Johannesburg- If you grew up in the nineties, you might remember Pale Ya Puleng (Puleng’s Story).
It was a black and white picture storybook that addressed the vagaries of teenage pregnancy in an accessible manner.
The story was fun and enticing and you could read it in one sitting and it would stay with you forever. A naive Puleng fell for the charms of the village Don Juan who took her for a stroll to the nearby fields where they engaged in coitus with predictable results.
As soon as Puleng showed the tell-tale signs of carrying a baby in her womb, the guy disappeared. Her uncles would later sjambok him when he showed up on his shiny bicycle.
I stumbled upon the book while I was still too young to sow my seed but the lesson stayed with me to this day.
The lesson is you don’t sow your wild oats willy-nilly when you are unable or unprepared for responsibility.
The book did not stop teenage pregnancy because the scourge continued unabated and may even have grown in recent times.
I’m sure most of you were shocked that over 36 000 schoolgirls fell pregnant last year, some as young as 10 years old.
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