High School Student Pretends to Be Pregnant All Year — As An Experiment

Children having children is no big deal in this day and age…unfortunately.

“In her research, she learned that black and Hispanic teenage girls are more likely than their white counterparts — a statistic that’s relevant for the school’s 85% Hispanic student population.”

Are more likely to what?

I’d like to find out more about her research as well……was there any systematic results? and as asked above…..she learn that black and Hispanic teenage girls are more likely than their white counterparts to do what?

What a waste of a senior year.

She just did it to put something on her college applications.

where’s the likely button?

I would be interested to hear what the boyfriend went through for the six and a half months that people thought he had gotten his girlfriend pregnant, and not telling his parents? That’s not gonna be pretty to deal with down the road.

No, she did it because she was required to do a senior project. While I think the fallout from not telling everyone involved (all her family, her boyfriend’s family, etc) may not be too pleasant to deal with, you have to admit that this is a pretty awesome project for a high school girl to do.

Think about it–she’s given her peers and faculty quite a lot to think about in terms of how their words can affect others and how far those words carry. I don’t think something like that is “just something to put on her college application.”

What an incredibly brave young woman! At an age where most kids are desperate to fit in, she actively welcomed the scorn of not only other kids, but also adults in power over her. It’s easy for us to sit here and question her motives, but I don’t think anyone can deny that she has uncommon courage and determination.

If it taught her, her family, her peers, her teachers, etc. a little something about themselves and caused some, even a few, of them to change their actions and words, I’d say it wasn’t a waste at all.

Plus she CHOSE this. Saying it’s a ‘waste’ is denigrating her choice as a woman, as a student, and as a person.

stupid experiment. she wants to presents her findings to community leaders. her findings is that people ridicule her for being pregnant. so community leaders will do things to correct this??? okay, why don’t we just encourage teen pregnancy.

That is incredibly ballsy. Imagine, having to deal with all the crap pregnancy does to you, then, during the fun hormonal issues, you’re hearing all kinds of jerks talking about you. Makes it a lot harder to finish school, no matter how supporting your family is.

It’s a pretty good project – not something that’s been done to death (it’s not a potato battery in the science fair!), and it points out how high school society rips on anyone that gives an opening.

For some reason this story gives me deja vu. I think I remember hearing about a white student doing this a few years back, but it was for a t.v. special or something. Maybe not the freshest idea but still gutsy. Good on her for having the steel.

Why is this gutsy and brave? Her social experiment was to prove what? That we should not ridicule high school girls that get pregnant? Look at the statistics….
By age 30, only 1.5 percent of women who had pregnancies as a teenager have a college degree.
80 percent of unmarried teen mothers end up on welfare
Within the first year of becoming teen mothers, one-half of unmarried teen mothers go on welfare.*
The daughters of teen mothers are 22 percent more likely than their peers to become teen mothers.
Sons of teenaged mothers have a 13 percent greater chance of ending up in prison as compared to their peers…girls that have children, as children are more likely to tap into social services, cost the US over 7 billion dollars, go on to college much less roughly 2/3 of them will not graduate from high school. The principal and superintendent should be ashamed of themselves……….or maybe not, you do get double funded for teenage parents.

First: You don’t approve of teen pregnancy, therefore allowing herself to be looked down on by everyone around her for months required no courage? Faulty reasoning.
Second: It’s perfectly acceptable to ridicule a young woman, one who is probably going through an extremely difficult time, because her chances of what you consider a successful life are lessened?
And third: Why should the principal be ashamed? Should he only allow students to engage in projects that will be approved of by everyone who hears about it?

The fzct that it happens more and more is not the same thing as it being “no big deal.” It is a VERY big deal.

That is the part I take issue with. She didn’t just do this to herself. The stress and issues she put him and his family through was thoughtless and cruel.

