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VICKI STURGEON: The following edition of The Poet's Perspective is presented as it was broadcast over KRSW's regional magazine, Home For The Weekend. The Poet's Perspective was funded in part by the Minnesota Humanities Commission.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

KIM HODGSON: Good morning and welcome to Home For The Weekend, made possible today in part with funds provided by the Western Bank and Trust of Marshall and the Otto Bremer Foundation of St. Paul. I'm Kim Hodgson with Vickie Sturgeon.

And before we're done today, we'll have heard the final segment in our Poet's Perspective series. We'll also have heard a great deal about a problem which some say is becoming epidemic in our society, teenage pregnancy.

SPEAKER 1: Probably 100% keep their child. I have yet to have one that gave up the child, even if they had originally in the beginning of the pregnancy plan to give up their child.

SPEAKER 2: She probably doesn't feel very good about herself and hasn't for a long time. And this baby is something she can feel good about. And I would suspect she's damned if someone's going to take it away from her.

SPEAKER 3: If she does bear a child, the chances are that she's not going to be able to pay for it. So someone's going to pay for it. And in some cases, the parents can afford it, and they can afford it. And usually, someone's going to get the tab and quite often, it's welfare. And if she's not getting married, then that tab is going to continue for years and years.

[BUFFY SAINTE-MARIE, "BABE IN ARMS"] Here I sit with a babe in arms

And another one here within

And where's my man?

Ah don't you know: he's drinkin', carousin', and livin' a life of sin

Once he courted me so fine

Oh why did I give in?

And where's he now?

Ah don't you know: he's drinkin', carousin', and livin' a life of sin

And were it not for my own breast

My baby would die for sure

And where's my man?

Ah don't you know: he's drinkin', carousin', and livin' a life so poor

KIM HODGSON: Nearly one million American teenagers become pregnant each year. And while that's only 10% of teenage females, there is evidence that the teenage mother may be the source of a disproportionate number of social problems. To begin with, they face greater health risks for themselves as well as their children.

And then if they decide to keep the baby, as an increasing number of them are, there are even more problems. The teenage mother will often quit school and forgo any type of job training. Consequently, she'll have trouble finding work in order to support her child and may be forced to resort to public assistance.

Even if these girls marry, nearly half of them will be divorced within five years. There's also evidence that women who have their first child during their teens tend to have more children in quicker succession than their peers. So for many women, teenage motherhood may be the first step into an endless cycle of personal frustration and economic hardship.

In many of these cases, society, through public assistance and other social services, will be called upon to share some of these burdens. Just how far can the community go to protect itself from the problems created by teenage pregnancy without violating the private rights of the girl and her family?

Gail Jackson, a counselor at the southwestern mental health center, has worked with a number of pregnant teenagers. Jackson says the girls are resentful of anyone who tries to tell them what they should do for their own good or that of the child.

GAIL JACKSON: I think you have to go back further, though, taking a look at how it happens that they come to be pregnant in the first place, and the first thing they hit is their parents' reaction. Very often, it is, how could you embarrass us like this? How can we face the neighbors or the community?

To go back even further, the issue has usually been, we will see parents who come in that are concerned about the possibility that their daughter might get pregnant. And I would say that nine times out of ten, the girls fulfill the prophecy. It isn't conscious, but they're so angry that their parents don't trust them that they rebel and end up getting pregnant.

And then you've got that struggle between the parents and the child. And then the community moves in, and there's some resentment on the part of the community, I think, because they may feel that the parents have neglected their obligation. And therefore the community must become the parent to the child.

And usually, the one thing that the girl feels is that this is her baby. And she can love it, and it will love her. And no one's going to take that away from her because she hasn't found that elsewhere.

And so I think when you're counseling with girls like this, you have to-- I see my function is laying out all the options for how they can handle this situation and taking them down further as to consequences, depending on which path they choose, if it's to keep the baby, if it's to give the baby up for adoption, if it's to get an abortion, and then helping them arrive at a decision that makes sense for them.

But I think that because-- I would say, in very few instances, do the girls actually seek us out for counseling because they may be pregnant. We often see these girls from another referral source. And they're already feeling like people are telling them what to do. And so I'm not going to tell them what to do.

VICKI STURGEON: Is there much awareness on their part of the consequences of what it's really going to be like to have that responsibility?

GAIL JACKSON: No, very romantic, idealistic notions about what it means. They're at an age when they're moving into adulthood and want to feel responsible and they want to have something to take care of and think they can handle it. But there is very little real understanding of-- well, the certain nitty-gritty sides of taking care of a baby, what do you do when you've got a screaming child and you're trying to grocery shop, and you're tired, and that kind of thing.

