In my latest column for RH Reality Check I talk about the recent news from the CDC that the teen pregnancy rate in the US continues its decline to historic lows across all racial and ethnic groups.

Changes in teen pregnancy rates are always greeted with much media attention, and the narrative tends to be consistent: teen pregnancy and parenting is bad and should be prevented.

I’ve written before about why this is the seductive narrative underneath teen pregnancy prevention: stop kids from having kids, and improve high school drop out rates, poverty, etc. But of course when you dig more you learn that it’s not so clear that teen pregnancy is the cause of these outcomes. It may just be correlated because many teen parents were already at a higher risk for poverty, dropping out of high school, etc.

All of this to say that a drop in teen pregnancy does not necessary mean a drop in the negative outcomes generally associated with teen pregnancy. Some of those teens who would have been parents who are no longer becoming parents (likely because of better access to birth control) might still end up living in poverty, lack access to decent education, face health challenges.

We can’t celebrate a drop in the teen pregnancy rate unless it’s accompanied by statistics showing that young people are doing better overall–particularly those more likely to become teen parents. Perhaps we could celebrate if it came alongside news that low-income parents, parents of color, immigrant parents were all experiencing improved socioeconomic conditions, better education for their kids, easier routes toward income security.

Unfortunately the larger economic forecast doesn’t demonstrate any of these things. Instead, we see the gap between rich and poor widening. We see greater difficulty with job security, increased homelessness, mounting health challenges.

People love to celebrate or fear monger about how many teens are parenting but it’s just a distraction from the real questions for our society to grapple with: how to make sure all young people have access to the tools and services they need to guarantee a successful future.

And on that question I’m not celebrating yet.

Read the whole column here.

In my latest article for Colorlines I examine what impact teen pregnancy prevent messages may be having on teens who end up parenting.

An excerpt

Teen pregnancy prevention initiatives are often based on the premise that teen parenting is an indisputably bad thing and should be avoided at all costs. And as a consequence, teen moms are constantly presented as failures and victims. “I love my life. I’m not gonna mess it up with a pregnancy,” says a teenager at the end of a video on the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unwanted Pregnancy’s website, Stayteen.org.

Prevention advocates point to the fact that teen parents have higher incidence of the range of problems public health works so hard to end. In a document targeting parents of teens, the National Campaign explains:

“Compared to women who delay childbearing, teen mothers are less likely to complete high school and more likely to end up on welfare. The children of teen mothers are at significantly increased risk of low birth-weight and prematurity, mental retardation, poverty, growing up without a father, welfare dependency, poor school performance, insufficient health care, inadequate parenting, and abuse and neglect.”

It’s a compelling formula—simply stop teen girls from having kids, and these disparities disappear. But the question that remains is what’s really behind these negative outcomes? Is young pregnancy and parenting the cause, or it a correlation with other risk factors, like socio-economic status and race, that recur at all ages?

I think it’s an important question because the Obama Administration has invested millions of dollars in these programs, while young parents are often not getting the support and services they need.

Read the whole thing here.