Teens Get $1 a Day Not to Get Pregnant
What teens won’t do for a little spending money! No, not THAT. In fact, the very opposite of THAT. A North Carolina program is paying teen girls to NOT get pregnant.
In addition to attending weekly meetings, the girls ages twelve to eighteen in the College-Bound Sisters are given a stipend of $1 a day to keep their legs closed.
The girls can’t blow their cash at the mall, however. True to its name, the program is designed to get these kids into college, and that means their money is put straight into an interest-bearing account. They can collect when they’re eighteen (provided there are no buns in the oven) to spend the money on tuition.
The success rate so far is close to one hundred percent - meaning almost one hundred percent of the girls stayed baby free AND graduated from college. Not bad considering North Carolina has one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the nation, and the state’s board of education considers its graduation rates a serious problem.
Although paying kids to keep their noses clean harkens awfully close to bribery and does not exactly instill a lot of confidence in their abilities to do it alone, drastic times (or statistics - like those above) call for drastic measures. And the emphasis toward putting this money into a college education - something families need help with anyway - makes this idea infinitely more palatable.
What do you think Babble readers?
Image: KERO
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Tags: college, graduation, Jeanne Sager, parenting teens, pregnancy, teen parents, teen pregnancy
4 Comments
leahsmom commented on Jun 26 09 at 4:05 pm“Although paying kids to keep their noses clean harkens awfully close to bribery and does not exactly instill a lot of confidence in their abilities to do it alone, drastic times (or statistics - like those above) call for drastic measures.”
Why should they have to do it alone? I know that the conservative side says that we have to do everything alone, that society is just a collection of individuals with no obligations to agree on things and cooperate. I don’t agree with that - I like highways, and streetlights, and I like the ideas of a police force and public education and city services like sanitation - even if they’re not perfect in practice.
These girls are likely not in situations where they might get pregnant because of something “they” did. If they are girls from poorer backgrounds, they start out at a disadvantage, and those disadvantages accrue more heavily every year. Teen pregnancies often result from abusive behavior by teen males or older males (many of whom I’m sure are needing help of their own) - and not always from a disbelief in consequences or a mistrust in contraception. So, why should they be left alone without help to face those consequences?
Lisa commented on Jun 26 09 at 8:41 pmThe school district I currently teach in offers daycare for $1/day for its students; I used to teach in the county with the highest teen pregnancy rate in NC.
I have one question. Given that this program was started at UNC Greensboro, given the title of the program, given the picture, I have to ask, is this program only for AA girls?
PlumbLucky commented on Jun 28 09 at 11:26 amI would have to loved to have had this type of “scholarship” available in high school. (It sure seemed to my immature mind that the teen moms were being rewarded for “bad” behaviour with free childcare, a relaxed schedule at the HS, and a scholarship to the local community college just for being a teen mom who successfully graduated HS with any GPA…I look back now and say that these things may have been crafted to help them get off on a good foot, but it still seemed unfair at the time)
PIC commented on Jul 15 09 at 4:42 pmThis program was designed for the younger sisters of teen parents. Hence the name, College Bound Sisters. This is due to the fact siblings of teen parents are at an increased risk of becoming a teen parents. I also hope that this program will be used in other parts of state in the near future!