Mostly right now I’m concerned about you reproducing and passing on your genes to poor, innocent children, because the complete lack of logic in that comment is frankly alarming. Why don’t you try reading the source article a couple of times and then you won’t make yourself look like an idiot.

uh if there are important details that the OP left out here, that’s a failure of the OP not the reader …

Unless she had spies (aka co-researchers) how would she know what was said ‘behind her back’ she only knows what was said ‘within earshot’ Having conducted research before, I don’t think this would have passed in any legitimate facility, I would like to have seen the impact analysis on the BF’s family. I don’t think there is enough value here, to off-set the amount of cruelty inadvertently placed. I hope the MIL wasn’t knitting clothes, buying gifts, remodeling, etc. Was there anything found that was contrary to an expected outcome, of course people chastised her, in modern, western society, it not ideal to become pregnant too young. Mistakes happen of-course, but as a society, we want children brought up in the most ideal situation possible, therefore society puts pressure on people who fail that. I think this might have been OK if it had gone on for a MUCH shorter time, say a month (2nd trimester reveal).

When does a person stop being a child? When they finish their education, or when they are old enough to have children themselves? It is often said that a girl becomes a woman when she has her first menstruation and a boy becomes a man when he looses his virginity. It seems to be a very gray line these days.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/new-study-finds-blacks-more-likely,18552/

Good for her. :)

I was wondering that too, mare likely to get pregnant? More likely to gossip about them? ????

I get that she’s a brave girls for showing bullying at it’s harshest, but is this article asking us to be tolerant and accepting of teenagers who get pregnant?
I get that bullying and punishing young pregnant girls for their mistakes is wrong, I’m not saying that we should criticize them.
However, wouldn’t “making it easier on them” make having a child as a teenager more acceptable?

I do not approve of teen pregnancy, but I am not going to ridicule people behind their backs because of it!! This is what the experiment was about, people! People making up lies about a thing that didn’t even happen! Welcome to high school!

I think perhaps people are missing the point. Should teenagers get pregnant? Of course not! Are teenagers mean to girls that are? Of course they are! Heck, they’re mean to each other either way! Was Gaby trying to prove any of this? No.

The point is that some of the negative consequences of teen pregnancy – poor educational, career, and thus financial future – are undoubtedly partly due to the stigma that pregnant teens face from not just peers, but teachers and the school system. This young woman didn’t face any of the actual physical consquences of pregnancy: no morning sickness, no varicose veins, none of the many symptoms that might very well degrade her school performance. Nor did she have any actual worry in her own mind about how she would care for her baby in future. However, I am positive that most if not all of her teachers treated her differently.

Many of the results of this study can be drawn from after-the-fact interviews and questionnaires, so Gaby’s own ability to collect data during the year is unimportant. Gaby did have one very important behind-the-scene spy: the principal. He would have been privy to the opinions of Gaby’s teachers and how they may have changed from the previous years. Besides, after-the-fact interviews with the teachers will probably be especially informative, since they will be able to personally evaluate their own reactions. I hope that this research is compiled and disseminated to teachers all over the country.

Damn, Ayn Rand. Sorry there are poor people.

Just kidding (kind of). That just seems harsh, is all. Life isn’t always easy for some people. For some, it can be quite a struggle. But I’ve got a pretty big emotional bias; I’m an adult child of a teen mother.

I see that statistic of teen moms who don’t have college degrees by age 30, but in just my time as a college student I’ve met a lot of women in their thirties and forties (even fifties) who’ve returned to college once their kids are older. These women are ones who’ve put their own lives and ambitions on hold while they were taking responsibility for mistakes they made when they were young. They’re not every teen mom, but they’re some of them.

Like Lynn, I also don’t understand why the principal and superintendent should be ashamed of themselves. Why should they be ashamed about approving a project that may help educate other teenagers about some of the negative effects of teen pregnancy, perhaps so that they don’t become teen mothers? I don’t think any of Gaby’s classmates are thinking, “Aw, that girl I was mean to all year isn’t really preggo! That means the “knocked-up ho” slot is open, and I can do it all hip and legit and Juno-style.” I mean, unless popularity is REALLY important to you, I guess. Any publicity’s good publicity, right? ;)

I think because hispanics tend to go through with the pregnancy and opt out from doing abortions.

