Ron Reigns:
Welcome and thank you for joining us on Birth Mother Matters in Adoption with Kelly Rourke-Scarry and me, Ron Reigns, where we delve into the issues of adoption from every angle of the adoption triad.

Speaker 2:
Do what’s best for your kid and for yourself because if you can’t take care of yourself, you’re definitely not going to be able to take care of that kid and that’s not fair.

Speaker 3:
And I know that my daughter would be well taken care of with them.

Speaker 4:
Don’t have an abortion, give this child a chance.

Speaker 5:
All I could think about was needing to save my son.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
My name is Kelly Rourke-Scarry. I am the executive director, president and co-founder of Building Arizona Families adoption agency, the Donna K. Evans Foundation and creator of the You Before Me campaign. I have a bachelor’s degree in family studies and human development and a master’s degree in education with an emphasis in school counseling.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
I was adopted at the age of three days, born to a teen birth mother, raised in a closed adoption and reunited with my birth mother in 2007. I have worked in the adoption field for over 15 years.

Ron Reigns:
And I’m Ron Reigns. I’ve worked in radio since 1999. I was the cohost of two successful morning shows in Prescott, Arizona. Now I work for my wife, who’s an adoption attorney and I’m able to combine these two great passions and share them on this podcast.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Ron, why don’t more pregnant teenagers choose adoption?

Ron Reigns:
They haven’t heard our podcast.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Good answer. Well, research shows that adoption is the least prevalent choice among pregnant teens. Research indicates that one to two percent of teenage girls place their children for adoption and the number of teens who place their babies for adoption have declined sharply over recent decades. This is very interesting to me because my mother was a teenage birth mom.

Ron Reigns:
Certainly.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Statistics and research surrounding pregnant teenagers is not only interesting to me because of my personal experience, but professionally we see very few teenagers come into the agency. Now, I will say that out of our birth mother clientele, our numbers are higher than one to two percent. I would say that we … just a rough estimate, I would say five to 10%.

Ron Reigns:
Really? That high?

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Yes. And again, that would range from 13 to 19. The youngest that we’ve seen come in is 13, and then she was 14 when she placed, obviously on up and it’s hard. It’s hard to see the young girls coming into the program-

Ron Reigns:
Going through that tough life situation.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Correct.

Ron Reigns:
… and making these tough choices.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Again, you’ve got to hand it to them though for making such an amazing choice at such a young age.

Ron Reigns:
Right.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
That is one of the reasons that this podcast, this particular podcast is special to me and really hits close to the heart because my mother was one of these. Births to teens in 2017 statistics are showing us that teens 15 to 19 years old account for five percent of all births in 2017. That has really declined since 2009. Now people have speculated as to the reasons why. Why is teenage pregnancy going down? Is it because of MTV show, Teen Mom? Is it because of what we’re doing in the high schools and we’re doing more sex ed? Is it because we are, as a society, being more conscientious about birth control? I think it’s attributed to a lot of things. I don’t think it’s just one thing in particular. I will say that I do credit MTV for the show Teen Mom.

Ron Reigns:
Do you really?

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
I do.

Ron Reigns:
Okay. I’ve never watched it so I couldn’t …

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
I do. I have watched it and I watched it when it first came out and I still watch it every now and then. And I will say that, yes, it’s a reality TV show, but I have had my teenage girls watch episodes with me and I will say that they’re able to relate to the teenager, minus the mom aspect and that being said, that’s not something that they want to do. And so, they’re able to identify with the teenager and say, “That’s not a life I want to live.”

Ron Reigns:
Right. They’re not glamorizing the whole … I mean, because just the name alone makes you think, oh, they’re promoting the idea of being a mom as a teenager-

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
No.

Ron Reigns:
… and they’re not.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
I don’t think it comes across like that at all-

Ron Reigns:
Good.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
… at least in my interpretation.

Ron Reigns:
Right.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Additionally, they have a couple on the show who I would very much like to have on our podcast, Catelynn and Tyler and they chose adoption for their first child.

Ron Reigns:
All right. I’ll make some calls.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Yeah, absolutely. And Catelynn and Tyler if you’re listening, give us a call.

Ron Reigns:
Please.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
We’d love to have you on the show. They let the audience walk through their adoption journey with them and afterwards and it gives teenagers a perception of if I do get pregnant, what does this look like and who am I going to be at the end of my adoption journey and how is it going to change me? And so when you look at pregnant teenagers, I think that everything we’re doing as a society is pushing the lower pregnancy rate.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
But I think where we need to go now is to focus on adoption over abortion when teenagers do get pregnant because that is something that we still need to increase those numbers. When teenagers choose to parent, research has shown us that there are unfortunately some negative consequences for both the mother and the baby. Generally, they have completed less education, live at a lower socioeconomic status level and have poor health than other teenagers that do not have an adolescent birth, due to their lack of maturity because teenagers are still children. We don’t let a 15-year-old drive. Looking at a teenager and thinking this child can parent is really something that I think we need to explore more as a society. You have to be 18 before you can vote, but as a teenager you’re still able to make a decision on-

Ron Reigns:
Not just your life, but the child’s rest of their life and how they’re raised.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Not only the rest of their life, if they even can have a life.

