When you see a pregnant girl walking down the hallway, you might think, “Aw, poor girl. She is going to have to raise a baby in high school.” Not me. I bet you would also think that her life is going to be so much harder now that she has to take care of a baby when she’s just a child herself. I don’t.

The topic of teen mother’s in high school having childcare presented to them once they have given
birth is something I do not agree with. Children are raised to deal with the consequences of their actions. Some consequences are positive, such as brushing your teeth and not having cavities. Some consequences are negative, such as speeding and getting a speeding ticket.

Some consequences result in a child. At Har-Ber, we do not facilitate birth control or other preventable methods, such as abstinence education or giving out birth control. Some schools
in this country give out condoms or offer other forms of pregnancy prevention.

Our school should not provide care of unplanned children when the school is unwilling to
hand out something that will prevent pregnancies?

Why should we reward teenagers who decide to have sex and not take extra precautions by aiding them? That isn’t how they should learn responsibility. Giving them this “extra” help isn’t teaching them anything and it doesn’t help them learn from what they’ve done.

In an article, “Should Public Schools Provide Teenage Parents with Daycare?” Grace Chen raises the
question of financial burdens placed on school districts that fund day care programs and the implicit message sent by funding irresponsible behavior.

With school districts facing budget constraints, school day care programs stretch financial resources too thin. Chen writes, “inevitably takes funding away from more deserving students. Since day care programs have to employ caretakers, the cost of running a public school day care can be quite
high—and the funding for this support comes directly out of the school budget.”

Chen points out that school day care might encourage irresponsible behavior. I believe if we allow pregnant teens a facility at school to help them take care of a problem they created, then the
people facing the consequences of their decision are the tax payers and others
who had no voice in their decision.

Consequently, irresponsible behavior is rewarded and funded by the tax payers, and the persons making the poor choices will not learn from them but will find their poor choices subsidized. If negative behaviors are without consequences and even subsidized, what’s to stop persons
from thinking future negative behaviors will have no negative consequences and will be taken care of at the expenses of someone else? Teenagers, even pregnant teens, have to learn from mistakes and take responsibilities for their actions.