RECENTLY a strict and old-fashioned grandmother discovered that her sixteen-year-old granddaughter, whom she had reared with great care and with what she thought was absolute protection against untimely sexual activity, was shocked to discover that the young girl had become pregnant, even as she was attending school.However, she resigned herself to taking care of the infant, even as she had taken care of her grandchildren when her son had been tragically murdered, and her great-grand-daughter is now the apple of her eye, but she still mourns the responsibilities thrust upon her granddaughter through her sexual proclivity when she had struggled to provide the young girl with an education that could provide her a good life where she could become self-reliant in the future.

This was a child who had been provided every protective and educative opportunity by a doting grandmother who was nevertheless a strict disciplinarian, yet what she most feared occurred and her granddaughter is now burdened with unplanned and premature single-parenthood; which begs the question: Where did she fail?

What she did not realise was that the more a child is sheltered from the realities of life the more vulnerable that child is to the predators in society.

Education is the key; but that does not take into consideration the flaming emotions of an adolescent, maybe caught up in the passions of the moment. It is therefore imperative that parents and caregivers recognise that, while abstention until adulthood is the ideal, sexual misadventure is not always preventable so the most basic protection should be made available whereby consequential pregnancy could be avoided.

During colonial times some schools were segregated – with boys and girls attending different institutions of learning. However, that was a logistical nightmare, especially for parents who had to ferry several school-aged children; so the status quo was changed over recent years.
Not every teenager is as lucky as the teenager with the grandmother who was ready to take responsibility for her as well as her offspring’s care.

The dire consequences are there for all to witness in Guyana’s social landscape.
There was a time when entire communities oversaw the activities of the children as a collective caregiver unit, so the proclivity of youngsters to engage in self-destructive acts was very curtailed and contained to rare and minor incidents.

Not so anymore, but the only solution to this anomaly in society is a restoration of the community spirit and the standards of yesteryear, where the activities of anyone’s child came under community scrutiny and consequential curtailment, which may not completely eliminate, but will go a far way to reduce teenage pregnancies.