TYRA
My name is Brittany; I’m 17 and a junior in high school. I just saw a re-run of this show like 30 minutes ago. I really appreciate that you brought up teen pregnancy on your show because it seems like it is getting to be more "normal" these days. i have a boyfriend who is 18 and he's a senior at my school so i think it would be a much bigger shock to people if i were to go out in the middle of school and say that my boyfriend and i weren't having sex than the opposite. The point I’m trying to make is that having sex isn't really a big deal to teens anymore... after the first time its basically like, hey I’m not a virgin anymore so there's really no point in not having sex. I think that the teen pregnancy rate is rising because there are not enough younger people discouraging unprotected sex. I’m not going to sit here and say that teenagers shouldn't have sex, but i do think that people my age (especially girls) need to know about the consequences and know the truth about all of these myths and misconceptions. I think that you did the right thing by talking about protection instead of abstinence because, to tell you the truth, if you were to sit down with me, or most other girls my age, and tell us that we shouldn't have sex until we’re married, I know I would probably laugh in your face and just tell you that you were too late, and if you wanted me to wait you should have talked to me a few years ago. So instead of making us feel guilty about having sex, more adults should just accept the fact that we are sexually active and help us protect ourselves. It’s also really important to have an adult to talk to about sex other than a parent. Most teenage girls don’t have an amazing relationship with their parents to where they would feel comfortable even telling them that they have sex in the first place, let alone asking them questions about it. So basically what I’m trying to say, is Thank You for being the one to put this information out there and get it noticed.

Love,
Brittany

Hey Tyra, I'm 18 and just graduated highschool June of 2007. A month later I found out I was pregnant. which to me was very hard to cope with because I was ready for the university and had plans to do missionary work that summer.I was deppressed fot the first three months but then I relized I was just making things worst so it was tough but I decided to have the baby b'cause I do not believe in abortions.My boyfriend is in the military and is currently in Iraq and its hard for the both of us but for me its been difficult becasue im doing this alone and he will not be able to be here for the birth which will be soon!It was very hard to tell my mother and family members,because they expected so much from me. It took me a while but I did it.My boyfriend lets me know that " I am not alone" so i am fortunate to say that I am one of the lucky teens that has the dad beside me for his soon to be son.We are very excited but then again sad that he can not be here for the birth of our baby.We both are planning to get married. I will not let my mistakes control my life and I plan to go ahead and start going to college or at least take some online classes for now so We can provide a good life for our son!

Hey Tyra i watch your show everyday im 16 and im pregnant but my boyfriend is 100% supportive he work and i also work and go to school but i only got one problem that problem is im scared about giving birth

Hey Tyra,
I just watched your show.
I watch it EVERY day.
I myself am a teen mom...
I got pregnant a few months after I turned 15, I had been having sex since I was 14.
I was on birth control, and used condoms.
I was VERY safe.
However I DID get pregnant.
Once I got over the shock of being pregnant, I realized it would be hard.. and I though hard about all of my options.

I am in no way against abortion it just wasn't the choice for me.
When I had my first doctor appointment my doctor did and ultra sound and told me that not only was i having a baby... I was have 2 babies.

I was SO scared.
I home school so I can be home with my beautiful 11 month old identical twin boys.
They were born 2 months early.
and weighed 5 lbs apiece when they were born.
I love your approach to teen pregnancy.. very open minded.. i watched dr phils show on teen pregnancy and he was a total jerk about it.

I am with the babies father.
We are just as in love now as we were 2 years ago.
He works and supports us.
We live a wonderful life.
and I know i miss out on a lot.
but waking up to those giggling babies every day makes it SO worth it.
I don't have any help from my family.

If you ever do another show I would love to be on it.

I love you tyra and I love your show.. feel free to contact me if you would like to.