Also, very little, long-range thinking, what's it going to be like in five years or 10 years? In the situations where the girls go ahead and get married, it's the same. They're working very hard to see it in a good light. And they're trying to be brave. And they won't admit to you how scared they are.

And they want to try and make it work. And it's a very sad thing to see this. I think the community has to understand the dynamic of what is happening here. It is no accident. Well, occasionally, it's an accident that a girl got pregnant, but very often, it's not an accident.

You talked about peer group pressure to keep the baby. I've heard of peer group pressure to get pregnant, in the sense, girls envying other girls that were pregnant. It would solve all their problems. They could get out of home and get out of school. And life would be rosy.

But if you come in and judge mentally take the child away, and-- I think you run the risk that she's going to turn around and do the same thing.

VICKI STURGEON: So you're saying, it's not just because they didn't get to birth control, there was an emotional need there?

GAIL JACKSON: Oh, absolutely, absolutely. The other side of it is that these girls know where they can get birth control. It's a pretty scary thing at age 16 to walk in there on your own and not know who you're going to-- whether you're going to run into a neighbor down the street.

But many of the girls, when you ask them about birth control, they know where they could have gotten it, but they haven't.

KIM HODGSON: Gayle Jackson from the Southwestern Mental Health Center. We often hear that pregnant teenagers in rural areas do not hear about or have access to as many options as those in urban areas. This summer, Eleanor Vincent, staff writer for The Worthington Daily Globe, did extensive research on the problem of teenage pregnancy. Last week, she spoke with Vickie about the type of advice the girls in Worthington are receiving.

ELEANOR VINCENT: Peer pressure is very strong to keep your baby. Almost without exception, the young people that I talked to said, why would you want to give a baby up for adoption? Why would you want to get an abortion? Many of them said it's murder. It's wrong. So obviously, they've heard quite a lot of the anti-abortion side. I mean, this area of the state is one of the strongest anti-abortion strongholds.

So, I don't know that they're necessarily bombarded with it, although I think they get a strong dose of that.

VICKI STURGEON: But you're saying within the peer group, it's beyond even anti-abortion. It's keeping.

ELEANOR VINCENT: Right. It's like many times, young people would say, well, if you gave away your baby, you're just avoiding the responsibility. You made a mistake. Now you have to face up to it without any real understanding of what that might mean for the child involved, only for the person, the mother or the father, the young person involved.

And a lot of-- many people said to me, well, it's your own flesh and blood. Why would you want to give it away? And that's-- boy, that is a tough choice. All these issues that we're talking about are just so difficult, especially abortion and adoption. You're 16, and you're in a bind. And those kind of issues could just rip you apart.

VICKI STURGEON: I mean, at 16, your friends are telling you to keep the kid.

ELEANOR VINCENT: Sure--

VICKIE STURGEON: I mean, that seems to me--

ELEANOR VINCENT: Plus your parents are-- probably, chances are, your parents are telling you that, too, if you're especially from a working class family or maybe even middle class. And if you have a strong church affiliation, you're getting that same message from the church. Abortion is definitely out. You don't even consider that as an alternative.

KIM HODGSON: Eleanor Vincent, staff writer for The Worthington Daily Globe.

VICKI STURGEON: It's difficult to discuss teenage parenthood without wondering why these girls got pregnant in the first place. I asked Dr. Barbara Yawn about that. She practices at the Worthington Regional Medical Center and sees many of these teenagers throughout their pregnancies.

BARBARA YAWN: Sometimes I think they almost do it because they know they can succeed at being pregnant. They will give birth to a child. They have done something, and I see that on them after I deliver them. They're so excited because they had a baby. Well, big deal. I'm not that excited about having a baby, about raising that child.

And that's what I usually tell them is, that's real nice. But come and talk to me five years from now when you started raising that child. And I guess maybe it is a need to succeed and need to raise their goals a little bit. And I think being a parent is a fantastic goal, but being a good, mature parent ought to be their goal instead of just being a parent.

And their parents, as I said, were probably caught up in teenage sexuality. They are most likely their children are going to be because I'm not sure they're going to be able to give their child what they couldn't get either. And what I think they're going to find, they don't get by having a child.

I seriously doubt that having that baby and raising that child is going to fulfill any unmet needs. It's going to just raise a lot of frustrations and a lot of problems and possibly cause a lot of hurt to them. And the times when that child is going to be an answer to their need are going to really be few and far between.

Yes, little babies can be loving and warm and cuddly, but by three months, they're not always loving, warm and cuddly. And the older they're going to get, the less they're going to be able to fill that parent's needs. So they're going to probably have their needs unmet. And I agree, I think it's an unending cycle.