Ron Reigns:
That too.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
And so I think that we really need to focus on, again, education, education, education, because the more we know, the better we will do. I think when a teenager finds out that they’re pregnant because they are still a child and they do have a lack of maturity, when it’s time to have them make a judgment call and a decision on something so significant, we’re taking … Again, we won’t allow this very child to vote, but we’re going to allow this child to make a decision on whether they’re going to parent, have an abortion or place the child for adoption. When you’re looking at the scales of justice that’s incredible.

Ron Reigns:
It’s ludicrous is what it is. I really have no words for it.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
You’re speechless.

Ron Reigns:
I am completely speechless. I don’t even know what to say-

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Right.

Ron Reigns:
… because you’re absolutely right. I wouldn’t let my son go to the park alone until he was well into his teens. And now it’s just like, okay, you’re making a major decision in your life.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Well, let’s go back. Let’s look at that. I think that’s really important. Why wouldn’t you let your son go to the park?

Ron Reigns:
Because obviously the safety reasons that’s first and foremost. Everybody has been, since the 90s anyway, afraid somebody was going to take your child while they’re at the park, so safety is definitely a big one. But also, I like being near him to see the choices he’s making and those aren’t life and death decisions. Those were are you going to bully a kid or are you going to act some way that I would be ashamed of?

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Or are you going to allow yourself to be bullied?

Ron Reigns:
Right.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
And so what you’re saying, if I can summarize it, is, is that you at let’s say 15 didn’t trust your 15 year old child to make every decision independent of you.

Ron Reigns:
Right.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Agree 100%. I do the same with my children.

Ron Reigns:
You want to watch them make the decisions and of course you’re trying to get them to a point where they can make those decisions on their own, but that’s what your job is as a parent is to help guide them-

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Because they haven’t reached adulthood.

Ron Reigns:
… while they’re developing.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Correct. But that’s why this, as you said, is so ludicrous because we’re talking about teenagers and we’re saying that in some states they’re able to make a choice independent of their parental influence or permission to have an abortion.

Ron Reigns:
Right.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
We are allowing them to, in some cases, completely parent the child on their own, underneath the household of their mother or father without supervision maybe and we’re not educating on adoption as an option.

Ron Reigns:
It’s such an amazing choice that they could make and so many of them aren’t presented with that and I know that firsthand. I mean it was out there, but it wasn’t something that I thought was something I could’ve done back then.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Statistics are showing us that roughly 30% of teenage pregnancies end in abortion. Again, statistics change depending on what source you’re looking at. But if we look at this and we say 30% end in abortion, so out of 10 that … or out of 100, let’s do this-

Ron Reigns:
Right.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
That is 30. One to two go to adoption, so 68 to 69 babies are being parented by teenage children.

Ron Reigns:
Right. Who are still being raised themselves-

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Correct.

Ron Reigns:
… in theory.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Right. They have a curfew and they have maybe so much TV time, so much social media time and we are entrusting them to not only make the choice of somebody else’s life, giving them that in their hands when they themselves are just a child. I think for teenagers when they choose to parent, I think a lot of the reason that they choose to parent is because they don’t have education on adoption. They don’t have real education on abortion either, other than it’s presented as a quick fix. They may have parents or grandparents that are saying that they will help co-parent the child. They’re living on planet fantasy and they’re looking at baby clothes and talking about having a baby shower and how cute the baby’s going to be and the name and they’re thinking maybe this will keep my boyfriend with me and we’ve been having issues lately and maybe he’ll stay with me. Whereas, statistics are showing us that 8 out of 10 dads don’t actually marry …

Ron Reigns:
Right. The statistics-

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
… the mother of the child.

Ron Reigns:
… don’t bear that out. Certainly.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
No, absolutely. And the scary thing is, is that a sexually active teen who doesn’t use contraceptives has a 90% chance of becoming pregnant within a year.

Ron Reigns:
Wow.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Teenagers are often at the height of fertility and just once can be all it takes to end up with an unexpected pregnancy. That is terrifying. I have teenage girls and teenage boys and I will say that although my teenage girls and teenage boys are not sexually active, but if they were, I would not trust them to even be responsible enough to take a birth control pill every night.

Ron Reigns:
Right.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
I would still be there-

Ron Reigns:
Use a condom or whatever it is.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Well, and just the pill on a daily basis.

Ron Reigns:
Yeah. Oh that’s … yeah.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
And so if I can’t trust them to take a birth control pill, how would I trust them to raise a child or make a decision that impacts the life of a child?

Ron Reigns:
Right.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
We’re doing a disservice when we withhold education because of fear that it will lead to something else. In other words, adoption is not openly talked about in high schools as a seminar, neither is abortion. They are focusing on abstinence, which is great. We all as a society would love kids to be abstinent.

Ron Reigns:
Ideally.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Unfortunately that’s not reality. I think that instead of us as a society living on planet fantasy, we need to be in planet reality and really look at, okay, this is what’s really happening. What can we do to make the best of where we are today? We need to open our eyes and be present. What’s your take on that?

