In the news this week is a story about a company, Forever 21, that is launching a clothing line for pregnant teens and young women. This is stirring up an intense controversy. In my mind it is much like the idea that toys in Happy Meals cause fat kids.
The "Love 21 Maternity" line, according to Larry Meyer, executive vice president of Forever 21, is focused on their customers who are eighteen and older. They have opened the line in five states, three of which (Texas, Arizona, and California) have the highest teen pregnancy rates. Because of those states, the accusation, according to the story on www.foxnews.com, is that Forever 21 approves of teen pregnancy. Meyer states that it is just coincidental about the three states.
Now I will admit to being a devout capitalist. I support people who develop a product and find a way to market it successfully. In my thinking, if they saw those rates of pregnancy and said, "hey, there is a market for our designs," there is nothing wrong in that. It is a long way from saying, "let's design some great clothes so more kids will get pregnant."
I am also a devout "parents rights" person. But that works two ways. I want the government to stay out of the home and let parents raise their kids in the best way for their own family. However, that means that parents have the responsibility to make good decisions. Parents need to do all they can to prevent teen pregnancy, rather than just hide in a closet and hope it doesn't happen to their kids.
To continue with my first analogy, clothes don't cause pregnancy, people cause pregnancy. Just like toys in kids meals don't make kids fat, irresponsible parents that won't say "no" do. And I have more faith in our teenagers than that. Teens don't get pregnant because of cute clothes. If they deliberately get pregnant, there are bigger issues in that child's heart than what they are wearing.
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3 comments:
Pat, I couldn't agree more with your message! People are looking for an easy way out... they're like: "blame others, so I don't have to do anything"... that's a lazy mentality that has caused the many challenges that we see today.
Clothes and Happy Meal Toys are the last thing we should be focusing on.
Great message!
Excellent piece. If someone doesn't already have a solid sense of rights & wrongs in place--presumably presented at some point by elders, or at least learned from someone--it makes no never-mind what they wear, what they eat, or who they know insofar as what they will, or won't do. This IS an easy way out to say a certain behavior is caused by external forces.
I'm excited to learn that this store will start a maternity line. In this world of dwindling families, maternity clothes are hard to find sometimes. Wal-Mart no longer sells maternity clothes at all, which baffles me. Don't they market to the lower-income segment of the population? Doesn't the lower-income segment of the population generally have more children?
Forever 21's market is 18 and over? I see no problem here. An 18-year-old can get married and have children within the bonds of matrimony. I was 19 when I wed, and we started having children when I was 21. We will celebrate our 6th anniversary in just a few days :D I guess it could be said that the 14-17-year-olds will look up to their 18-year-old peers, but that is up to the parents to provide them with some guidance.
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