VICKI STURGEON: Dr. Yawn, for one, does not believe the availability of birth control is a key issue in these pregnancies. But others I spoke with maintained there was a serious lack of information about and access to birth control.

Nancy Crippen of Worthington is also involved with pregnant teenagers through Help, Incorporated. They provide a telephone hotline and a counseling service. I ask her if the teenage girls' ignorance about birth control was the main reason for their pregnancy.

NANCY CRIPPEN: No, I don't think that's so, because-- and of the reason that I think it is not so is that I've talked with girls who have become pregnant. And a typical one that I recall, I asked her-- I knew her well. And I asked her how it had happened. If she had known of birth control, I knew that she did.

And she said, oh, well, chalk it up to a bad weekend. And then I said, how do you feel about it, about being pregnant? And she said, well, you're going to think I'm terrible. But for the first time, I have something that's really my own.

And in talking with a lot of the kids that I have dealt with who have been pregnant, one of the recurring themes is, I have something that's my own. I now have something that will love me. And the second thing that I am hearing them say is, now, how are my parents going to deal with that? I've really done something to get at my folks.

And so what I'm hearing a lot of them tell me is that something's awfully wrong with what's going on inside of them. And they don't feel good about themselves. They have a feeling that they want to strike back at parents. And they have a very real desire to love and to be loved.

And so it's really a much deeper problem than just supplying them with a pill or telling them that we can take away the baby. Once you've become pregnant, we can make you unpregnant very quickly. The easy answers aren't easy answers. An abortion is not a tonsillectomy or a tooth removal. There are lots of physical and moral problems involved there.

Giving them the pill isn't the answer because that's not going to deal with the kinds of feelings that I'm hearing them express.

VICKI STURGEON: You're saying or what they're saying is that for me, motherhood maybe the only way that I can have any self-worth.

NANCY CRIPPEN: I think I'm hearing that. I think I'm hearing them say, children should love their parents. And so if I have a baby, that baby will love me. And I need somebody to love and to be affectionate with. And I can love a baby.

And I'm hearing them say, that's where I'm going to have my identity. And I think that explains why most of them are not giving their children up for adoption. I really believe that more of them would be giving their children up for adoption. If they were not, this as a very major reason for them becoming pregnant in the first place, that they see that child as a need. They need that child for emotional fulfillment that they're not finding other places.

[JONI MITCHELL, "LITTLE GREEN"] Born with the moon in cancer

Choose her a name she will answer to

Call her green and the winters cannot fade her

Call it green for the children who've made her

Little green, be a gypsy dancer

He went to California

Hearing that everything's warmer there

So you write him a letter and say "Her eyes are blue"

He sends you a poem and she's lost to you

Little green, he's a non-conformer

Just a little green

Like the color when the spring is born

There'll be crocuses to bring to school tomorrow

Just a little green

Like the nights when the northern lights perform

There'll be icicles and birthday clothes

And sometimes there'll be sorrow

Child with a child pretending

Weary of lies you are sending home

So you sign all the papers in the family name

You're sad and you're sorry but you're not ashamed

Little green have a happy ending

Just a little green

Like the color when the spring is born

There'll be crocuses to bring to school tomorrow

Just a little green

Like the nights when the northern lights perform

There'll be icicles and birthday clothes

And sometimes there'll be sorrow

KIM HODGSON: While many of the people that Vickie spoke with acknowledged it would be better if the teenage mother did not keep her child, they also maintained it was difficult for anyone to convince her of that once she is pregnant. At this time, most of the community leaders in Worthington believed that the most constructive thing they can do is deal with the problem long before the girl ever gets pregnant.

They want to provide all teenagers, boys and girls alike, with a better understanding of what it really means to be a good parent. Many of the people we are hearing in this program are members of the Family Life Education Committee of Worthington. That committee is now trying to determine how the community, through the school system, can provide teenagers with a knowledge of parenting skills and at the same time deal with the sensitive question of sexuality.

Vickie asked Barbara Yawn, as a member of the committee, about their dilemma.

VICKI STURGEON: What I'm wondering is, is when the community and it seems that they've decided that the school is the most logical institution to deal with this, but decides that, yes, we need to offer some family life education. Is that really an intrusion upon the private life or the private role of the family, or is it just that the school is finally getting around to dealing with something it should have years ago?

BARBARA YAWN: I guess I like to think that they're finally just getting around to dealing with something they should have many, many years ago. I don't see that it's really an intrusion. There are probably some parents who will feel it is an intrusion on their role, but I don't think that will be the majority. I think many parents will be relieved and happy that somebody else is going to help them take over that burden. And it really is a big burden.

