It is refreshingly honest and true to life to view a teen drama which depicts parents and teens actually talking to each other. While other teen dramas show superficial conversations between the main character teens and their often absentee parents, Secret Life successfully captures the varied relationships teens may have to their parents.
The Parent Child Relationship
Many of the teen characters of Secret Life actually confide in their parents and consider what is said by their parents. Equally, the parents of these teens listen to their children’s thoughts and feelings when conversing with the maturing minds. This is a realistic depiction of healthy family life.
Many other teen dramas portray the parents as stupider than their young children, while Secret Life conveys to its young viewers the idea that parents have wisdom and love to provide to their growing children, who are still in need of guidance.
Let’s Talk About Sex
Adding to realism, Secret Life shows that different teens and parents have different relationships, but the teens lacking parental guidance are shown to be more adrift than those who have the benefit of supportive parenting.
The series shows that it may be difficult or embarrassing to discuss certain topics with a parent, but by showing these teens speaking to their parents, it encourages its young audience to also over come their discomfort in order to speak to their own parents.
Negligence and Contradictions
Yet, as encouraging as it is to watch teens speak to their parents and watch parents take an active role in raising their offspring, there are certain other aspects of the show which are entirely unrealistic and irresponsible.
Following a pregnancy which resulted from a foolish single sexual experience with school seducer, Ricky, Amy has been struggling to decide who should raise her unborn child. Reluctantly leaning toward adoption throughout most of the season, Amy has now been convinced by her father, sister, and friends that they can all help her “be a real mother at fifteen,” despite Amy’s protestations that a child cannot be raised as a “weird group project.”
For a show which portrays the importance of emotionally supportive parenting, it is contradicting itself by resolving the very complex difficulty of an unplanned teen pregnancy by fantasizing that a mother, who is still a child herself, is capable of providing a baby with security and guidance. There are girls in this situation who, most likely with the help of family, successfully raise the baby, but the situation written for Amy is even more extreme than usual.
Amy’s parents are divorcing and financially strained, meaning both must work, leaving each with little time. Amy must find a way to do her school work, look after the baby, and afford to pay for care and health insurance for her baby, something adults find difficult. Complicating matters further, Amy’s grandmother has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, but most concerning is the fact that the teen-lothario father of the baby has a drug addicted, child sex offender father, who has already threatened the welfare of the fetus.
While there might be a way to overcome all difficulties, the show seems to irresponsibly disregard how different the lives of Amy and her baby will be if this child is being raised by make-do means, and even more irresponsibly, through the character of Amy’s sister Ashley, the idea has been suggested that it would be poor mothering to consider adoption.
Worst of all is the fiction the show has created to resolve the immediate problems of financing and caring for the baby. It is possibly that the local church could provide Amy with an after-school job and perhaps, day care, but it is absurd that French-horn player Amy would be given a job teaching music at the church daycare center. Miracles can happen, but this is the sort of job adults would find difficult to obtain. It would be more realistic to show that Amy must sacrifice her music activities and take a skuzzy job.
Ben and Amy
It is most unrealistic to show that pregnant Amy has found true love with a boy who is unconcerned about possibly having to miss the prom due to his girlfriend having another boy’s child.
The characters of Ben and Amy make a lovable couple, but they are too devotedly intense in their relationship for two fifteen year old children.
The show does explore some of the serious issues which would be caused by the various relationships and situations of the storylines, but after some admirable exploration, the show seems to disregard all previously considered arguments in order to conclude with a fairytale finale.
Season Swansong
Yet again this largely commendable started its run well, but has descended into farcical fiction. While Secret Life can be comically entertaining, it sometimes seems to lose sight of the seriousness of its premise, thus undermining its own normally strong writing and often finely balanced elements of tragedy and comedy. Joking through life can be a healthy approach, but the chuckling has to be turned down to a giggle when certain difficult life decisions must be realistically weighed.
