My inner Daily Mail reader
Yes, within me lurks the sort of devil that might read the Daily Mail. The sort of person who, when confronted with images of vulnerable, poorly educated people enduring harsh social disadvantages, might say: “They shouldn’t be allowed to breed.”
This inner devil came out for about 20 minutes last night, at the start of the second instalment of Channel 4’s The Hospital, made with loving attention to detail by independent producer North One.
Last night’s ep was all about teenage pregnancy. Like that of a girl who was overweight to begin with, who retained water like the proverbial melon during pregnancy and who smoked throughout the 40 weeks. She insisted on being “asleep” while she gave birth but it was only after the safe delivery of her baby daughter, at a cost of more than £10,000, that medical staff conceded she was probably scared, rather than just full of “attitude”.
So by the end of the programme and having watched the experiences of several teenage mums-to-be becoming mums, that inner Daily Mail reader was back in its box as the complexity of all those girls, their families and the NHS staff who help them came into focus. Our friend, watermelon mum, summed it up as she turned away from her own also overweight mother towards her new baby while saying in voiceover that she wanted to start afresh, with her own family and nothing to mess it up.
As a midwife employed to work with teenage mothers suggested, ours is not to stand in judgement about the rights and wrongs of teenage pregnancy. But of course we do, and the UK has the highest rate of teenage pregnancy in Europe.
This programme aimed to show what that means for the NHS and its staff but it works just as well as a sex education film, to be shown to girls and boys aged, say, 14 upwards in schools. Each of the three teenagers who were most on camera last night started out saying they wanted a baby. Watermelon girl and her boyfriend started trying after they’d been together for one month. But once they’d had their babies, all three young mums agreed they’d advise other girls their age to “wait a bit” before doing the same.
April 17th, 2009 at 10:43 pm
I have a similar sort of Devil, the Sun, but I only read it on the counter at the kebab shop. Does that count? It’s sort of a monthly affair - but disgusts me enough not to bother until the next time. As for teenagers..they frighten me now I’m past 40…..