I have a feeling it's going to come down to what it usually does. People are going to say, oh, family life education, that's sex education and all that. The first thing all of us want to say is, no, it's not sex education. It's maybe non-sex education, how to deal with people on another level besides just sexuality. They obviously know how to deal on a sexual level. They wouldn't be getting pregnant.

Now we want to teach them how to deal on some other level so that they don't get pregnant and don't become parents until they really are capable of dealing with that, until they are more mature, and hopefully cut down on the amount of sexuality going on in the teenager, too, until, again, they're ready because it's not just the pregnancies. I think that's the symptom that's so obvious.

But it's the teenager that gets out of high school and gets married right away or drops out of high school to get married when they aren't pregnant and then ends up four years, five years later being divorced, not having any skills, not knowing how to do anything except sit at home and take care of the maybe one or two children they have by then.

The young man who didn't go to college either or didn't go to vocational school because he had a wife and had to get a job and probably within a year had a child, too, and there he is at 22, 23, divorced, and never having done some of the things he thinks he should have gotten to do or unfortunately did them to the excess while he was married. He's got to start all over again, too.

He's got to learn how to build up a relationship with an adult because when he was married, he probably wasn't really an adult. 18 is not a magic age for becoming an adult, no matter what the law says.

AL JOHNSON: I guess the thing that I object to, Vickie, is people say, hey, school, you've got a problem. You've got pregnant girls. And my retort always is, we have them six hours out of 24. How come we get blamed? They didn't get pregnant in school. They just happened to be school-age students.

So we disclaim that school is responsible for the pregnancy. But we are an institution that does have them. And in many cases, the only institution that we have them as a captive audience. So we feel we are the natural one to provide certain services to them.

VICKI STURGEON: That was Al Johnson, principal of the Worthington Senior High School. It was not too many years ago that a girl would have automatically been suspended for becoming pregnant. Johnson says that unfortunately, it was the courts and not the schools themselves that changed that policy. But he does feel that his school has adjusted to help the girls in some ways.

AL JOHNSON: First of all, we start from the premise that we want the girls here until the doctor says for the physical well-being of mother and/or child-to-be that the student should no longer be in school and should go on home-bound. So pregnancy is a very normal thing. And why schools treat it differently, I don't know. But it's normal. And they can be in school as easily as going to church or going shopping.

So that's the first thing is we want them to be in their regular program. Then as relating to their particular condition, we have a class that is conducted through our counselor's office for mothers-to-be. And it deals with all aspects of prenatal care. It includes doctors, nurses, county people. It could include all of the options available to the mother regarding the future of the child, what are the pluses and minuses of adoption.

And so this is what is conducted during this thing, all being positive. It's a fact of life, the girl is pregnant, there will be a child. How can we better prepare them, including physical exercise? This year, if indeed the need arises, we are also going to add-- and incidentally, we give credit for that. The girls get credit, and we'll take girls from other schools if their schools-- they can take it for credit if their schools will give it, or they can come here for their own personal well-being.

This year, if the need arises, we are also going to add a class for postnatal. And the reason being, as I don't know if it's unique to age, I think we all that first bouncing baby child is something special. And after the glow wears off and the first several months have passed, then some of the negatives come about, the restrictions of freedom and all the other things that go with a new child in the family.

And at that point, we think these young people and hopefully, we can involve the boys, but not often do we get to, they need a lot of help on adjusting to this whole new responsibility in life. And we think maybe we can head off some problems down the road.

VICKI STURGEON: While these programs attempt to point out the various options that are available to the girl and prepare her for the consequences, Johnson admits that the girl herself is not always receptive to the information.

AL JOHNSON: Again, you're talking about a 16, 17-year-old girl who, after the initial shock and adjustment of learning that she is pregnant, now, very often, the girl begins to become very excited about this new thing in her life. And so during this excitement of having her own flesh and blood and having a baby that's going to depend upon her, she is not necessarily always open to some of these information that we are disseminating as it deals with options.

And again, we're not trying to force anything on them. We're concerned about the unborn child that that child has the best prospects for life. But generally, I'd have to say the girl is-- and as any mother, I don't know if it's necessarily restricted to 16, 17-year-old. But at any age, there's a lot of excitement to that unborn child coming.

And maybe the degree of realism isn't as high as we'd like it. But that, I think, is a fault of nature rather than of a planned, designed by the mother.

KIM HODGSON: Al Johnson, principal at the Worthington Senior High School.

VICKI STURGEON: I mean, what can you do if the girl is already pregnant and if abortion is not a viable alternative and if, as you said, so many of these girls are keeping these babies? Is just counseling going to help them?

