Knowing that its cover models are de facto role models for the teens that peruse its pages, the magazine decided to keep Dunn on the cover, interviewing her about how she told her family and the world about her unplanned pregnancy.
"It was really hard," Dunn said. "All I could think about was what my mom was going to say, my agency, my boyfriend. When I told my mom, she started crying and blaming herself. She got pregnant with me at the same age, and she said, 'I don't want you to have to go through what I did.'"
Unfortunately, that's about as in-depth as the article gets. As Parent Dish points out, many of the questions that might have been informative for Teen Vogue's readership about Dunn's situation go unasked. Did Dunn use protection? Did she consider abortion or putting the baby up for adoption? Will there be a father figure in the baby's life? Just as strange is how Dunn's pregnancy is folded in as a side narrative to a larger story of the cover's other featured face, Chanel Iman, who is portrayed as the more "goal oriented" of the models.
I find the story unsettling, but not for the usual reasons teen pregnancies can be unsettling. After all, Dunn is 19-years-old, which means that she legally an adult (she can vote, go to prison, etc.). She's also a supermodel, so her earning power guarantees she will avoid at least some of the pitfalls of an unplanned teen pregnancy. But what bothers me is the message that Teen Vogue is sending to its readers, who may not have not have the money, support, or options that Dunn has. Sure, there is always the teen pregnancy that goes wonderfully for both mother and child, but far more often, teenagers who have babies say they wish they had waited to become parents. I think if Teen Vogue wanted to run with its cover, and stake the claim that it was dealing with teenage pregnancy in a transparent, head-on manner, it should have asked the hard questions and not been afraid to print the answers.
What do you think? Should pregnant teens be featured on the cover of Teen Vogue? Does doing so legitimize unplanned pregnancy for teenagers, or does it provide a welcome and necessary reflection of our changing society? Is the magazine celebrating or exploiting teen pregnancy with this move?