I was watching your show on the teen pregnancy, and wanted to add that I was also a teen who had a baby, and my decision was to give the child up for adoption, as I didn't want to have the child grow up not being happy. I was 19 and always promised myself, if I were ever to get pregnant during my teens, I would automatically give it up for adoption. I went through and had the baby, and she went to a couple that must have been sent from God, because they were the perfect parents for the child.

Hey Tyra,
I just watched your show.
I watch it EVERY day.
I myself am a teen mom...
I got pregnant a few months after I turned 15, I had been having sex since I was 14.
I was on birth control, and used condoms.
I was VERY safe.
However I DID get pregnant.
Once I got over the shock of being pregnant, I realized it would be hard.. and I though hard about all of my options.

I am in no way against abortion it just wasn't the choice for me.
When I had my first doctor appointment my doctor did and ultra sound and told me that not only was i having a baby... I was have 2 babies.

I was SO scared.
I home school so I can be home with my beautiful 11 month old identical twin boys.
They were born 2 months early.
and weighed 5 lbs apiece when they were born.
I love your approach to teen pregnancy.. very open minded.. i watched dr phils show on teen pregnancy and he was a total jerk about it.

I am with the babies father.
We are just as in love now as we were 2 years ago.
He works and supports us.
We live a wonderful life.
and I know i miss out on a lot.
but waking up to those giggling babies every day makes it SO worth it.
I don't have any help from my family.

If you ever do another show I would love to be on it.

I love you tyra and I love your show.. feel free to contact me if you would like to.

tyra,
often, we the parent contribute in the sex lives of our children. we watch videos and other immoral activites besides the kids.

secondly, the opposite sex abuse these kids, knowfully that they are young and we are deceiving them. i say this because when a man(age -30 approaches a young girl(15-20),he knows the girl is naive and abeg you, often the child is not fallen in love, i sometime, feel the child feels pity for this man thinking she is in love.
moreover, regarding 2 underaged involving in sex habit, this case, i will say they are just exicited following the societal immoralities, these kids uncontrolable emotion, which is fake, find themselves sinning.

dear tyra,
thank you for making todays show. teens think they are so above themselves and can do whatever they want without getting pregnant. its a harsh thing to say but its true."oh i wont get pregnant if i do it standing up" or "im not gonna get pregnant, we did it in the hot tub". the truth is, we teens are so ignorant. we think the world is going to get served to us on a silver plater when, in reality,life is hard and we have to fight through it. and i can tell you its much easier to fight when you arent holding a baby in one arm.i am only 16 and i couldnt beleive most of the girls that were on your show today! it just prooves to you how ignorant we are about the world around us. its up to peope like you ,tyra,to make a difference in the world. and let me tell you right now. youa re doing a hell of a good job already!

♥LOTS of love

keep on doing what you are doing!

Beatrice

hey Tyra,

I jsut wanted to thank you for having the show thatyou did about teen pregnancy. i am 18 years old and i jsut found out that i am pregnant. i have jsut told my boyfriend and he is fully supportive and is there for me i still have not yet told my mother, but me and my boyfriend have decided to keep the baby, we know that it is going to be hard but we are going to do it, and i was reading the myths about how you can get pregnant and i actually got pregnant from the pullout method, i thought that even though he always pulled out i would be fine but i ended up getting pregnant from pre-ejacualtion. and watching your show today really helped me and gave me the extra booth and confidence that i needed to know that i have made the right decision.

thanks

Stephanie

hey Tyra,

I jsut wanted to thank you for having the show thatyou did about teen pregnancy. i am 18 years old and i jsut found out that i am pregnant. i have jsut told my boyfriend and he is fully supportive and is there for me i still have not yet told my mother, but me and my boyfriend have decided to keep the baby, we know that it is going to be hard but we are going to do it, and i was reading the myths about how you can get pregnant and i actually got pregnant from the pullout method, i thought that even though he always pulled out i would be fine but i ended up getting pregnant from pre-ejacualtion. and watching your show today really helped me and gave me the extra booth and confidence that i needed to know that i have made the right decision.

thanks

Stephanie

Tyra,

Today on your show I was shocked to see how many teen moms had chossen different things for their different lifes. I am a single mother of three boys at the young age of 22. I had my first son at 16 years old. I got married to my highschool sweetheart, who was not my first babies daddy. We then had two more boys with my youngest being 4 months old. while I was pregnant with my last baby My ex husband now, got another girl pregnant and we divorced. I really need help getting over this and moving on with my life. I dont know where to go now.... Please help me......

