"Preach the Word,

[I found this article in an email from a non-religious oriented newspaper. So I guess it is not just us preachers who try to warn against the consequences of sin]

It was bound to happen. With the bright lights of reality shows zooming in on every aspect of human life, it was inevitable that someone would create a show about unwed teen mothers. And who better than MTV, which has catered to teen viewers since its creation in the 1980s.

MTV has a history of risqué programming, from racy music videos to the bisexual dating show "Tila Tequila." But its new show, "16 and Pregnant," is no less than a ringing endorsement of a national travesty that robs teens of their youth and contributes to child poverty and neglect.

One of the show's subjects is a high school student named Maci. The cameras follow Maci as she deals with her child, Bentley, and the baby's father, Ryan, with whom she has a rocky relationship. Yet according to Maci, things couldn't be better. She speaks about the fact that her friends are jealous because she and Ryan have gotten their own apartment, and she refers to herself as an "over-achiever" who gets good grades, plays softball and is a cheerleader.

Education
*Only 50 percent of teenage mothers finish high school.
*Only 70 percent of teenage fathers finish high school
*90 percent of mothers under the age of sixteen will never finish high school.
*Less than two percent of women who become mothers before the age of twenty will complete college.
*Lack of education usually results in an inability to get adequate jobs.

Employment
*Teenage parents are more likely to have low status jobs, lower hourly wages or be unemployed.
*The younger the mother at childbirth, the lower her family income will be.

Poverty
*There is a direct link between poverty and teenage parenting. Families headed by young mothers are seven times more likely to be poor.
*71 percent of AFDC recipients under thirty were teenagers when their first child was born.
*Of all families with young children headed by women who gave birth as teenagers, 67 percent live below the officially designated poverty level.
*A study found that only one in ten children in two-parent families were poor while two out three children living in single parent homes were poor.

Future Pregnancies
*Teenage mothers are likely to raise large unplanned families alone. 60 percent of teenagers gave birth before the age of sixteen will be pregnant again before the age of eighteen.

Concerns About Children of Single Parents
*Children of single parents are likely to have lower I.Q scores and are more likely to repeat school grades than children raised in two parent families.
*Children from single parent homes have more physical and psychological problems than children raised in two parent homes
*When children of teenage parents grow up, they are more likely to become teenage parents themselves, receive welfare, or become divorced.

Concerns About Teenage Marriage
*Marriages that result from an unplanned pregnancy often fail.
*At least 60 percent of young people who marry before the age of twenty will be divorced within five years.
*When pregnancy is the major reason for marriage, the failure rate could reach 90 percent within the first six years of marriage.
*Even if a husband is working, it is not likely that he has a well paying job.
*Because the young mother will likely drop out of school to care for her child, she will find herself with no education or job skills.
*Marriage will not solve the problem of an unplanned pregnancy. A good marriage demands hard work and commitment from each partner. This is often difficult for young people still working on developing their own identities.
*If you do not receive support from your family and will not be able to finish high school because you parent your child, consider these facts carefully. It may predict your future life and that of your child.

Hey MTV - how long will the good times last? Sadly, according to the above statistics not very long. It's no wonder, then, that two-thirds of families started by unwed mothers are poor. In fact, the increase in childhood poverty in recent decades is caused almost exclusively by out-of-wedlock births. Think MTV will mention that?