood and is currently a teacher in an urban Connecticut high school.  He points out that all the money in the world can't help what he sees as the main problem in our high schools.

"Here’s my prediction: the money, the reforms, the gleaming porcelain, the hopeful rhetoric about saving our children—all of it will have a limited impact, at best, on most city schoolchildren. Urban teachers face an intractable problem, one that we cannot spend or even teach our way out of: teen pregnancy. This year, all of my favorite girls are pregnant, four in all, future unwed mothers every one. There will be no innovation in this quarter, no race to the top. Personal moral accountability is the electrified rail that no politician wants to touch."

Which makes me glad  Hope Cottage offers free to area high schools and youth groups Teen Education in the form of ABCs of Adoption and TMAP (Teen Mentoring and Prevention).  With these two programs, we talk to teens about choices and how to avoid those life changing choices.  We talk about statistics affiliated with being a teen parent:  child most likely to be raised in poverty... mother mst likely to drop out of school... child most likely to drop out of school.  By the end of this calendar year more than 1,000 teenagers in the metroplex will have been through this training.  1,000 students that hopefully won't end up like Nicole and Jasmine. 

If you are interested in having Hope Cottage present one of our Teen Ed programs, contact Susan at 214.526.8721, ext 215.  There is no cost for the programs.

Hope Cottage is the oldest nonprofit, non sectarian adoption agency in Dallas. Since 1918 Hope Cottage has been building and nurturing strong families through counseling, education and adoption services.



If you have questions about adoption, please call Hope Cottage at 214.526.8721.


If you are a woman facing an unwanted pregnancy and would like to talk to someone about adoption, please call Hope Cottage at 1.800.944.4464 or 214.404.4546.

This Just In!

Wow! Kudos to our Counseling and Education Team here at Hope Cottage - just yesterday they reported that just since 2005, 8,459 teenagers have been through the ABC's of Adoption Education Program. For those of you not familiar with this program, the ABC's of Adoption is a program, developed and presented by Hope Cottage to area middle schoolers and high schoolers so that teens are armed with real world information about the difficulties created by becoming a teen parent for themselves, their families and any real or potential children in hopes that they will make responsible choices for both their future and that of babies they may have. It gives a de-romanticized message about teen parenting and then as a tag, presents a few minutes on adoption as an option for a crises pregnancy.



Many of you read the article in September 2009 (and it has also been referenced on this blog) in the Dallas Morning News that recent findings by the Centers for Disease Control showed Texas to be #1 in repeat teen pregnancies (that means children under the age of 20 having more than one child) and Dallas is #1 in Texas. A couple of weeks ago, when the principal at a local (I will keep them nameless) high school reported to an assembly that their school was #1 in Dallas for teen pregnancies, the entire study body cheered. Yikes!



I won't repeat the statistics for children of teen parents - you can see them in an earlier post, but I think we can all agree that teen parenting is not a good thing. You can be a successful teen parent and not succumb to the stereotypes, but only if you have a VERY strong support system and let's face it, most teen parents don't have that.



This weekend, Girls Living Life on Purpose, Inc. is hosting "No Baby! You Ain't Ready". The organization empowers young women to discover, connect and pursue. Kudos to them!



Most of all, kudos to Brooks Quinlan and Susan Mathews for their outstanding work educating, I repeat, 8,459 area teens in the past 5 years on the cost of being a teen parent.

Teen Pregnancy Rates Right in Our Own Backyard

As Texans, we thrive on being the best at everything. It began even before Texas entered the union as what was then the biggest state and carried on through the days of Friday Night Football and UT championships. And guess what - we are continuing with the "we're number one" attitude - in repeat teen pregnancy rates. Yes, that is right - the state of Texas leads the nation in the number of teenagers having two or more babies before they reach the age of 20. AND, do you care to guess which city is #1 in Texas? - you've got it. Big "D", little "a", double "l" "a" "s". DALLAS.

We can sit here all day and debate all the reasons why teens find themselves pregnant- it doesn't matter. What does matter is that children are having children and they are having more than one while they are still children. Children of teenage parents are more likely to:
1. perform more poorly in school
2. have fewer fine motor skills.
3. have more behavioral problems.
4. be raised in poverty.
5. drop out of school.
6. be incarcerated as adults.
7. be teen parents themselves.

So where does Hope Cottage fit into all this? By offering a free program to area high school and middle school students called "The ABCs of Adoption". This program
de-romanticizes teen pregnancy and also addresses the myths and misconceptions of adoption. Last year close to 1,000 teens went through the program and came out with some great knowledge about what being a teen parent really takes and the fact that adoption is an option for someone experiencing an unplanned pregnancy.

If you are interested in learning more about this program and education programs offered by Hope Cottage, contact Brooks at 214.526.8721, ext. 212.

And for once, let's let another state be number one!