Re: Incorrect and Negligible Transcription of Callers

I have a DVR and decided this week to start recording Tyra.

At the beginning of today's show, Tyra claimed young, pregnant girls/teenage mothers were calling her in need of advice and help.

Tyra wanted to share some of those calls with us. Her screen went black, and white text appeared. Someone had taken the time to splice and layer a series of graphics related to teenage life with the transcripted voicemails of a few callers. Reading the transcribed text along with the voicemail, I noticed the text did not match the first caller's words. Nor the second, or third (let's just say, there's waay more wrong with the transcriptions than there is correct). Sure, "Hi my name is" came through accurately, but when one girl stated that (and I'm paraphrasing, resisting the urge to actually go back downstairs to my TV and transcribe for all of you the heinous fabrication) her family does not support her, she "only has her boyfriend"-- the transcribed text blatantly reverses her statement so that both her parents and her boyfriend have abandoned her.

I had to call up my cousin and tell her to watch her DVR-recorded episode of Tyra. Together we screamed when one caller voiced her fears of being a bad mother, a common feeling shared by millions of new mothers, and her statement was 100% completely rewritten. Instead of her words, they write "I don't know if I'm going to be a good mother to it." She never even mentions the baby in her phrase, much less turning her child into an object ("it"). She simply says, "I don't know if I will be a good mother." Tyra's show constructed a whole new sentence!

How ironic is it that Tyra wanted to "protect" her caller's identities with the clip, but not the integrity of their stories? Doesn't this lazy and manipulative writing cast serious doubt on the credibility of the entire episode, perhaps the entire show?

Tyra, I know in show business, there must be a SHOW. I get that. But, don't think for a second that people will overlook such blatant disregard for the truth, especially when you ride such a high-and-mighty white horse on issues you truly know little about. I love Top Model, but Tyra, you really need to tone down the "better-than-thou" image you project on this show. You make mistakes. BIG ones, like this, that are so very damaging to your ethos.

My advice: Apologize to your callers and fans, fire whoever transcribed the voicemails, and be sure to preview any future audio transcriptions.

Good luck,
Christy

Tyra,

I just finished watching your episode on teenage pregnancy, and have to say I am completely shocked at the utter negligence in which the issue is handled. Being the product of a teenage pregnancy, I'm still not quite sure what your show was trying to suggest about these young mothers.

I had a hard time getting past the first 15 minutes of the show due to the GROSS DISTORTION of what the women who called in said. At the bottom of the screen, you transcribed what was (not) being said by the teenage women who called in.

The first infraction was when a girl called in and said quite clearly that her boyfriend was the ONLY person helping her right now, but the words written on the screen said "NOT EVEN MY BOYFRIEND IS HELPING ME." Quite a different statement.

Second, and in my opinion the most egregious mis-representation is when a girl calls in and says "I sometimes wonder if I will be a good mother", and the words written on the screen say "I WILL NOT BE A GOOD MOTHER TO IT." These are two EXTREMELY different statements. She never refers to her baby as an "it" and she simply wonders (as most pregnant women do) whether or not she will make a good mom. She is not ADMITTING that she will be a bad mom, which is what the text suggests.

I, and the many other women I know whom I have pointed this out to plan to boycott your show until the above infractions are addressed publicly and apologized for. The disgraceful misuse of your public responsibility is shameful.