NANCY CRIPPEN: I guess that I'm saying that I understand their desire to keep the child. From the standpoint of society, yes, I would say that objectively, I would say-- objectively, it is better for them to give the child up for adoption. And that a family who wants a child and can't have one is benefited. The child has the benefit of two parents in a stable situation economically and emotionally to handle a child.

And that the girl herself then should be offered services to help her through that time. Now that's-- if I were a great planner, I would say that would be my great plan. And yet I know how very difficult it is to give up a child of your own. And you're dealing with so many factors.

I talked recently with a grandmother of a child that was given up for adoption and what real turmoil and pain that family went through because they were giving up a child of the family. And they always wonder, where is that child and how is she and so forth.

All of the movement for children to find out who their real parents are and the opening of court records and so forth reflects this very great yearning to know who I am and where I come from, and the yearning on the part of parents to know where their children are. So that isn't the simplest solution. They will choose to keep their children.

And I am not advocating a law being passed that saying, no one under the age of 18 may keep her child. I think that I would not go that far. I would prefer it if they chose to give it up, but I understand why they don't. So what do you do with a girl who is pregnant and does not choose an abortion?

I guess that you work with her and try and bring her to the point of seeing that it would be better for the child if the child were given up for adoption, and then if she chooses that to be there in a very supportive way, to help her through that difficult time after the birth of the child. If she chooses to keep that child, then I think we're going to have to have more public services available than we now have in the form of social workers and counselors to help her learn to be a better parent.

And I think that's a long-term thing. I don't think it's a matter of stopping there. Like the welcome wagon lady, two weeks after she's home and dump on her pamphlets and diaper powder and so forth, and say, now you're going to be a parent. I think it's an ongoing thing.

KIM HODGSON: Nancy Crippen, co-director of Help, Incorporated in Worthington, a group which provides a telephone hotline and counseling service for pregnant teenagers. One new program that may help these teenagers was just instituted this summer in the nine-county area of Region 8 in southwestern Minnesota. It's a new family planning program, and its director is Sue Sobey of Worthington.

While the emphasis of that program is on the prevention of unwanted pregnancy, Sobey also has an opportunity to work with pregnant teenagers. She came to our studios Thursday to talk with Vickie about the dilemma. She faces while counseling these girls.

SUE SOBEY: First, I ask them if they've-- if they've thought about it at all. Sometimes they have and sometimes no, they just haven't come to grips with it. They don't want to think about it. And perhaps that's because they haven't been to the doctor, and the doctor hasn't said, yes, you are pregnant. Now, what are you going to do?

They are-- for some of them, maybe this is the first time they've actually taken responsibility for their lives and the life of this child. Are they going to keep the child? Are they going to give it up for adoption? Are they going to have an abortion?

Usually, I don't say, ding, ding, ding, what are you-- but usually, they-- once they are approached with that question, they usually think, well, I'm going to keep that baby, or I don't know if I want to keep it or if I want to give it away, which precludes the abortion.

So usually, I kind of try to get an idea of where their feelings lie. And then from there, try to have them make a decision based on facts, but also on their own feelings and not necessarily just from parent or peer pressure because that does play a large part in it.

Suppose the girl does feel according to her own feelings and even looking at the facts that she decides to keep the child, I might feel that for what her goals are and for what her situation happens to be that she would be better off giving up that child for adoption. But I can't say-- I can't say you're wrong. You're going to mess up your life because there are-- there are people out there that do keep their child and have a good life.

So I just can't ever say, you're wrong or you're right or-- it's a kind of a sensitive situation to be in.

VICKI STURGEON: Yeah, I understand when you say, I can't-- I can't say to her, this is what you should do. But the thing that concerns me is it from everyone I've talked to, some people say 70% of the girls are keeping their baby. Barbara Yawn says every girl that she has seen, 100% so far has kept her baby.

It just seems that peer group pressure is so strong to keep that child. And yet that from the standpoint of the overall good of the mother, the child, and the community, it's better if she doesn't. Don't you have a right, let's say, as a spokesman for the community or the overall community or your agency, or does somebody have a right to step in there and not tell her what to do, but maybe take a more activist approach about it?

SUE SOBEY: What does help is if I say, OK, now, we can write it down on paper. What are the advantages and disadvantages of you keeping your child? Now let's look at the advantages and disadvantages of giving that child up for adoption to a family who's waiting for this child. And true, not every adoption is a success, but through the screening, the chances are that it's going to be.

And when you look at it on black and white and then still fill in their own feelings on it, the picture shows that they're probably going to do better, and their child will have a better life if they do give the child up for adoption. But I'm still not going to be the one to say, give your child away or keep your child because of-- it's still got to be their decision. It's their responsibility.