Ron Reigns:
I think you’re absolutely right and I do think we have closed our eyes too, because it is, it’s hard to talk about things that make you uncomfortable. The idea of my son at 15 years old having sex was like, you just want to put blinders on-

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Unimaginable.

Ron Reigns:
… you really do.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
It was unimaginable.

Ron Reigns:
Right. And it’s like if I don’t talk about it, maybe it’ll just go away and it won’t happen and I’ll get lucky. But you can’t count on that luck.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
That’s planet fantasy.

Ron Reigns:
That’s planet fantasy. Absolutely. You’re absolutely right, so I agree with you.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
And having been a school counselor, I will tell you, teenagers are having sex and we need to open our eyes, like you said, instead of closing it and thinking it’ll go away. I mean it’s there and we’re not doing anybody a good deed by withholding education that in my mind is imperative. If we talk with our kids and the schools, educate them on sex ed, I think that in some aspects is a misnomer way. You’re going to teach certain aspects of sexual education, but that’s only giving part of the picture. We’re not getting the whole picture. We’re saying we want to focus on don’t have sex, don’t have sex, don’t have sex, which is a good thing. Don’t have sex.

Ron Reigns:
But it’s going to happen.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
But if you do, let’s talk about-

Ron Reigns:
… the aftermath, the consequences and the decisions you have to make.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Yes. Because if you’re going to be adult enough to make the choice to have sex, you have to be adult enough to understand and have been educated in what the long-term ramifications are for you and possibly your unborn child.

Ron Reigns:
Right. And that’s what we as parents of these children and educators and everybody else need to provide for them instead of just blinding ourselves to it.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
I also think that when we as parents don’t talk with our kids more and we don’t have that open line of communication, we’re doing a disservice not only in our household, but in other households as well. What I’ve always tried to do with my kids and I by no means am saying that this is what everybody should do, I try very hard to keep a very open line of communication. I talk to them about everything. I will often use a term, okay, amnesty, whatever you’re going to say next you’re totally off the hook for it, let’s just go there.

Ron Reigns:
This is off the record.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Yes.

Ron Reigns:
Right.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Yeah. We’re landing in Switzerland and we are going to stay there-

Ron Reigns:
No judgment.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
… for the next five minutes.

Ron Reigns:
If possible.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Right. And in doing so, my kids have often opened up about what they’ve seen, what they’ve heard, what kids are doing at school and I think it’s scary. I think times are very different now than they used to be because when we were younger there wasn’t the social media presence there is now.

Ron Reigns:
Right.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
There wasn’t the child trafficking high rate that it is now and I think a lot of that is due to probably social media, the access that predators are able to get to children-

Ron Reigns:
Right.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
… through social media. I think that that’s a huge danger. I think, in my opinion, a lot of the drugs that are prevalent right now in society are factoring in to some of teenage pregnancies because some of these are really serious. I think as a society we need to focus on what’s important. Life is what’s important. Teenagers getting pregnant, it’s going to happen. It’s happened for centuries.

Ron Reigns:
Right.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Although the numbers are decreasing, the numbers that are being placed for adoption are also decreasing. So rather than focusing solely on abstinence, why don’t we do a shift and focus on abstinence? Make that the biggest aspect. But then let’s focus on the consequences of engaging in teenage sex. If you wind up pregnant, what are you going to do?

Ron Reigns:
I agree. And I also think that what you do as a parent is important too. Because as you talk to your children, I think that it causes a ripple effect to their friends and so they’re going to be more open with their friends than perhaps some of their friends’ parents are with them. And so maybe they’ll get some good influence outside of your circle. You know what I mean?

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Absolutely.

Ron Reigns:
And by what you’re saying to your kids and talking with them about and I think we should do that as parents and as people in a society. We try and give a good influence to the younger generation and hopefully we do some of that on this podcast.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
I would like to have, in the future, one of the people that we interviewed that calls into to be a teenage mom and really talk about what that looks like.

Ron Reigns:
Right.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
I know that we have had some teenagers that chose adoption and came through our agency and placed their baby for adoption and to me those are some brave kids that are mature beyond their years. The fact that they were able to make the right choice does restore hope in humanity in my mind and I think that we need to really focus on that and we really need to look at the sex ed materials that are being presented at the high schools.

Ron Reigns:
See if they need to be changed.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Absolutely. Because right now we are solely focusing on abstinence and maybe giving very little to … I know they do some birth control. It’s minimal. But we’re not talking about what happens when birth control fails.

Ron Reigns:
Thank you for joining us on Birth Mother Matters in Adoption, written and produced by Kelly Rourke-Scarry and edited by me, Ron Reigns. We also want to thank Building Arizona Families, the Donna K. Evans Foundation and the You Before Me campaign. A special thanks goes out to Grapes for letting us use their song I Dunno as our theme song. You can check out our blogs on our website at azpregnancyhelp.com and you can call us 24 hours a day with questions or comments about the podcast or adoption in general at 623-695-4112. That’s 623-695-4112. Make sure to join us next time on Birth Mother Matters in Adoption for Kelly Rourke-Scarry. I’m Ron Reigns. We’ll see you then.