16 and Pregnant, I'm Having Their Baby: Does TV influence reality?

From I'm Having Their Baby

I have been trying to think of what to say about the news that came out yesterday about how the MTV show, 16 and Pregnant, has led to a decline in teenage pregnancy in areas where teenagers were watching more MTV programming--not only 16 and Pregnant--than in areas where they did not.

The cautionary tale of diapers and derailed dreams that 16 and Pregnant features appears to have turned teen girls watching off from having a baby. The teenage birth rate in areas where

N. Korean adoption bill wins Demon in Adoption

Lorraine

As far as I can tell, the Demon in Adoption award goes to the U.S House of Representatives for "for fast-tracking H.R. 1464: North Korean Refugee Adoption Act of 2011, a measure that in effect by-passes the limited safe-guards in place in international adoption, to bring North Korean children to the U.S. for adoption." The House won the prestigious annual Pound Pup Legacy award by a margin of four votes, 71 to 67 over Oxygen Network. (One  reminder that everyone's vote counts. In every election. )

Oxygen, of course, was a close second for producing the "absolutely horrendous show "I'm Having Their Baby, a tasteless, manipulative, coercive, and intrusive" reality show that peeked into the lives of vulnerable women trying to cope with an unplanned pregnancy. Oxygen was my choice but I did not vote, due to not

Cast Your Vote for Your Favorite Demon of Adoption

Mitt Romney

Halloween is the last day to vote for your favorite demon. No, not Mitt Romney, but one of the nominees in Pound Puppy Legacy's (PPL) annual contest to select the Demon of Adoption. Romney, who threatened a young unmarried woman with excommunication from the Mormon Church if she didn't surrender her baby, certainly deserves a vote but, alas, he's not on the ballot.

PPL's Demons of Adoption contest mocks the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute's Annual Angel in Adoption Award. Created to raise awareness of children in foster care needing homes, it has become  "an adoption industry love fest lauding agency executives and adoption attorneys simply for running a business." Past angels include convicted child molester Jerry Sandusky, since stripped of his halo.

Does one adoption spawn another? Too often for comfort.

Jane & I bought the same black stone washed jeans independentl

As many of the comments regarding the previous post about "I'm Having Their Baby" centered around whether or not adoptees are more likely to give up their babies than the non adopted, I wanted to follow up and am posting below a section of the memoir I'm working on that covers that very issue. The court case in which I first heard of any adoptee also being a mother who surrenders occurred in 1976, and that is where this section begins:

'I'm Having Their Baby' turns into 'I'm keeping MY baby'

Lorraine

I'm Having Their Baby is yet example of how a thriving business (adoption) can spawn one television show after another, especially when around every corner is someone searching for their 15 minutes of fame, even if 13 of them are spent in tears.

The Oxygen channel (started by Oprah, now owned by NBC Universal) features this latest weep-fest for the weary, and lord knows, I am tired of stupid television shows that appear to glorify or encourage adoption. I say "appear" to because I am not sure that this one does because the mothers-to-be spend a lot of time with the blues: Claudia hates her baby daddy--he has six other kids by four women, and he cavalierly indicates he might fight her for custody, which you know at the time he says it that he is just being a shit for the camera and his ex, who is only weeks away from giving birth.