If they come to me not knowing the facts, then it's my responsibility to say, now, here are the chances of what's going to happen. Now, these are the facts. And these are the percentages of that happening to you. And you thought you weren't going to get pregnant, but you were one of those statistics. And here's some more. And here's what might happen.

And sometimes that's the convincing thing right there. Even though I didn't say, you do this or you do that, but still, they're arriving at a decision with some fact-finding. And that's what they need. And that's what I don't think that they're being supplied in school. And a lot of-- maybe very rightly so, schools don't want to get into this, value judgments and things because the parents are out there. But who's going to give it to them?

VICKI STURGEON: If so many of these girls are deciding to keep their children, and if the community comes to a consensus that it's not good or it's not the best thing either for the baby or for the girl or for the community, do you ever foresee a time when your agency is going to be called upon to judge parents and to judge teenage mothers and maybe say, well, no, you can't keep the child?

SUE SOBEY: In this program, I really don't. I don't see that at all. What I do see maybe is a change of attitude, which takes a while. Just disseminating information is one thing, but imparting education, working toward attitude change is quite another and completely different process. Because I can say, OK, you take this and you read this, and you take this and you read this, and that's just giving them information.

But when you turn this around, and you examine the questions that are in here about, am I parent material, am I ready to raise a child, what do I expect to gain from the parenting experience, and go through some of these and really talk about how they feel about it. Then you're getting into a little more dealing with their attitudes and maybe changing their attitudes. And that takes quite a bit more time.

KIM HODGSON: Sue Sobey of Worthington, director of the Region 8 Family Planning Program. One of the assumptions this program has tended to make is that the teenage mother is not going to be prepared for parenthood and consequently will not make a very good parent. But when it comes down to judging individual cases, it is very difficult to evaluate the fitness of the teenage parent.

BARBARA YAWN: When I see a young lady who's pregnant and a teenager, I try to make some judgment. Over the eight or nine months that I see her, what kind of a mother she's going to be? I'm amazed how often I'm wrong, one way or the other. The young lady, I think, is going to be able to deal with it fine and handle it turns out to have many, many problems. And the other one, I think, gee, she looks like an irresponsible person does very well.

Even after she has a child and she's taking that child home, it's difficult because we don't have the personnel or the money to send somebody out there to check on her every day. And when you're going into her home apartment, whatever, where she's living, you're intruding. Things are not the same as they are the rest of the day.

If you call and say you're coming at 10 o'clock, either she's really harassed by the time you get there, trying to get ready for you, and so tired that the child's fussy, and she's mad, or everything's spick and span. And you have no idea what really goes on. I don't know yet how to judge whether somebody is really a good, effective parent.

On the other hand, you have people at school, school counselors saying, I could have predicted five years ago that that person was going to get pregnant or act out in some way. So there must be some criteria they're using that none of us have been able to set down on paper yet to say that family is in trouble, that family has a problem as it becomes obvious through the child's actions in school or the counselor's dealing with the parents, perhaps, when the child fails or gets in trouble at school.

So somewhere, there is-- there must be a criteria for what a good parent is or isn't. It seems also that it's not uncommon to have teenage pregnancies run in families. I'll have the mother of the teenager who's pregnant come in, and she'll say to me, no, my daughter is going to keep her child. I kept my child when I was 16 and pregnant, or I gave up my child when I was 16 and pregnant. And I've been sorry ever since, so my daughter is going to keep her child. She'll do just fine. I did.

So there must be something in that family as opposed to another family where if a teenage pregnancy occurs, it's a rarity or it doesn't occur at all.

KIM HODGSON: Dr. Barbara Yawn, a member of the Worthington Family Life Education Committee. Other members of the Worthington Family Life Education Committee heard on this program were Gail Jackson of the Southwestern Mental Health Center, Al Johnson, principal of the Worthington Senior High School, and Nancy Crippen, co-director of Help, Incorporated. We also heard from Sue Sobey, director of the Region 8 Family Planning Program, and Eleanor Vincent, staff writer for The Worthington Daily Globe.

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For the past 45 minutes or so, you've been hearing about a situation which is a quintessential demonstration of the conflict which occurs between individuals and their rights and needs and the needs of society as a whole. This eternal conflict between individuals and the society in which they live has been the principal theme addressed by projects funded by the Minnesota Humanities Commission in recent years.

One such project is our own poet's perspective with regional poets Joe and Nancy Paddock of Olivia. In past weeks, you've heard them add their perspectives to a number of issues in which the conflict between individuals and society is inherent. And on this, our final segment, the poets address this conflict and a couple of specific instances of it head on and seem to come down for the present, at least, on the collective side.