Please feel free to respond. To others that are reading this, if you have DVR, go back and listen to the calls at the beginning of the show and join me in condemning the Tyra Banks Show for such flagrant disrespect for its viewers and guests.

Kind Regards,
Tiffany Church
San Diego

Tyra,
I got pregnant when i was 18. It was 3 months before my graduation and I did not know how to tell my parents. I knew that I would break theyre heart, so I didnt tell them. My boyfriend told me to go live with him, so I did. My parents found out when I was already 3 months pregnant. Every time that I would go see my parents my dad would go to his bedroom and he wouldnt come out till i leave. It was really hard on me because I knew that I had let them down. I graduated from high school and I was waiting for my baby to turn one so I could of gone to college, but I got pregnant again. Now I have two little boys. A fourteen month old and a three week old. It is really hard on me and i have my husbands help. He goes to work around 2 in the morning, he gets home around 2 in the afternoon. I know that he is tired so i dont ask him for help but he still helps me without me asking. My parents adore my babies. My dad got over it and now he cant live without his grandsons, but the only thing is that they dont speak to my husband.

Hi Tyra I don't normally watch your show I don't like watching tv all tht much any more. My friend told me about this episode said I should watch and I was reall glad I did. I'm 16 years old I got pregnant with my boyfriend of 2 1/2 years child and he was 100% supportive for me the second I told him we were happy for awhile I told my mom and we cried together but she works in labour and delivery so she knew alot of stuff i didnt and she knew alot of ways to help me. The hardest part for me was telling my dad because I'm such a little daddy's girl. Everything was going great during the pregnancy I finished all my classes and expected to have a great summer with my boyfriend and friends. Was I ever wrong my friends ditched me and when i was 19 weeks pregnant i went for an ultrasound and they found a pocket of fluid on the back of my baby's neck called a cystic hygroma.
Which basically meant that something was wrong with my baby. I had to go see genetics specialist and they told me it was ethier Turners syndrome or downs syndrome my first thought was omg my poor baby and I started crying I didn't know what else to do. The only way for me to know for sure what it was, was for me to get an amnio which bascially is when they stick a 6 inch needle into your stomache and uterus to get 34 cc's of amniotic fluid [ i have never felt pain like that before ]. Finally we got the results back and it turned out she had Turner's syndrome and because of that I had to get a fetal echo which is a scan of my baby's heart. That test showed that she had a narrow aorta and if it didnt fix itself by 34 weeks she would need surgery after birth becuase she would die without it. So all of a sudden I'm a level 3 high risk pregnancy and going downtown toronto ever thursday for an appointment where they checked everything about the baby making sure she's ok. Just when I thought everything was ok and nothing else could go wrong at 24 weeks my baby stopped growing because my placenta decided to crap out and stop working so now my baby is fighting to stay alive meanwhile it's killing me. So now it's a life and death situation and my doctor looked me in the eyes and said that it could come down to the point of she will only be able to save one of us. At this point I'm so happy my mom works in labour and delivery because I'm on bedrest and my doctor said I could stay home but if i didn't cooperate I'd have to go to the hospital. So now my summer is ruined pretty much. at the next week's visit by some miracle my baby had grown and all of sudden everything felt like it was gonna be ok again. Everything now went fine except for the fact that I was eating for four people sititng on my couch and getting bigger and bigger by the second. So I get to 34 weeks and find out that my baby's heart still hadn't fixed itself so now I need to deliver in a level 3 hospital and my baby needs to be taken away to get some kind of drug through an I.V. to keep the part in her heart open that closes after babies are born. So now everything is still going well but my mom is hovering more then normal and turns out I'm starting to get pre-eclampsia and I'm swollen and so over weight and full of fluid that it was crushing my lungs at the end of my pregnancy I couldn't even get up the stairs i had to stop halfway up sit down and breath then after about 5 minutes continue and forget making it to the bathroom that was hard. When I was exactly 37 weeks pregnant