But on one Sunday I noticed one of the DSTV channels was showing a movie titled “Our community school”. I did not watch the whole movie. I only saw a couple of scenes. But these scenes pretty much summarized the movie to a large extent.
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Flipping the narrative on adolescent pregnancy to that of hope from despair [Pulse Contributor's Opinion]
In my home the TV is just a companion. I turn it on just to hear voices while I attend to other things around the house. You will hardly find me seated watching Tv.
Teenage pregnancy
In these scenes, a mother was basically berating one of her daughters, who led a “promiscuous” lifestyle and ended up getting pregnant. She became the black sheep in the family while her other sisters excelled in school, with one even getting a scholarship to study abroad.
The morale of the story I figured was, if you learn hard and be a so-called good girl, you do well at school. The opposite leaves you with an unplanned pregnancy and an eventual blot in your education prospect.
For some reason this annoyed the hell out of me when I watched the young girl cry her eyes out while her mother added insult to injury-- comparing her to her other sisters.
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This affected me so much it made me think about how the mass media’s influence on the younger generation cannot be overemphasized. The media in subliminal or explicit ways shapes the way people live. The impact is even stronger now because of social media. This should cause us to think twice about the content we put out there.
Stories of how unplanned pregnancies ruin one's education and life are constantly told in the media. It is the narrative in movies, short films, features and skits acted out in churches and other national gatherings and yet many more girls continue to get pregnant and dropout of school.
The statistics on teenage pregnancies are still horrifying. In the first half of 2017, Marie Stopes International reported that about 57,000 girls got pregnant. 31 of them died through pregnancy complications.
It is true teenage girls get pregnant and dropout of school. Yes, some have a hard life as a result. But there is another side to this story where girls defy all the odds to pursue their dreams after getting pregnant.
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One early morning in 2009 a 17-year-old girl, who lived across my street told her mum that she had an intense feeling in her stomach. Her mom asked her to describe that feeling and she said she felt somebody was kicking her from the inside of her stomach.
Her mom knew it was pregnancy related but she had to get a doctor to confirm it.
It turned out she was six months pregnancy. Her mother asked her what she wanted to do and her answer was “I want to keep my baby”. Her mum told me.
She then told her daughter about how her life was going to change and how she was going to be there to support her through it all.
Fast forward the little boy she gave birth to is 12 years old now. After giving birth, she picked her life back up. She went back to school, finished her SHS education despite the ridicule from some of her mates and neighbours. She is now a trained nurse.
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There are many more of these stories of how many young girls have overcome all the odds and made a good future for themselves despite having an unplanned pregnancy at the teenage stage.
These stories of young girls’ tenacity and family support should be told too so people will know that it is not over when you get pregnant as a young girl, because guess what? Despite all the scaremongering and the threats of a bad life if pregnancy is not delayed in adolescent girls (which is true in most cases) young girls are still getting pregnant and dropping out of school and losing hope anyway.
The education should continue unabated but we should not paint the picture that there is no hope after they give birth. We should tell the other side of the narrative which is screaming hope and possibilities.
Author: Betty Kankam-Boadu
Pulse Contributors is an initiative to highlight diverse journalistic voices. Pulse Contributors do not represent the company Pulse and contribute on their own behalf "
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