Teen Pregnancy in Salinas

by Sarai

I live in Salinas CA, a small town which is surrounded by agricultural fields. A big problem that has been occurring for many years is teen pregnancy, which more awareness should be occurring.  

My mother got pregnant of my brother when she was only 13 years old, here in Salinas, which she says that there used to be day care help for mothers who were still attending high school. When she was about 15 years old the day care program in campus closed, because the teenagers were having more children, and there was not enough funding, which lead majority of the mothers to drop out of high school.

Now there are programs like Planned Parenthood, Sunrise House, and Postpone to raise awareness in this area. But why is it still a problem? Teenagers know about these prevention programs, but majority of them are concern of confidentiality and overall to receive help. I interviewed a teenager who is now pregnant, and asked if any services were offered before she began having sex, but her response was that “my parents never talked to me about sex, or would not want me to ask about it either”. The fault was not because the parents were not open minded, but because they were not open to the subject, and not  educated enough to educate and speak to their child about the consequences and never less the programs they could use.

Therefore, I believe that programs should not just be open to the children, because majority are not aware of the consequences, but rather educate the parents to be open about the talk of sex to their children and to provide them the services. These teen parents are children themselves trying to grow up to be parents, prevention should be taken from home.