It’s about forcing people to question their real values when it comes to teen sexuality and pregnancy. And your last sentence sounds thoughtlessly cruel.

Was that a reference to Portal 2? :)

I definitely wouldn’t have the spine to do this sort of experiment, but it’ll look good on a college application and probably says something about the kind of risks this girl is willing to take.

This reminds me of that movie (and play) “The Shape of Things.” I do feel really bad for people near to her who didn’t know she wasn’t really pregnant, though, like her boyfriend and his mother.

I know the principle of this girl and apparently, the boyfriend lives with her and her mom. Perhaps better research to do would be on permissive parenting. Apparently it wasn’t hard for any of her peers or family members to believe that she was pregnant, and that is was is scary. If you are living with your boyfriend before you even graduate from high school, the road you are heading down is certainly not the college bound road or the morally straight one.

Try reading this article I wrote; it might give you a second glance at the whole “girl fakes pregnacy” thing

What do you choose? To be created equal? or not?

I am created equal; you are created equal, but do we choose to treat ourselves with higher authority than that of another human? We as humans have different opinions and mind-sets about other people; it’s in our nature to put ourselves above others and to think that we’re better than them. I mean we’re only human. But it’s the fact that you and I are humans that makes us equal. We all have the same body parts as the person sitting next to us; we all have the capacity and the ability to be great. They’re a few exceptions though, that we have no control of, or that we take the risk of doing; either way they are consequences that we face that make us or our offspring none-equal in some frame of mind.
We are all created equal but we are given different opportunities which depending on what we do with them will depend on what makes us “unequal” to others. After you accomplish or don’t accomplish that, you are then put in the mindset that we are either better or worse than others; that’s where the problems start. Putting yourself above others changes you in a not-so-positive way, which can lead to other problems later in life.
If we are all created equal then why do we treat other people un-equally? Racism, stereotypes and name-calling are ways of treating people, who were created equal, feel like they weren’t equal, that you’re better than them. But think about this; it’s in our nature to think that were better than someone else, so what’s wrong with doing it? If this were a utopia then we wouldn’t have to worry about this. But since we are made to make mistakes, lie, cheat, deceive and other things that can hurt others; it doesn’t wrong to us until you take a step back and look at it from the recipients point of view we realize the damage done. Did you do the right thing? Did you treat them equal? Are you going to change? These are some questions to ask yourself if you really want to know if you’re embodying the notion that “all men ARE created equally.”
We say that are men are created equal but do we really believe it? That all men are created/treated equal? If you really wanted to make a difference why not go out of your comfort zone and try to put yourself at the bottom of the pyramid. I recently read an article on a girl who was the top of the class and was in line for the valedictorian; but she decided to try an experiment. This experiment was to pretend to be pregnant; she gave up her accomplishments and friends and other things that we value to prove or disprove the stereotype about teenage pregnant girls. She made herself vulnerable to anything and everything to prove a point. “In essence, she gave up her senior year,” principle Trevor Greene says. “She sacrificed her senior year to find out what it would be like to be a potential teen mom.” (Greene) That’s the thing we need to do if we want to be equal; put ourselves out there, show the world that aren’t too many differences between us, that isn’t too hard to treat everyone the same. We can make difference, we can treat people equally, we can be friends with everyone, have no enemy’s. Everyone can be created and treated equally; all we need to do is try.

She’s in high school. Research methods are usually taught in college. Six months is a better time period because it would more accurately reflect the stages a persons feelings transition as her pregnancy develops. Have any of you watched the Sixteen and Pregnant/Teen Mom series on MTV? I love it as a sex and reproduction health educator.

in the old days teens were married and having children at a very young age so why is this such a big deal

in the old days teens were married and having children at a very young age so why is this such a big deal

Yeah, and teens do it like its no big deal and then oops, “look at what we did”, but you shouldn’t have done that at all!