The state has an alarmingly high teen-pregnancy rate, but the Governor’s Council on Adolescent Pregnancy, formed in 1987 to bring it down, recently announced some cheering statistics. The number of pregnancies among Maryland girls under 18 fell 13 percent between 1988 and 1990 (more recent data are not yet available). And while the birthrate among the state’s 15-to 17-year-olds remained steady from 1988 to 1989, nationwide it rose 8.4 percent. The success is due, in part, to Maryland’s taking a variety of approaches to the problem. Funding comes from both public and private sectors. There are community-based efforts to involve parents; incentive grants help local programs. The state also targets both genders, rather than putting the burden on girls: it enlists coaches and men from the community to go into classrooms and teen centers to talk to boys about sexual responsibility.
Kids respond to programs where they feel comfortable and not preached to. The Young People’s Health Connection, a clinic in a Baltimore mall, looks and feels like a teen hangout. Kids can get sexual counseling or condoms-or just watch videos. At Baltimore’s Family Place, counselors encourage self-esteem and challenge the cultural acceptability of teenage parenthood. “When you have self-esteem you think of your own future,” says 18-year-old Cheryl Lynn. “A child is a real drawback.” The most high-profile statewide program, Campaign for Our Children, uses classroom lesson plans and a multimedia advertising campaign to encourage abstinence among 9- to 14-year-olds. (Its most arresting image: a billboard with the word VIRGIN spelled out in 10-foot-high letters, and a tag line: “Teach your kids it’s not a dirty word.”) Middle-school students in Easton carry around “babies,” five-pound bags of flour, for a week and discuss the responsibilities of parenthood. “We tell them it’s not fun and games,” says Sandra Johnson, a teacher at Lemmel Middle School, which used to have four seventh-grade pregnancies a year. After the program began, it had none.
Abstinence is a lesson often lost on older adolescents, so for those 15 and up, programs emphasize birth control and safe sex. Still, there are formerly sexually active teenagers who now abstain. For some, it’s the fear of AIDS. “I used to be a hit-and-run type of guy,” one says. “I stopped because of that disease.” Others realize that pregnancy can derail their dreams. “No sex, no nothing, is worth me not holding those [college] degrees,” says Lynn. In Maryland, kids seem to be learning that heaven-or, at least, babies-can wait.
