Girl Pregnancy Pact Gloucester MA High School: School Subsidizes Teen Pregnancy (Savers Are from Mars. Debtors Are from Venus. Episode 6)

School Subsidizes Teen Pregnancy

Media Reports Miss the Main Point on Spike in Teen Pregnancies

A large number of high-school girls intentionally got pregnant or were happy to get pregnant at Gloucester High School in Gloucester, Massachusetts.

Earlier reports of a formal group "pact" to get pregnant are now disputed to be a post-pregnancy pledge for the teen mothers to somehow support each other, although the point about the girls' enthusiasm to get pregnant appears undisputed:

"But at a press conference today, Gloucester Mayor Carolyn Kirk emerged from a closed-door meeting with city, school and health officials to say that there had been no independent confirmation of any teen pregnancy pact. She also said that the principal, who was not present at the meeting, is now "foggy in his memory" of how he heard about the pact.

[Gloucester High School, principal Dr. Joseph ] Sullivan has not spoken publicly about the teen pregnancies since he told TIME earlier this month that several girls repeatedly requested pregnancy tests at the school clinic and that some had reacted to positive test results with high fives and plans for baby showers. Pathways for Children CEO Sue Todd, whose organization runs the school's on-site daycare center, told TIME on June 13 that its social worker had heard of the girls' plan to get pregnant as early as last fall. She noted that some of the girls involved had been identified as being at risk of becoming teen mothers as early as sixth grade, when they began to request pregnancy tests in middle school." (TIME)

Various reports blame the depressed, working-class, blue-collar, fishing economy or a poor, anti-social home-life:

""What we've seen is the girls fit a certain profile," Todd said. "They're socially isolated, and they don't have the support of their families."

The Real Point

People with no job prospects and no family support should be trying to INCREASE income and DECREASE outgo. Teen, single, diploma-less mothers are DECREASING their income potential and INCREASING their outgo expenses.

The schools apparently utterly failed to teach math, logic, or home economics.

The schools apparently do manage to teach and subsidize teen pregnancy (according to public radio and other reports):

• The school(s) teaches sex to children: School-district health coordinator Ann-Marie Jordan blamed budget "cutbacks" for stopping sex education after the 9th grade, leaving 'only' the years of sex taught in middle school and freshman year: Exactly how many YEARS does it take to figure out? One pair of unfixed neighborhood dogs or cats should do it.
• The school(s) conducts "health surveys" that ask children to describe their sex lives: Behavioral experts know that people are more likely to do something when you make them discuss, imagine, and visualize doing it.
• The school(s) provides/conducts pregnancy tests on children: Children can see grown-ups' tacit acceptance and expectation of teen sex (and usually failing tests in school is bad).
• The school(s) provides a FREE in-school daycare center for teen mothers: "The high school has done perhaps too good a job of embracing young mothers. Sex-ed classes end freshman year at Gloucester, where teen parents are encouraged to take their children to a free on-site day-care center. Strollers mingle seamlessly in school hallways among cheerleaders and junior ROTC. "We're proud to help the mothers stay in school," says Sue Todd, CEO of Pathways for Children, which runs the day-care center." (TIME)

Gee, can anyone think of where the girls got the idea to get pregnant?

The school is one step away from providing wine coolers and a Jacuzzi.

"Experts" continue to miss the point:

"Dr. Joanne Cox, director of the Young Parents program at Children's Hospital in Boston, said that in-school programs for birth control are shown to be effective, as is education. Upon hearing of the situation in Gloucester, she said that considering birth control distribution in school would be wise. "When 10 are pregnant — that's the time to have the political courage to do it," she said. She added that the lack of easily available birth control — which, she said, pediatricians are often hesitant to prescribe — is "probably the No. 1 reason" for an increase in pregnancies." (Gloucester Daily Times)

1. Basic economics: Subsidize something and you get more of it.

2. Birth control is useless when the girls WANT to get pregnant, which is the reported case with the Gloucester girls.

Maybe there would be fewer teen pregnancies if the schools spent less time and money teaching and subsidizing sex -- and instead spent more time and money teaching math, logic, and economics.

Hidden Burden of Overbuying: Housing Myths Part 6

Previous: Do Not Confuse Houses with Housing: Housing Myths Part 5

Would You Pay $250,000 for a Room?

