Teenage pregnancy

Amusing though I found the film 'Juno' to be (see previous post), I also had reservations about it's message. Coasting along the zeitgeist, did art follow life or vice versa? teen pregnancies seem to be the order of the day: Britney Spears younger sister, Jamie Lynn, and of course Sarah Palin's daughter. 

For several decades, certainly when I was growing up, becoming a teenage mother was considered a tragedy. But is it? Certainly the scores of women that I know that have left getting pregnant too late (trying IVF desperately in their 40's, seeking sperm donors) would revise their opinion on that issue. 

The right to bear children is a fundamental human right. Clearly there is an optimum age, biologically, to have children (between 18 and 35). In fact, even that has changed in my lifetime. You used to be considered an elderly mother after the age of 27. Now more 30-34 year old women have children than 20-24 year olds. In the West that is. 

Even getting pregnant at 18 is considered ridiculously young. But why? 

Anyway I've had this post on the back burner for a while...but this article puts the case against teen pregnancy being the new cool thing to do very well; particularly the writer's observation that in the film Juno, pregnancy is treated as no more problematic than a bout of acne.

juno

The eponymous title and heroine of this film brings the asteroid Juno into the public gaze. My teenager and I loved the film (although I was hoping that it wasn't too influential!). I felt that giving up the baby was unrealistically 'easy' and the protagonists parents would have taken care of the baby in real life. This film is perhaps upsetting for adopted children especially as Juno ends up with the father, may continue to marry him and have children with him later in life. For adoptees, discovering that their birth parents went onto marry and keep their other children is very difficult...'Why not me?'

In astrology Juno...

"is also known as Hera, has attributes similar to those of Venus, but whereas Venus is the initial attraction or infatuation, Juno is about the commitment that may or may not follow. It relates to marriage and partnerships, and can indicate by the sign it is posited in the kind of qualities admired in another person. It is representative of attraction, receptivity and compatibility with others. It is the wife or the woman's role in an intimate relationship.
Wherever you find Juno in the birthchart is where you will find indications of where you are most likely to meet someone with whom you may have a long-term, committed relationship."

However Britney Spears had major Juno transits at the beginning of her crazy period: the kiss with Madonna, the brief Las Vegas marriage and also her marriage to Fed-ex.

Keywords and what it rules:
Abuse (by spouse), agreements, atmosphere, attraction, compatibility, contracts, divorce, fairness, fear of abandonment, flowers, infidelity, jealousy, marriage, partnership, possessiveness, receptivity, separation, soul mate, trust, vulnerability, weather, wife

So maybe the film should have been called 'Ceres' instead which rules children and nurturing but that doesn't have quite such a ring about it does it?
In the film Juno is (unusually) abandoned by her birth mother and lives with her father and (for once not wicked) step-mother. Juno goes on to complete this pattern by effectively abandoning her own child to a not so wicked step-mother.

Note that June, the month when most couples get married, is named after Juno. Her festival on March 1st is called Matronalia (love that name) and was the first day of the new year prior to the Julian calendar.

Astronomically Juno was originally considered a planet, along with 1 Ceres, 2 Pallas, and 4 Vesta. It was re-classified as an asteroid, with the other three, when many more additional asteroids were discovered.