The movie Juno was incredibly upsetting to me. The main character had a family that could have helped her keep her son in his family, even though they were not well off. Instead, they glorify giving him away to the rich woman. They should have shown Juno twenty years later when the reality of what she did hit her. To hear people talk it seems like it set keeping children of crisis pregnancies within their families back a giant step.

I haven't seen the movie, so I can't comment on that particular (fictional) family. I do work with teens though & many of them are just not emotionally equipped to be parents. Many of them are themselves the children of teenage mothers & it just seems like a hopeless cycle. I know that some teen moms live in great family environments & will do a responsible job of raising their own kids BUT the fact is (at least in the urban areas) many of these girls have moms who have kids with a bunch of different men, have drug habbits, are negligent and/or abusive to their kids, have never held a job, etc. & many of these girls get pregnant by the mom's current boyfriend or a friend or relative of his. Often there is no ongoing relationship with the father because he's disinterested or in jail.

It's just my opinion, but I think that in this situation, it gives both the teen mom & her baby a better chance for a full life & a brighter future if she arranges an adoption for the baby. Again, there are always exceptions, but this seems to be the norm in the area where I work. It's so sad to see these girls go from being excited and optimistic about their futures (college, career, etc.) to repeating the same hopeless cycle they swore they would never become a part of (single parenthood, welfare, etc.)

Bunnygirl, I couldn't agree more. So often, when someone says "The family should help the mother keep her baby" it ends up meaning "the family will raise the baby while the mother grows up (physically and emotionally)" and maybe when mom is 20 and her child is 5 she will take over. Or maybe by then the child will be so bonded to the grandparents that they will end up raising the first grandchild while mom (now mature, educated, and financially stable) parents her second and future children.

Well I am 18 years old and 20 weeks pregnant as of today and I went to see the movie last weekend. I disagree that the family should have helped. Everyone makes their own decisions regarding this matter and I believe it was a good decision on her part. I am glad that she decided to give her child to someone who was financially stable enough and wanted it so badly rather than attempt to keep it under her parents care. She was only 16 years old in the movie still in high school. She did make the decision to do what she did and had the consequences, however, she did go through with the pregnancy and having the baby. At least a nice woman received it instead of it possibly growing up in an unstable environment with her and her parents and possibly not having all the things it needed. It obviously wasn't able to be provided to it from that family.

This movie did kind of make it seem like it's ok to get pregnant when you're a teenager as long as you give it up for adoption. I STRONGLY disagree with that! I believe that you should be aware of what you're doing and the consequences that follow. Every school has sexual education whether your parents teach you it's wrong or not you are still taught in school and also taught about PROTECTION. In the movie's situation, they did what they thought best but it doesn't need to be every teenager's excuse from now on just because they saw that movie to give a baby up for adoption and not have to worry about it. Think of how the baby will feel when it grows up and wants to know and meet his real mother. It takes an emotional toll on you. Movies aren't what make teenagers, like myself, go have sexual relations. However, they do SOMEWHAT effect decisions made afterwards and I don't believe that they should put the idea in teen's heads that it's ok to do that if that was to happen to them.