North Texas Students Craft Short Films To Share Their Perspective On Teen Pregnancy

“You just see life differently because not only do you have to live for yourself, you have to live for a child now.”

By Courtney CollinsJanuary 18, 2017 9:30 am, , ,

From KERA News

Picking music to score a short film can be tricky. Editors need to strike the right tone without distracting from the message, which in this case, is teen pregnancy, from a students’ perspective.

Zooming In On Teen Pregnancy

Evelyn Morales is a senior at Lincoln High School in Dallas. She and her two teammates are working on a film that compares how unwed mothers were viewed more than a century ago with how teen moms are seen today. She worries that too many high schoolers jump into sexual relationships—and then want out when it’s already too late.

“All of the sudden they want to be teens again,” she says. “So we want to show that being grown is not the greatest thing ever that we should actually wait until we’re married because if not, then we’re just making ourselves mature faster when we’re not even ready.”

Morales isn’t a mother herself but watched her cousin drop out of college after an unplanned pregnancy. Many of her classmates have children too.

“It was kind of tough for them, I know they love their babies but some of them say they should have waited, they should have waited,” she says.

Imagining How A Teen Mom Feels

In another classroom, Melody Howard, who also isn’t a mom, works with three other students on a film that gets inside the head of a teen mom before, during and after her pregnancy.

“You just see life differently because not only do you have to live for yourself, you have to live for a child now,” she says.

And, teen moms have to provide for their children, which isn’t always easy.

“As you’re young, you really don’t have a stable job, or you’re not into your career like you want to be, so you’re not going to have the money,” she says.

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