parenting ages

[burntcopper]

Just read an au fic where Merlin pretty much adopts Mordred while still in Ealdor and the village colludes with him to say that the mum ran off to the city so that no-one'll be able to point at Mordred as a druid boy (Merlin fortunately having the same colouring as Mordred so it's plausible). Merlin is 19 and Mordred is 5-ish.

I didn't think anything of it. the comments, on the other hand, had quite a few americans going 'seriously? that young?'. thinking about it, I've seen quite a few fics where american readers are going 'underage teens having sex and babies? WHA?' whilst the Brits and Europeans are going 'They're teenagers, it happens, let us show you the stats on underage pregnancy in the UK'.

Am I just getting to see a very innocent sector of fandom or is it merely that the rest of the world is far more matter of fact about the issue of teens and pregnancy? (yes, the tabloids are obsessed, but everyone else is generally resigned to it happening as a fact of life)

Comments

[westingturtle.livejournal.com]

I think it's more that in America teenage pregnancy is seen as getting in the way of the American dream. Kids believe that they have a right to finish school, maybe college, and go off to be rich and famous and successful (and a really scary percentage take the rich and famous part seriously) with a kid, that's a lot less likely.

For parents, everything has a strong foundation in the idea that your kids will have a better life than you will, that whatever you gave up they will have by birthright, and seeing those plans fall hurts. And without any major external accomplishments, teenage parents get swept under the rug. We don't hear about it unless it's in a shock value sense (Oh no! Bristol Palin! etc.) because there's less to say unless you know someone directly. At the end of everything, Teenage pregnancy is looked down upon as basically the end of whatever your plans were, and no one really wants to acknowledge that

So while the statistics are sizable (hello abstinence only education!) awareness is low Teenage pregnancy is looked down upon as basically the end of whatever your plans were.

[westingturtle.livejournal.com]

Also, do you have a link to this fic? You've got me curious.

[burntcopper.livejournal.com]

Huh. Really? The latest teen pregnancy figures are regular tabloid news here, especially if it's 'youngest mother/father on record yet' Teen pregnancy is looked down on (by the tabloids) in much the same way, with harping on about 'drain state/taxes/etc', but it's a regularly discussed subject. Certainly not swept under the rug.

Ealdor (http://shadowglove88.livejournal.com/82700.html#cutid1) (first part of an ongoing, follows on from a previous fic. Not bad so far, and more of an interesting premise than a lot of AUs. Not to mention takes notice of political stuff.)

[westingturtle.livejournal.com]

It gets press when something happens to someone famous (Jamie Lynn Spears, Sarah Palin's daughter) or when something shocking happens (the pregnancy pact thing) but for the most part there's a lot of discussion in high school health classes and whatever talks your own parents give you. Although there is a show on MTV called 16 and Pregnant.

In my high school pregnant girls generally were sent to the special high school down the street for the kids with behavioral or drug problems, where they were just trying to get enough done to get a diploma. One girl refused and graduated with us, but it was a lot of "out of sight, out of mind"

[daegaer.livejournal.com]

I think it's a cultural clash thing, to some extent, with differing ages of consent/differing values at different times creating a Does Not Compute. So when a UK reader reads a Merlin story, they are likely to be thinking age of consent = 16, even though it's set in Fantasyland and Fantasytime, but a US reader may be thinking 18. In both cases Merlin, if passing Mordred off as his own biological son, obviously would be assumed to have been underage for his conception and birth, but not as underage for UK readers. (I once came across an argument that fic written for historical fandoms/books written centuries ago should not attempt to depict marriage ages realistically because that is Not How Things Are Done Now, and people like Jane Austen (seriously) just didn't know any better when she has girls marrying in their teens.)

[burntcopper.livejournal.com]

the major head spin seems to be when the character is stated to have had sex or got preggers *below* the age of 16 (which merlin would have had to have been for this fic). I'm just majorly surprised that they've got a does not compute when it's fairly common.

I hope you laid the bitchslap well and good on whoever was putting forth that argument.

[daegaer.livejournal.com]

Sadly, no comment could persuade the poster from her position that Austen Should Have Known Better and that 18 is the Natural Age of Consent.

It's a rather odd reaction, really, for it to seem so odd to a reader.

[cangetmad.livejournal.com]

And the teenage pregnancy rate is actually higher in the US than the UK.(This data is from 1998, but teenage pregnancies went up in the Bush years.) So, actual reality and cultural acceptance are different things, I suppose...

[cangetmad.livejournal.com]

Oh, hang on, no - that's not teenage pregnancy rates, that's births to teenagers. The rate of abortion for teenage pregnancies in the UK is over 40%, I think, so...