What a crock of crap! Teenagers have sex because they can. Teenagers have always had sex, even before t.v. Do they have more because they see it as o.k. because Hollywood chicks have babies without being married? Some. It really just boils down to the fact that pregnancy is more socially acceptable now and teens are horny. One thing that makes teens have more babies is the fact that they know that they can have government assistance. Where is the downside for them when they know they can get free prenatal, free hospitilization. Free baby formula, free innoculations, food stamps, AFDC checks if they don’t name the father, possibly free housing, free daycare and free pre-kindergarten? Don’t fool yourselves, they aren’t worrying about whether your tax dollars go to take care of them. They look at as everybody else does it, so it must be o.k.

And I’m not convinced that we we looked closely at the situation, we wouldn’t find a causal relationship. No, I’m not predicting that every girl who watches SITC will become a slut, or that every boy who watches “Psycho” will become one.

Then it’s not causal. It corralative.

Teens are more likely to get preggers of their friends are having babies, also. My daughter was in a strict boarding school for 4 yrs. w/o any access to any of this stuff. she had 2 kids and just turned 20. Of the 15 girls on her cheerleading squad, NINE have had at least one baby. FOUR have had TWO. In her grade and the one directly above and one below, 27 girls have had babies already. This is an affluent group of girls, from pretty good families. Over in Alabama, at the school where my friends kids go to school they have had a massive explosion of pregnancy. Does watching sexy shows make more get pregnant? I guess maybe a small few. However, like I said before, seeing real people in Hollywood, and in the music biz getting pregnant and staying single, they say hey, I can do that. They don’t think about the fact that people like Nicole Ritchie can afford to buy baby stuff. They just don’t worry about it. They know someone will take care of them, or else the government will.

That would be incorrect, Kenny. There can be “statistical” causes–100% correlation is not required to prove causality. For example, not all smokers get lung cancer, but it is a fact that smoking does cause lung cancer. Same thing with obesity and heart disease, or drinking too much sugar and diabetes. Doesn’t happen to everyone, but that doesn’t prove that there is no causality.

Rather, what we have here is an argument “Factor X is likely to increase the likelihood of behavior Y by Z%.”

There are numerous studies, by the way, that do show clear changes in behavior, especially among the young, in communities as they got television for the first time back in the 1950s and 1960s.

Now I’m not in favor of government making all the rules here, but I am in favor of parents acting on what ought to be obvious; what you watch influences how you will act. Hence, if Junior is a SITC or “Psycho” junkie, maybe Mom and Dad need to take him aside and sketch out some different viewing habits.

Telling and restricting a kid’s access to certain TV programs should not be any more difficult than telling them you don’t go find the local “Seven-Eleven” and stick it up, because it is there.

watching Sex and the City, and being being an annoyingly dim person.

You got that one right.

A lot of worn-out middle-age women like to sit around and do these things and vicariously live unfilled lives through their daughters. They go out and shop with their children, try to be hip with their children, and most detrimental, absolve their children of bad behavior because try are convinced they missed something like this in youth.

The sooner they realize that full-fulling their youthful fantasies and desires versus becoming an adult, and being a responsible parent is more important; the more good kids we will have.

Damn, I agree with you again. That’s twice now.

The other possible correlation that I thought of was, kids who lack supervision are probably more likely to have sex and watch sexy shows. The cause is probably parenting.

This was a study by Rand, not the Gubment. So why do you say, “Nanny State” in the headline? Are the Republicans trying to censor these sexy shows?

Frankly, I think this research is useless. Sure, it found a “link” between teenage pregnancy and sexually-themed television, but let’s remember that correlation doesn’t necessarily imply causation.

You’re wrong, Rob.
Simple.
I you don’t think what people surround themselves with effects their thinking, you should think more on it.

My inlaws raised two kids with severe restrictions on TV. And, they are far more polite people, with far stronger attention spans than otherwise would be.
If you don’t think Sexual content in the mix is any problem, how about just telling your young girls that behaving in an overtly sexual maner all the time is normanl, and totally excepted behavior.
Raise your own that way. Not mine.

keep this post away from ole Don Quixote AKA Knee-high-man. this’ll make his nanny stating head explode.