TEEN PREGNANCY is declining in Maryland and in the nation, and advocates in the field are scrambling to figure out what is working so they can do more of it.
For some reason, teens are having less sex and using contraception more often, and none of the adults is sure why.
It is never easy to understand why our children do anything, let alone why they don't do what we don't want them to do, but experts attribute this positive trend to increased "motivation."
That isn't a very satisfactory explanation. While we know what motivation looks like in the classroom and on the football field, we don't know what motivation looks like when our kids are in a romantic clinch. And we sure don't know how to spread it around.
"There are two kinds of motivation," says Sarah Brown, director of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy.
"There is motivation to avoid something, and there is a motivation toward something. We have to work on both kinds. It's a carrot and stick approach."
In order to motivate teens to avoid sex, and the unintended pregnancy which might result, we must give them a promising vision for a future without a child: education, employment and financial independence from their parents, Brown says.
And we have to warn them away from sex with lots of information about pregnancy, disease and monsters under the bed.
If these two things, fear and promise, are all that is needed to motivate teens, and if motivation is the key to a declining teen pregnancy rate, why does this country continue to lead the developed world in teen pregnancy and teen births?
Because it is hard for teens to stay motivated, Brown says. It is hard to be motivated every weekend, at every party, on every date.
"To stay abstinent in a highly sexual culture is hard," says Brown, herself the mother of three teen-age girls.
"And, likewise, to use a condom every time is hard.
"That's why the argument over abstinence vs. contraception is such a waste," she says. "We are arguing about what road to take when our teens aren't even in the car."
Any parent who has witnessed his teen clean his room in a burst of energy, only to let it fill with clutter again knows a little something about teens and commitment.
Any parent who has watched her child's grades yo-yo up and down the alphabet knows something about motivation.
Any mother who has watched her daughter spin through the revolving door of best friendships knows about consistency.