I went into labour but only got to 1 cm before my labour stopped completly and they kept me over night at the hospital to make sure and nothing started happening again so they said i could go home but had to go to my appointment the next day I thought tht was reasonable. At my appointment they tell me I have a gr 4 placenta [placenta's are graded 1 being the best and 4 the worst]and I had no amniotic fluid in one of the four quaters and very little in the other three so they set it up so that I was going to be induced that night. Turns out they were to busy so i had to wait till the firday at 6:30 in the morning. So everything started delivery was so easy and I ended up getting to see her for 45 minutes before they took her over to Sick kids hospital. Everything was going good but since she was born friday night and the doctors aren't there till monday we had to wait till then for them to decide when her heart surgery was. She had heart surgery when she was 5 days old. Everything went good she was recovering like there was nothing to it. Then when she was 8 days old she crashed bad she had fluid in her chest wall and couldn't breath and she needed a breathing tube but becuase I was only 16 the nurses didnt see the need to have to call me to let me know what was happening to my daughter i got there and cried my mom and my boyfriend yelled at the nurses like there was no tomorrow and i got a verbal and written apology. They said she should be ok and a little while it was probably a complication from surgery and the fluid would stop but it didn't it got so bad that she needed 3 chest tubes one on ethier side. Then a few days before christmas they told us she had congenital chylothorax that means her lymph system was wired all wrong and if her system was wired wrong she wouldn't be able to live cuz its incompatable with life. Because she was my baby i refused to believe that what they were saying was true. We ended up having a good christmas with her and all of a sudden things were looking good it looked like she was going to get better and they were wrong but then on the 27th of december a doctor who has delt with congenital chylothorax before sat me down and told me he has seen this many times before and each baby he saw with it passed away and he had done a scan of her heart and it showed that it was extremly inflamed and that she could have a heart attack at any moment. So I went home and called my boyfriend at work and told him everything and he came right over just left work and got his friend to drive him and I cried and cried I don't think I've ever cried that much in my life. So the next day we went into the hospital with all our family knowing what we had to do. We told the doctor that at 8 that night we were gonna let her go. All our family said good bye and gave her a kiss and we got her last right's read to her. Then they took out her chest tubes but her in a little dress wrapped her in a blanket and put her in my arms and took out all of her i.v.'s except for the one with her morphine [ which they had set to the highest amount they were allowed to give her ] then when I was ready they took out her breathing tube and the second they took it out I cried becuase i knew at that point there was no going back and it was really happening I was really losing my baby. We got to walk with her and get pictures taken and she lived for about 45 minutes without the breathing tube and then she snuggled her head into her daddy's arms and passed away the second they pronounced her dead that was it i regreted all of it i regreted telling them to take out the tube all of it and I didn't ever wanna let her go cuz i knew the second I did I would never hold my little girl again. Knowing that was the worst pain in the whole world I just wanted to bring my baby home. The funeral was awkward until the buriel we buried her next to my grandma in her little white coffin tht was no bigger then 3 feet. That was the first time I had ever seen my dad cry and that just broke me like u wouldn't believe. I will never be over my little girl I'm crying while I'm writing this but what teens should know when they think they want to get pregnant yes if your baby comes home it's alot of work. But there is always the chance that your baby won't come and you'll have to bury your child instead of the way it's suppose to be. Begin in sick kids made me realize that it's not always a fairy book ending they had 30 beds and every month 12 babies die. I would have died for my baby and it kills me when people have the nerve to say that teenagers don't know how to love a baby properly or that were to irresponsible to know what were doing I knew exactly what I was doing and the only part I would change is that my baby would come home.

