Pet Peeve - Pregnant Overload

Is it just me, or is everyone under 25 pregnant nowadays?

First, it was just my older acquaintances and older siblings of friends getting married and pumping out children. Then an older sorority sister or two. Now it's people my age. Granted I'm four years removed from high school, once a week I log into my Facebook and it's "Oh hey, (insert random acquaintance's name that I haven't talked to since graduation) just had a baby." And I'm talking everyone, from the skank who had sex after the eighth grade breakfast to the tri-sport athlete to the quiet shy person I thought I would be having more sex than at this point (Nerd: 1, Ruth: 0).

Celebrities. Jamie-Lynn Spears. Mother of God she named her kid Maddie. She named her kid a shortened version of another name. A damn nickname! That's a pet peeve in of itself, as is the Spears family, but I could write an encyclopedia of opinions on them. Unfortunately about two thousand other bloggers beat me to it. What a shame.

And it doesn't help that everywhere I turn there's another TV special or show on about it. Like the previews for that new show on ABC Family, The Secret Life of the American Teenager. Thank God. Because I haven't had it thrown in my face how horrible being pregnant at such a young age is enough. Maybe they felt it was necessary to counteract the popularity of Juno.

Side note: Juno. Good, but not as funny as I had hoped. Sure, there were some amazing one-liners ("Whoa dream big!") and Ellen Page is an amazing actress, but everyone made it seem like it was God's gift to cinema. And it seemed like it tried too hard to be anti-stereotypical female high schooler that Juno was at times just like every other disgruntled teen you see, like there are only two types of students, the Populars or the Outsiders. I call that the Napoleon Dynamite Syndrome, when something gets hyped up so much for me and then it's a letdown.

Whatever the reason, I know that ABC Family will make an accurate portrayal of a pregnant American teen. (Have you seen GREEK? Holy shit, those sisters of Zeta Beta Zeta are just like mine!) You know it's going to be the Great Student With College Aspirations, with her Older But Immature In Denial Boyfriend and her Sad-But-Ever-So-Supporting Family. The Distant Confused Dad and The Emotional Wreck Mom. Insert flashback montage of Mother and Father with lovely Daughter as a child. Hopes and dreams just CRUSHED. "But we're going to get through it as a family. We'll go shopping at Wal-Mart and I'll tell you stories of you as a baby. I'll buy you the beautiful crib you can't afford because you're sixteen and can't keep your Abercrombie jeans on and we'll have a beautiful tearful embrace to a Gavin DeGraw song."

Thankfully my friends aren't overly promiscuous so we haven't had any pregnancy scares. Right now we're just waiting for the few of us in serious relationships to get engaged (and the rest of us who are single, well...we're waiting for the bachelorette parties). It's others I'm scared for, the children (not unlike my 15-year-old sister's friends) who are over-sexed and think that having a baby is glamorous or will solve any emotional problems (Classic Maury clip). For every Gilmore Girls situation, there's going to be another ten with the parents constantly screaming at and slapping their kids at the grocery store. Teenage pregnancy went down for so long. Now it's going back up and I'm going to have to educate these unwanted children in a couple of years. Guess who can't wait.