That's the incentive behind College Bound Sisters, a program at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro that aims to keep 12- to 18-year-old girls in school and baby-free.
Girls in the program attend 90-minute meetings every week at which they receive lessons in abstinence and the use of contraceptives — and they receive $7 every week they do not get pregnant. The money is deposited into a fund that's collectible when they enroll in college.
But not everyone thinks paying kids to stay childless is the right way to lower the teen pregnancy rate. They say the program sends mixed messages, specifically to parents, that incentivizing good behavior is the way to go.
"It makes me a bit uneasy," said Bill Albert, chief program officer at the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy. "I do have mixed feelings. It's hard to pay people to do something that we think they should be doing regardless. It would be like if you didn't want young people to experiment with marijuana, you'd pay them not to do it."
Despite what he called his "gut-level queasiness" about paying girls not to get pregnant, Albert acknowledged that creative ways are needed to address the "very challenging social issue" of teen pregnancy. - FOX News Story
I agree with Bill Albert, you shouldn't be rewarding kids for doing what they should be doing all along. BUT!!!! In this day and age, we need to do what we can to reverse the trend. We have become a Country of rewarding everything. We have graduation parties for Students getting out of 8th and into High School, shouldn't we expect that? We reward people for behaving in prison. We reward people for not getting a job. We reward people for having many many kids by paying for most of their support, heck now we want to reward people with Health Coverage even if they don't earn it. We reward Immigrants for Illegally coming to America.
We have become a Nation of Rewards.
No comments:
Post a Comment