Baby Mama

Apparently, Britney Spears' little sister is some kind of television star on a show for 8-year-olds, I guess. I mean, I'm not familiar, but she's famous enough to be on the news this morning.

She's sixteen. And she's pregnant.

Britney, when asked, said, "Ding dang, y'all, Jamie-Lynn's pregnant! I'ms gonna be an aunt, or maybe an uncle. We don't know if she's havin' a boy or a girl yet."

You know, I'm not, like, all weird and judgey about teenage pregnancy. My husband's a high school teacher, and I got over being shocked his first year teaching, when he had four students who were knocked up. One was even due at the same time I was, with the same obstetrician and at the same hospital--Dan and I kept imagining awkward scenarios where she and I ended up as roommates in the postpartum ward.

But this seems just so weird to me. I mean, sixteen-year-olds get pregnant all the time, I get it. But she seems really excited about it. She's planning to move back to Louisiana to raise the baby with "a normal family life."

I wonder where she's going to find a normal family. I mean, her mother was writing a parenting book when this happened. Seriously? A parenting book? From Britney Spears' mother? Did I hear that right? We're not talking about a children's book, something about, I don't know, pigs and tractors and hootch stills?

Same news program: kids who have sex education are statistically less likely to have sex before age 15. 79% and 59% less likely for boys and girls respectively. I mean, that's, you know, fairly significant.

So look, say you've got a swimming pool. You can tell your kids that the pool is dangerous. You can tell them to stay away from it. You can put a fence around the pool with a locked gate. But whatever you do to keep your kid out, this is a fact: your kid is going to get into that pool. Sooner or later, your kid is going swimming. Do you not think that you should maybe get your kid some swimming lessons? How is that not the responsible thing to do?

I really just can't fathom how this is even a question anymore. Sex education for Max? Yes please. Whatever it takes to keep him out of the pool as long as we can, we'll do it. But we've got no illusions about the fact that it's a decision he will make for himself, regardless of what we want. Did no one tell this kid, this Jamie-Lynn Spears, about where babies come from?

She seems to think that this will all be some kind of kick, some kind of good time. Look at me, I've got an expensive handbag and a nice car and a baby, y'all! Like I said, I'm trying to not be judgey, but give me a break. Parenthood is tough. It's hard work. I'm not saying a sixteen-year-old doesn't know how to work hard, but how is this something that a kid, and she is still a kid, could possibly be ready for?

And she has the audacity to tell other kids that they shouldn't have premarital sex. Really? No premarital sex? Well, I'm pretty sure you've lost all your credibility with anybody who was listening to begin with, and you really sound like a hypocrite, but definitely tell your own kid that too. I'm sure it'll work out for her as well as it did for you. Jamie-Lynn, 30-year-old grandmother.

Wanna know what parenthood is really like, Jamie-Lynn? Why don't you ask your big sister? I hear she's a shoo-in for mother of the year, y'all.