JOE PADDOCK: One of the philosophies held by many of the conservatives in the country is that people who are struggling to get the most for themselves will also upgrade the society. It's doing the most for yourself is the best way of doing the most for everyone else, too.

And I think there's some logic to that, though I think it breaks down eventually. But I hope that somewhere along the line, we can turn it the other way around, really, that when a person recognizes that when he's working for the universal interest, he's also working in his own highest self-interest.

And so, in a way, it's bringing the two philosophies together. And I think there is a way that things always merge on a new level, and that's the way you heal things. And that's the way you grow and become complete on a plateau for a while in your life until you come to a new splitting period.

KIM HODGSON: Somehow, in either case, the distinction between private and public and the conflict or implied conflict between the two is diminished and blurred.

JOE PADDOCK: Right. And I think, too, that there is a healthy thing involved in the conflict. And usually, one side or the other will be in control for a while. But with its excesses, assuming they achieve them, why then a balance will be struck and maybe the other side will dominate for a while again. But I think a very basic thing, when we're first born, we come out of the womb saying, me, more or less, whether it's a cry or whatever, everything for our self.

And I think, in a way, a lot of people don't get beyond it. And I think it's a danger. And it may-- it may look as if people are working within a community in a proper way, but I think in a way, everything-- every move is made out of some want or need. And there's a lot of pain in this for ourself when we're reaching out for our personal selves.

I have a little poem, which I wrote a long time ago called Every Pore, A Greedy Mouth.

Every pore, a greedy mouth

The body burns with teeth

Life nourishes itself properly

Just as water slides down stream beds till drouth

Which seems a shame, but isn't

Anguish of the body burning in rainstorms

Hating, fearing drouth

The mouth, the teeth unused

I guess what I'm implying there is that in a way that life feeds us all the time. We don't have to be so aware of our mouths. And if we're so worried about feeding ourselves, in a way, we aren't-- we're finally aren't fed.

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We've talked about community and what that means. I think now we're talking about the struggle between individualism and community. And I think that people that came to this country, our settlers, carried with them traditions of community.

But they also carried with them under, that is the seeds of individualism. That is the freedom of an unspoiled country to open up along with all kinds of European thought, created a situation which where most of the energy that could be released in human lives moved toward individualism, self-expression in lots of ways. And I think we're finally sort of have harvested that.

In the poem I'm going to read shortly, I chose the year 1915 at which it reached its peak, at which community was lost, sort of, in a way, 1958. I don't know. Did I say 15? Yeah, I meant 1958. And this poem is called Faust Again.

And of course, the Faustian myth is an ideal one for us, I think, because when we want power and control over our environment, anything that impinges on our self-interest, what we're doing, in fact, is selling one thing for another. We're giving up community. So in a way, we've sold our souls for power as I see it now.

And so I think it's a myth that's still very apropos to us. And I quoted a couple of lines from Marlowe's Faust. Faust Again.

I see an angel hovers over thy head

And with a vial full of precious grace

Their moccasins gentle and endless prairies

The mother's body, her sacredness

They would not cut her hair to feed their horses

Take from her the gentle loving of a horse's muzzle

The nip and pull

But immigrant dreaming of wealth and power was willing

To gut his mother for a vein of copper or a nickel

Power was given the heartless practical

Was there a bargain?

Well, the USA arrived in 1958

The first totally profane society in human history

I'm not saying evil

I'm saying all that was sacred has been discounted

And so chemicals, instruments, dollar signs

The mother was skinned alive

The top two feet of buffalo prey was turned human flesh

And now buffalo within remaining sod swell at the temples

They par

Hear the rumble?

Four and 20 years have passed

Devil's rich laughter

Is this hell?

So, in terms of all the problems that suddenly we're faced as we approached the end of this century, I guess what I'm saying here is that that the self-interest approach has reached the point where they all come home again, and the Faustian myth has come true because we gave up our sacred things for power over nature and the land and that sort of thing.

So I think maybe, in a way, we've arrived at a sort of logical end of a strictly self-interest free enterprise point of view. Nature won't allow it anymore.

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KIM HODGSON: One of the few things which heats up in the wintertime in Minnesota is the controversy over snowmobiles. Does an individual have an untrammeled right to rip and snort his way through our crystalline winter landscapes, or does society as a whole have an interest in restricting these movements?

You might be able to guess what poet Nancy Paddock's perspective on this matter is.

NANCY PADDOCK: We were out skiing-- cross-country skiing in a park in Redwood Falls. And some-- the place was full of snowmobiles. And I felt impinged upon. And so this is called The Machine That Changed Winter.