The Housing Bubble: Historical Growth in Houses Square Feet per Person

4 Reasons People Overbuy Housing--and How To Avoid It

1. Expected Duration of Use: People who borrow, say, a lawnmower are not inclined to scour the city to borrow from the person who has a mower with all the exact, ideal features of the borrower's tastes. However, a decision to purchase often launches people on the slippery slope of pursued perfection to find a mower with the highest horspower and best cup-holder.
2. Timing of Use (Now V. Future): People who make small, instant-total-consumption purchases, such as buying lunch, are likely to buy just enough to do the job. That sizing job gets harder with longer time horizons and increasing risk or uncertainty of how much you will need years in the future. Imagine if you had to buy all your food for the next 30 years today.
3. Uncertainty and Insurance Premium: People tend to pay extra to overbuy as insurance against future unknowns, which is why long-term, fixed interest rates usually are higher than short-term adjustable interest rates over time (overpaying as insurance against future unknowns).
4. Infrequency and Information/Experience Deficit: People also tend to overpay when they do not buy an item frequently and therefore lack cost-benefit knowledge, so they overestimate both their needs and the value of the product, such as the case with choosing a college and buying a college degree.

House purchases are both infrequent and long-term (or at least many buyers treat them as such) and so people are prone to overbuy to compensate against future unknowns. Mission creep adds dens, offices, exercise rooms, decks, and saunas. House size doubles from 1,500 to 3,000 square feet—“just in case.”

Upsizing the house is like buying the $50k camper or boat that you use once every few years. People tend to imagine the temporary time of maximum needed space and then go into decades of debt for infrastructure that is rarely used.

Know Your Life-Cycle Needs

A newlywed couple might go 5 years with no children and even a baby does not require a new bedroom. It is not historically unusual for several children to share 1 bedroom (even boys and girls together). Teenagers tend to need more room but that is why they get drivers licenses and go away to work or college. Long life spans indicate decades of life as “empty nesters.” So, people tend to overbuy the largest purchase of their lifetime based on a brief 5-10 years of peak usage.

The Marginal Cost of an Extra Bedroom

The price difference between 1 house and another house with an extra bedroom might be $50-100k, which costs $100-250k for that 1 room after today's typical finance charges of a 30-year mortgage to pay for it (ballpark figures). If you only truly need the room for 10 years, you are paying maybe $10-25k per needed year for that 1 room (not counting the luxury use of the spare room before and after the peak).

Basic finance rules say that it might make sense to buy what you need daily for 50 years but to rent what you need briefly and occasionally. Another option is the pay-as-you-go method to add-on to a house as needed. Buying and selling houses is problematic both because of the high transaction costs and because of government regulations about public-school districts which can prevent families' smart housing choices.

Do Not Buy Too Early

Why borrow and pay interest for extra space over a decade before you need it? Why not save for over a decade and then pay cash for extra space exactly when the need arises? Do you borrow to finance an extra car when your baby is born because the baby will be driving age 16 years later?

The best financial choice is the opposite of what most people do.

The best financial choice for a lifetime house purchase would be a smaller house geared to the minimum points in the lifecycle (because you will have smaller needs many more years than you will have larger needs), with temporary conversions within the original house dimensions (no additions) to accommodate temporary needs for “increased” space. The Brady Bunch’s Greg Brady made an attic room for himself and today’s smaller families average only about 3 persons each (either 1 child or 1 parent) so that fleeting teenage bubble of demand for space will not require much change.

If you want to live in the “perfect”-size home at each stage in your lifecycle, renting might be the best choice for many of the years.

Your Choice Makes a Big Difference:

How much health insurance could you buy by not spending an extra quarter-million dollars for 1 extra room?

Next: Home Mortgage Tax Deduction Snake Oil: Housing Myths Part 7

Is Your Baby Cost-Free?

How much does a healthy baby or child cost?

Some new parents get carried away so it might be healthy (financially, physically, and psychologically) to remind yourself of the basics.

The true consumption items

• $1,250/yr formula, food, and diapers.
• $0 breast feeding
• $0 for CDC free child vaccinations, or nominal administrative cost.