Emily

Hello Tyra,
My name is Racquel and I am a 21 year old mother of 3. I had my first child at the age of 18 the next at 19 and the last at 20. In high school I graduated in the top 15% of my class and my parents wanted me to go out of state for college but I stayed in Houston because I thought I was "in love." I do love the fact that you did this show because I went through the same thing as a couple of the girls on the show when I first got pregnant. It took me about 5 months to tell my mom about the first child. The second and third, my family found out by accident. It is really hard being a mother but I think that I am doing a good job. I just wish that I could go back to school and I wish that I was still in love with their dad. We are still together, but I am very unhappy. I want all girls to know that kids don't make a guy stay with you nor does it make them grow up.

well, if a girl is that serious about teen pregancy, than she should stay a pure until she can accept the responsibility to getting pregnant. Also if she's ready to have sex, she should keep condoms and her partner, and she should consider about the pill.

Hi Tyra,

Thanks for having the show on teen pregnancy. I became pregnant for the 1st time when I was 14. I had 5 abortions by the time I was 17. I never ever considered talking to my mother about any of this. It was my own personal business and felt I didn't need my mother's input on the situation.

Today I am 44, a single mother of 3, 2 who are teens. Recently my 15 year old daughter asked me to help her get birth control. I felt good that she trusted me and had the courage to involve me in her decision to get birth control. But I had to deal with my reaction to this which was horrible! Her father didn't show a desire to have anything to do with this.

I communicate to my children my values about sex and preventing pregnancy and how big a choice and responsibility it is.

It's so hard to know what a teen is hearing when they are so rebellious no matter how patient and understanding a parent tries to be.

My daughter tells me that even though she knows she can tell me anything she doesn't because she expects that I will freak out and she doesn't want to deal with that. I never thought I was a parent that would ever overreact about anything my kids told me. OH contraire!

Even though I have a right to feel how I feel, my teens consider this to be over reacting. When I am trying to communicate with my teens I work hard to stay calm. It's really tough separating normal parental emotional reactions from good parental guidance.

Recently my adult son and his 18 year old girlfriend got pregnant and her parents totally freaked out! They appeared to me to be so upset that even I was intimidated by their behavior towards their daughter and me since I took the supportive side of the coin. They went so far as to question my acceptance of her pregnancy, as if it was wrong.

Since that experience I noticed myself acting a bit freaked out and at first I felt like an idiot, I was shocked when I discovered a part of myself that my teens were clearly aware of and I wasn't. Now I understand just a little bit more about what my daughter had told me about not wanting to discuss certain things with me.

Some advice to teens; We parents are not perfect and you might perceive us to be over reacting like you expect us to. If you give us a chance to get over an initial reaction have faith that we can calm down and be supportive to you, if you only give us a chance.

It is just as hard to be a parent as it is to deal with a parent when you are a teen.

Having to be a single parent for almost half the time I've been a mother I can honestly say that it's never easy. There are always struggles to deal with whether it's 3am feedings or trying to help your teens fulfill their dreams and stay healthy.

Thanks Tyra for allowing me to comment.

Love and respect,
Rhonda

Hello, Ms. Banks
How are you doing? I hope fine. I would like to know if you would like to sponsor a homeless shelter. The name of the facility is called The Bay Area Rescuse Mission. First, I thought I"ll write you,so I could get some help for myself; my transportation problem.But I thought about the shelter.

Ms. Stallings

Hello, Ms. Banks
How are you doing? I hope fine. I would like to know if you would like to sponsor a homeless shelter. The name of the facility is called The Bay Area Rescuse Mission. First, I thought I"ll write you,so I could get some help for myself with my transportation problem.But I thought about the shelter.

Ms. Stallings

Tyra,
My name is Ke'Shala (Key-Shay-La) and i am 14 years old. I am so glad that you put this information on your website because some of these things i have heard of. And people tell me that some of those little tricks work.
And just to know that there is still a possibility makes me more aware of it, and makes me want to tell my friends that are sexually active that they can still have a possibility of getting pregnant weather they do do some of those things or not.
Love dearly,
Ke'Shala
p.s I love you so much, and you are my insperation.