In , Edith Wharton wrote the novel Summer. Set in the Berkshire hills of western Massachusetts, Summer tells the story of Charity Royall, a teenage foster child who finds herself pregnant and alone after a short-lived romance. As Joanna Lipper describes in her recent book Growing Up Fast , the dilemmas facing Charity are the same ones daunting too many young women in the Berkshire region today. The Berkshires are widely known as an upscale tourist destination, boasting popular attractions such as Tanglewood and Canyon Ranch Spa.
Although it shares the same picturesque setting, Pittsfield might as well be 1, miles away from the economic prosperity that has graced much of the rest of the area. From their stories, she created Growing Up Fast. Lipper, a documentary filmmaker, originally created a short film of the same title in The book, published in November , takes a more in-depth look at the lives of the teen mothers originally profiled in the film: Amy, Liz, Colleen, Shayla, Sheri, and Jessica. One is tempted to call teenage pregnancy in Pittsfield an epidemic.
The statistics that Lipper offers are striking: in this small city of 45, people, almost 60 teenagers gave birth each year from to That means that in any given year, about one in 14 Pittsfield high school girls were pregnant. What accounts for this high rate of teen pregnancy?
Having established this context, Lipper turns to the profiles of each of her six subjects. In contrast to his mother, Jonathan was incredibly immobile.
They speak matter-of-factly about the circumstances leading them to become pregnant, intentionally or not: childhood molestation, involvement with gangs and drugs, abusive relationships, estrangement from family. They also speak at length, sometimes quite eloquently, about being mothers. In addition to capturing the voices of these six young women, Lipper also interviews their families and the fathers of their children. Some of these fathers, many of whom are teenagers themselves, are absent or in jail incarceration, Lipper points out, is often a rite of passage for teenage boys in Pittsfield much as pregnancy is for girls.
