Baby Talk

Oh, the glamour!

Wonders never bloody cease, do they? I’ve just been privy to an absurd debate on how the MTV shows 16 and Pregnant and Teen Mom glamorise teenage pregnancy. Shit on a stick, it was like listening to common sense and intelligence spiral down the plughole.

Have these people ever seen the shows? If they have while simultaneously witnessing anything that encouraged teenagers to get knocked up then I’ll willingly let them take their pick of any of my vital organs. I’ve watched the shows since they first clogged up MTV and I’ll be fucked if I can remember a single moment of glamour. In fact all I can remember is broken hearted parents, abandoned 15-year old girls, feckless boyfriends, screeching infants, resentful 3am feeds and fuck all chance of a decent education this side of Russell Grant being straight.

So tell me, which part of this is glamorous?  At what point would any half-sentient teenager watch these shows and think, “what a fucking great idea! If I’m pregnant by November I can be dumped, broke, uneducated and friendless by Christmas. Whoo-oo!”

I’ve even heard the argument that these shows encourage teenage pregnancy. Are you for fucking real? Encourage pregnancy? What, by wooing viewers with graphic scenes of teenagers tearing their vaginas during childbirth? Or by wowing them with the blazing rows they could have with boyfriends who swear the kids aren’t theirs? Look, if this stuff encourages some girls to get pregnant then may I put forward the idea that said girls are unlikely to be chucking away great careers as physicists or diplomats as a result. Instead they’re probably so bat shit crazy that they’re an insult to bat shit.

Problem is, this argument is reeled out whenever any TV show or film addresses the shittier side of life. Chuck a scene about drugs, booze or sex into a show and suddenly we’re glamorising anything from overdoses to abortions. Oh spare me. No fucker ever complains that Eastenders glamorises the soul-sucking boredom of running a market stall on the square you are born and will die on, do they? And frankly, I find the encouragement of the latter way more worrying than the encouragement of the former.

So turn your ire on something a little more deserving, you soothsaying nutbags. When you see a show that rewards pregnant 12 year olds with duffel bags of cash and a shag with Justin Bieber feel free to holler. Until then, try rescuing your common sense from that plughole, if it’s not too late.