Teen Pregnancy

                                 A STORY BY VANESSA

I was relieved to be able to attend an all-girl’s school because the secondary school boys I knew were very aggressive, and putting up with them all day would be daunting. Having an all-boy’s school next door seemed ideal – you could see the boys sometimes over the fence and after school, but didn’t have to deal with them during the course of your studies. Lengths were taken by both schools to keep us from socializing; our break periods and end-of-day releases were at different times, and girls who went too close to the fence or dared to talk to or wave at a boy were reprimanded. However, the St. Martin’s boys were not the ones I truly worried about.

If a girl was absent for more than a week, students would begin to talk. If you missed the first day of school after holidays, rumours would circulate that you were pregnant and not coming back. In some cases the gossip was right, but the rumour mill was so vicious that by the time you got over the ‘flu and returned to school the other girls would be watching you sideways for weeks. You could always tell when a student had quietly disappeared from the school mid-year because there would inexplicably be a lecture on the dangers of bus conductors. Somehow bus conductors were to blame for all these pregnancies and, as many took the bus into town each day, we were all in danger!

The first girl to get pregnant in my class was bright, studious and quiet.  I believe I was in either form 1 or 2, so we must have been 13 or 14 years old. Students from other classes had quietly disappeared, at least one girl a year, and we all whispered amongst ourselves that the girls in OUR class were smarter. When our class DID lose a girl our form mistress talked about the subject, lectured us on the dangers of boyfriends, and begrudgingly confirmed (when pushed) that our classmate would be having a baby and not returning to school. The pregnant girl was talked about for a week or so; some girls from the same neighbourhood claimed she had been taken advantage of by her step-father and for some reason this made it seem better – it meant she didn’t have a boyfriend and had done nothing wrong, and was still a good girl because she didn’t go around with boys. In other words, her soul was safe. However, the girl was still expelled from the convent school and was never seen or heard from again. Nobody called it was it was, namely RAPE. I am sure there were no repercussions for the man who raped her, if indeed the story was even true. After a few weeks the pregnant girl was forgotten and we moved on, but she was a lesson to be learned.

There was no sex education in our school. We did not need to learn of it because we were not HAVING it. The upper forms learned reproduction in biology class, where we focused more on asexual reproduction than sexual. I could draw and label all parts of the flower and explain how it reproduced, but had very little idea what happened to my own body each month. During a form 5 biology test we were given a previous CXC paper, and the paper clearly stated that a drawing, including labels, would have to be submitted with the answer for full marks. Everyone came away grumbling because the question was on reproduction and, because they hadn’t provided drawings, they would get only partial marks. My paper came back with full marks because I had drawn a sperm, with head and tail properly labeled. The other girls were shocked by what I had submitted, that something so simple had been worth full marks.

While we were being taught to be young ladies with good deportment and hygiene, and to dress in a way that did not sexualize our bodies, what were the male students being taught? When a boy got a girl pregnant nothing changed in his life, in fact it proved he was a “man” capable of “breeding” a girl. One day a girl was escorted past our classroom crying, her face hidden in her hands. She was in form 5, it was the eve of her CXC exams, and she was being expelled due to pregnancy. Our principal Sister Maureen was livid; we may have lost friends and classmates, but the school and teachers also lost students, girls who were bright and whose families had gone to great expense to educate them. Sister called an emergency assembly to lecture us about the dangers of sex, and how it can ruin young lives. She wasn’t wrong; this girl would not be able to sit her exams or get a certificate, at least not at St. Joseph’s Convent school! The pregnancy was like a disease, and she could no longer associate with the other girls lest she pass on immorality. Sister was so angry that she actually called the school of the boy responsible for the pregnancy and got him expelled too. We were all amazed, it seemed very modern of Sister Maureen and we inwardly applauded her. But now, as an adult and parent, I wonder what good it did to have them both expelled? It meant that there were two people without school certificates instead of one, and a child on the way too.

Towards the end of my time at the Convent school we lost another girl from my class. We had gone a few years without losing a girl from the S class, and had all but forgotten about our classmate from Form 1. The student in this case was funny and popular, a really bright light and I quite liked her. We were older now, with boyfriends and a better understanding of how something like pregnancy could happen. I was sad that she couldn’t graduate with us and that I wouldn’t see her again. I even went to a shop to buy her a baby gift, perhaps a little bonnet, but left quickly lest the shopkeeper think I was pregnant or, heaven forbid, associated with anyone who WAS. A lot of shame went along with those pregnancies and not just for the girl in question, we were ALL made to feel ashamed of our bodies, our desires and our friendships with the opposite sex.

Teen pregnancies happen everywhere, even to smart girls from good families. I don’t know what became of the Convent school girls who got pregnant; perhaps they were allowed to finish their education at another school and achieved success in a workplace, or maybe they became wonderful mothers and raised a lovely family. Whatever happened to them, I hope they got love and support from their families and the father of their children, because they certainly didn’t get it from their fellow classmates.