Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Having a baby should be a wonderful experience, right? You meet the right guy, get married and then have a baby. However, it wouldn’t be a bed of roses if you were to get pregnant at the mere age of 16, unmarried, and still in high school. It would be truly tough to go through with it – bearing the heavy responsibility and also enduring the humiliation.

Anyway, in the movie “Juno”, Juno MacGuff is 16 and a junior in high school. She sleeps with her boyfriend, Paulie, and I guess they forgot to use a condom. Therefore, she got pregnant. Oh, what to do, what to do? Tough decisions to make. To keep the baby or to abort it, those are the questions.

She certainly can’t keep the baby and take care of it. She also almost wanted to abort the baby but gave up on the idea. Later, she and her friend, Leah, looked through advertisements in the Pennysaver where people were interested in adopting children. Finally, they found the perfect couple who could be the baby’s new parents.

Juno tells her family that she’s pregnant and they’re absurdly calm about it all. Juno’s father also follows her to meet the potential parents, Mark and Vanessa. Mark and Vanessa seem like nice people although I felt Vanessa’s kind of like an uptight person. Mark’s more laidback and he’s friendlier with Juno. Both of them are into music and guitars so they get along well.

I feel that Juno’s really lucky because she has a supportive father and stepmother and best friend. However, her boyfriend, Paulie did not do much except hang around, waiting for Juno to find him. He’s supposedly in love with her. But then, it seems that she has decided that they stay away from each other and has even suggested that he go to prom with another girl. She then gets upset when he does ask the other girl out!

Do I feel that this is a good movie or a bad one? Well, it all depends. It could be a good movie for those who are already pregnant. Yeah, abortion is a sin. Nobody should ever go for it but those without a choice are forced to do it. If not, they won’t be capable of taking care of their own kid. What’s worse is that they might even just dump their baby somewhere. So, this movie could help pregnant teens make the right choices.

On the other hand, it doesn’t mean that you should get pregnant when you’re just not ready for it. If you’re still in school, not financially secured, no guarantee that your guy will always be by your side to support you, then the best thing to do is to just avoid having intercourse.

For Juno, yes, she made a mistake with serious consequences and she had to deal with it by herself. She had to face the embarrassment in school as the girl with the big belly. She’s still as sarcastic as ever and speaks her mind when she wants. Juno’s a strong girl and she got a happy ending. Her baby’s got a happy home. Problem solved.

It’s only a movie and we shouldn’t think that things will be easy when one gets pregnant at a ridiculously young age. Thus, make the right choices and don’t be easily influenced. Think of the consequences. Are you willing to kill an unborn child? Or are you brave enough to be the only pregnant kid in school? What will your parents say? Is your boyfriend worth it? Does he care for you? Yup, it’s not that easy, right?

Labels: movies, teen pregnancy