The Great Recession hits Teens

It has been a long, hard couple of years for everyone. Layoffs, overtime, fruitless job searching, and unemployment payments. Unsurprisingly, the Great Recession is hitting the summer job market as teens and college students are finding it harder and harder to find employment.

Employment among 16-to 19-year olds in May grew by just 6,000, the smallest increase since 1969, when teen jobs fell by 14,000, according to government data analyzed by employment firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. In May 2008 and 2009, teen employment grew by over 110,000...

Jobs traditionally given to teens are apparently going to older workers who are willing to take low paying job to make ends meet.

Clearly, steps taken by the Obama administration and Congress are not doing the job. And issues created by the Gulf Oil Spill - decimating tourism and the fishing industries in the South - are likely to make things worse. It time for a change in direction... just in time for the 2010 Congressional Elections.

Teens disrupt Trumbull Mall

Yeah, I admit it. This is only posted because it happened nearby my own location. But it is proof of what happens when you combine high unemployment with rainy weather - teens with nothing to do will find something to occupy themselves. "Idle hands are the devil's tools."

Hundreds of teenagers became embroiled in a melee and were ejected Saturday night from the Westfield Trumbull mall after harassing customers and exhibiting "rowdy and disruptive behavior."

That resulted in a 17-year-old Bridgeport youth being stunned by a town police officer after charging and knocking the officer to the ground outside the mall, police said.

Here's hoping 2010 is a better year for the economy, so these kids can have better things to do with their time.

Teen Pregnancy and Abortion

An article about the upswing of student pregnancies at Gloucester (Massachusetts) High School has me thinking about pop culture and the current impact on abortion. Since Roe v. Wade, pop culture has been pushing the mantra, "pregnant and don't want to be, get rid of it". With the rise in celebrity pregnancies and movies about less than ideal pregnancy situations, could the upswing be that abortion becomes less tolerated by our nation? Or are we moving towards an era where teens get pregnant and have babies because they're "fun" and college+ adults get abortions because they're "convenient".

25% Of Female Teens Have An STD

Wow is all I can say. Using the numbers from the article, it would appear that approximately 1 in 2 female teens have had sex and of those who have, about 1 in 2 have some kind of STD.

About half of the girls [studied] acknowledged ever having sex; among them, the rate [of those infected] was 40 percent... For many, the numbers likely seem 'overwhelming because you're talking about nearly half of the sexually experienced teens at any one time having evidence of an STD,' said Dr. Margaret Blythe, an adolescent medicine specialist at Indiana University School of Medicine and head of the American Academy of Pediatrics' committee on adolescence.

Sadly, I only expect this number to rise as we continue to teach that everything is someone else's fault and everything is morally permissible so long as you deem it so.

I have to admit I have this thought regularly