You will have a US federal tax deduction of about $3k and a tax credit of $1k per child, which means that $1k-$2k of child costs will not lower your previous discretionary income at all. Even with a few pediatrician check-ups, depending upon your health insurance and tax brackets, you might make a profit off your baby.

Play time

Patty Cakes and mud pies are free.

Durable goods

Freecycle.org seems novel only if you are unaware that shared hand-me-downs are the normal way that an entire extended family would outfit new parents for generations.

• Furniture: It used to be normal to use “grandma’s crib,” the one possibly hand-built by your great-grandfather in 1900, the one in which your mother slept and you slept. In between, your aunts and cousins slept there. “A diaper-changing table” was known as “a table” or “a blanket on the floor.”
• Clothing: It used to be normal for children to wear their older cousins' outgrown clothes, and for a younger brother to inherit his older brother’s winter coat (that is 1 coat for 2 children, not 5 coats for each child). Your 2-year-old niece has absolutely no use for her 6-month-old-sized sneakers.
• Toys/books (including educational): It used to be normal to recycle toys, especially the very early baby ones that a more possessive toddler scarcely remembers as “mine.” Unless your family changed language, items such as an older, in-the-extended-family “Jack and Jill” book should be fine.

You might have some cost for new and replacement durable goods but spending a fortune is very often voluntary rather than necessary.

How to turn free or almost free into a $14k/yr loss

Musings on Personal Finance mentions that the average middle-class family spends $4-5k/yr on a baby's first 2 years but remember that is what is spent, not what is necessary. SureBaby.com claims $9-11k for the first year but that includes “baby furniture” and “baby gear.” MSN/Money claims $14k/yr (a quarter-million dollars to age 18) but that is for your “basic upscale baby.”

If you are determined to commercialize your child, you certainly can find ways to part with your money for all these services that the new Mom’s Mom and Grandma used to provide for free:

• $400 to learn how to give birth (Lamaze class).
• $80/hr to learn how to give milk (“lactation consultant”).
• $200-$400 to learn how to play/bond with your baby (“mommy and me yoga” class).
• $300 birth announcements.
• $60 Teletubbies cake.

Voluntary big-ticket items

• Daycare: One reason that the “traditional family” has been traditionally common is because it (including Mom, Dad, Auntie, Grandpa, cousin babysitter) does not need commercial daycare cost. However, people are free to choose non-traditional families and commercial daycare. Look at these 3 real families; one couple chose the stay-home-spouse method to avoid commercial daycare, another couple chose to stagger their 2-job work schedule to avoid commercial daycare (even 2 single parents could make a similar arrangement), and another couple decided that they both wanted to work “9-5” so they chose commercial daycare as a lifestyle choice.
• Education: You can do homeschooling relatively inexpensively (a good encyclopedia CD-ROM provides impressive bang-for-your-buck since even most parents know only a tiny fraction of its knowledge). Public education is expensive but you pay for it through taxes whether you have children or not so having a child does not change your cost much. You can choose to pay for private school in addition to public school. You can choose to pay for college, or not pay and let your new adult son or daughter decide how to spend his/her own money.
• Housing: It used to be normal for young children to share a room or to have a "girls' room" and a "boys' room." Even the affluent Brady Bunch had only 2 rooms and 1 bathroom for 6 children. You also can split a room into 2 rooms with affordable interior walls.
• Vehicles: It used to be normal for 2 families to fit inside a single mid-sized sedan for family outings. Even the extra space for baby-seat regulations does not require today’s smaller families to buy a $30k minivan or SUV—unless it is to fit the $10k of ski equipment and Gameboys.

The "Dog Food Effect": Who is the spending really for?

Spending to provide a healthy, happy child is different from spending to use a child as a billboard for the parents’ ostentation. Babies know when they are warm but not when they are fashionable. Many of us have seen the child who unwraps a present and throws the toy aside to play with the packaging. “Dollar store” toys can be just as astoundingly educational and fun as boutique toys when you are fresh out of the womb—it is all new to you.

Many baby products are examples of the "dog food effect," marketing slang for when a product must appeal to the buyer rather than to the actual user of the product. Choose safety and fun for the child over prestige for the adult.

By the time the child has been socialized to fashions and brands, the child can start thinking about getting a “job” to pay for wants: The “lemonade stand” stage is an important part of education and socialization.