While your BFF is pinning wedding dresses to her Pinterest board and your grandmother is asking when she’s going to get grandkids, you’re probably busy deciding if you should go for Chipotle or sushi for lunch today.
When you try to explain to distant relatives that you’re not ready for kids right now (or ever) they tell you that you’re just saying that, and things will be different before you know it. Meanwhile, you get to see sixteen year old chicks on TV with one tit out feeding their baby as they Facebook message the runaway baby daddy.
The bad news? Your older relatives will probably never stop hounding you about making babies until you actually make them. The good news? The teen pregnancy rate is going way down.
Yep, finally teenagers are not being complete idiots. The teen birthrate had a 61% decline from its peak in 1991. Studies even cite shows like MTV’s Sixteen and Pregnant as part of the reasoning behind the decline. If you’re not in high school anymore? Don’t worry, college birthrates have declined too.
In fact, the years for baby booming have changed completely. While there was once a time where nobody would bat an eye at a girl rushing into marriage and children at 19 years old, the new average baby booming years are for women in their 30s and even their 40s.
Why? I don’t know, I mean maybe women are realizing that they can take the time to get a career, travel, and do sh*t that they want before popping out babies?
While some people are still concerned that 40% of births were out of wedlock, maybe it’s just a sign that times are changing. Regardless, the most important thing seems to be that teenagers are having less unplanned pregnancies. Now they can go back to writing love notes (texts?) to their crush and working jobs at the mall like the rest of us did in high school, phew.
This post, It’s Not Cool To Be 16 & Pregnant Anymore, by Ashley Uzer, appeared first on Galore.