Within their fortresses of noise, snarling snowmobiles

Snake among trees, leaving a wake of tank tracks

Overrunning birdsong and the trickling sounds of thaw

Grinding over the last defense of bushes

Claiming the park for technology

Sparrow wings lightly brushed snow shadows from a black branch

They swarm, black and yellow stingers from Mars

Panthers, Arctic cats in a continual leap for the throat

A hunger that never connects

Drawn out into winters of discontented growling

The white stag playfully rubs his antlers

On the buffalo's shaggy head

Fenced in because they are wild

When they stop, they leave their machines running

And stand faceless in black vinyl

Yelling at each other in the roar

A sound enough like machine gun fire

To set their minds at peace

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KIM HODGSON: And finally, we come full circle. A couple of years ago, when I first heard Joe Paddock read his poem Kettle River, I became conscious of the way in which a poet's perspective can shed new and different light on the sorts of issues which often enter our lives but are usually mediated for us by the so-called objectivity of the radio, TV, or newspaper reporter.

From this seed grew the idea for the Poet's Perspective programs that you have been hearing here. And I thought it appropriate that we should end where it all began.

JOE PADDOCK: I lived on the Kettle River for a third to half of each year for five or six years in a cabin there. And it was a great healing experience for me. And it was recently made a wild river, the state wild river system. And again, there was some resistance among the people to having this legislation imposed on, what they could do with their land along the river.

But what I was struck by mostly was the amazing number of men that were willing to give up some sort of control and testify to the value of the river on them. And that is seemed to me that these guys had transcended that limited level of self-interest in terms of the larger picture.

And so I just wrote a poem called Kettle River. And underneath it, I describe the situation a little bit after a day of open testimony given by the people of Pine County, Minnesota on the pros and cons of the inclusion of the Kettle River the Minnesota wild river system.

Even as testimony flows from the hard mouths

And stubborn tongues of men who have lived with the river

The river flows under ice of a late spring

I'm Arnold Watson from Sandstone, Minnesota

Since a boy and now with my four boys

I have canoed and fished the Kettle

The court recorder is a beautiful woman

With a fall of black hair down the perfect posture of her body

Her fluid beauty is an ache in my bones

As the hard-voiced testimony of men flows

Through the wondrous river of her flesh

Through her mind and body

Her willowy rippling fingers

Into and through her machine to be stored in coilings

And what I want to know

Is who's going to pay us for this restricted use of our land.

I can testify, too

Years spent close to her banks

Living in the old cabin

Listening to her soft voice

Or the roar when she passes through the rocks of hell's gate

Where the lives of many men

Who would have ridden her wild white body ended

Taking water from that pump above those rapids

And that tragic group coming to me asking

Would you keep your eyes open?

Yes, perhaps you've heard about it

My brother put in above

Didn't even know these rapids existed

We are looking for his body

And the rust-stained water I was pumping

Was the brother's blood

I'm Ed Nordine from Hinckley, Minnesota

Burly old man

A face earned in the wind

Frightened now before a microphone

Long seconds trying

And finally, from the deeps of his body

Keep her wild!

For me, the Kettle was a healing

Soft currents coiled my limbs

Her minnows nibbled my flesh

And a certain death I'd been carrying deep

At my center was released

I remember an otter followed my canoe diving

The sudden thrust into light of her happy face

First, one side, then the other

And we're going to have more trespassers

I have 1,000 acres

I carry a shotgun

And old Dr. Christiansen gave

More than 1,000 acres to the state

To be preserved as they are forever

For me, she was a healing

I sat on her banks for 1,000 hours of twilight

And one evening saw an endless hatch

Squirming, scuttling underwater nymphs

Having fed on the dead brother's blood

Became white wings and rose softly into the night

I'm Elwyn Thiessen from Hinckley, Minnesota

I've walked the bottoms of the Kettle River for 60 years

I have a cabin on Bass Lake

So do a hundred others

And it's no good

When I want to go back to peace and nature

I go back to the Kettle River

Testimony flowed

The fluid beauty of that woman was an ache in my bones

The testimony of old men who had somehow taken wing

Risen from the harsh death of their brothers was a constant poem

The river had written in their bones when they were children

Reciting now from memory through their tongues murmuring

Her love for these ancient men, calling them home

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VICKI STURGEON: You've been listening to the Poet's Perspective on the question of public versus private rights over issues of concern to citizens in rural Minnesota. This is one in a series of nine programs funded in part by the Minnesota Humanities Commission. The program featured Southwest Minnesota regional poets Joe and Nancy paddock.

The series was produced in the Worthington studios of Minnesota Public Radio station KRSW. And KRSW staff members responsible for the project were Kim and Judy Hodgson. I'm Vickie Sturgeon.

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