Letters to the Editor
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what about smash-mortion as they said in Knocked Up
How about....NOT having a baby at 16? You wouldn't give a 5 year car loan to a 16 year old, not to mention a 30 year mortage. And they should get a human being to raise for close to twenty years and beyond?
And by the way, adoption is not the easy, everyone wins option either. The movies show it's always the caring one that keeps the baby. You are teased by the other teeners that "they couldn't be the type to give up a child for adoption" and this teasing in a small town follows you all the way to the workplace, as you being "the kind of a woman who gives up their own kid." Family members who know will whine that you cheated them out of a niece, a cousin, a grandkid as if they owned the egg. Then there's that knock on your door years later and you don't know how disruptive it will be. Oh, and then there's the risk and danger in carrying out a pregnancy.
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wow, so many sad people...
...expressing so much hostility. I feel deeply for this girl. I got pregnant at 37. I was single and I still heard these criticisms. I was "old enough to know better." Contraception does fail. Not everyone can use hormonal birth control. Sometimes men don't stop when you say no. Do you REALLY want to go there?
How it happened is no one's business. It is so refreshing to see that so many readers have created perfectly planned families. I have no doubt that my "irresponsibly conceived" child and I will have as joyful a holiday season as you and all your "perfectly planned" children do. Maybe more so, he really was a gift.
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re: Disturbing Ethnocentrism
Tom Rakewell,
"I'm seeing some disturbing ethnocentrism here. Being pregnant and deciding that you're ready to be a mommy at age 16, might be the sign that you are a wayward youth in the developed world. But, Jamie Lynn is from Louisiana. She's practically an old maid for goodness sake."
In the 1800s or 1700s that might have flown, because of the high mortality rate and the shorter life expectancy...but this is the 21st century and children are surviving birth now and people are living longer. An old maid??? I think not.
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uck! The Morality Police!
It is so much fun to run around being superior to some girl you've never met and never are going to meet, isn't it? Makes you feel all good about those taxes (exams? husband?) you've cheated on doesn't it.
It's like a drug. You know, the ones you all didn't inhale back when you were 16, when you didn't have sex, make stupid mistakes, or at least get caught doing it.
Ms. Spears is about to have to do something consequential and difficult: birth and raise a child at 16 with the entire world wagging its hypocritical Mrs Grundy finger at it. I wish her luck and a few real friends in life. She will need it.
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OK, accidents happen
and blah blah blah kids are irresponsible and so on. That shouldn't stop any parent from saying to their child, "Wow, that was really STUPID! Do you know how to stop that from happening? Here's how!" If she was hurt drunk driving, you can bet I'd give a lecture to my underage kids about how we don't drink as teens and all that, but if we do, we call Mom no questions asked, call a cab, or get into a car only with a driver who hasn't been drinking.
Maybe I was just smarter than some of the other posters as a 16 year old girl, but I knew that unwrapped penis in vagina might mean a baby on the way, and I also knew that condoms and the pill were pretty darn good ways to avoid the production of miniature human beings--and my parents were the type that opted us out of sex ed, so I guess I just absorbed this from the ether or something. Birth control DOES fail, but not all that often, frankly. I do agree that the 19 year old boyfriend should also be greeted with a little opprobrium. People should talk to their sons as well as their daughters about how to avoid becoming parents before they're ready. At the age of 19, he's never heard of condoms? Let's face it though--most of the burden of an unwanted pregnancy falls on the girl, and that's why people come down harder on them.
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Since when is a knocked up 16 year old trailer bride, news?
What we think because she's famous that she's not a dumb skank ho? That dropping from the same uterus as her big famous sisters makes her smart? Psychobabblize that all you want. Every day dumb trick 15-16 year olds are 'unexpectedly' getting pregnant. Duh how did that happen, Captain Retard? Durrr.
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That Spears girl and her boyfriend...
They came to my B&B once. There was a convention in town. They didn't have a reservation or anything, but they wanted a room. I think it's shameful her being pregnant at that age, that's not how God would want it. I told them no. No, I said, there's no room at the inn, you go somewhere else. They said there were no rooms available anywhere, and they asked me where they could sleep, and I said you can go sleep in the manger with the ox and lamb for all I care. God save us all. What is wrong with this world?
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So if you get pregnant you are a whore?
This isn't about the Spears family, who are tiresome and predictable at this point. This is just another example of The Scarlet A. The woman always takes the fall. What about the father? What about all the guys who get women pregnant and run or wander away.
The outrage is just silly. If your lifestyle is such that a person in the entertainment industry is the chosen idol, you have a bigger problem than how to explain to your kids what's her name is with child.
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Anonymous at 1:54
Well, it'd be pretty late to lecture your kids on driving drunk after they'd already been caught driving drunk. Spears is already pregnant. If her parents caught her screwing her boyfriend then yes, if they didn't give her a talking to then I'd really be worried. Obviously, they didn't know, or maybe they actually thought she was using safe sex.
But I love how smart you were at sixteen. I guess you never got caught up in the heat of the moment. I think the problem is that a lot of kids (and adults as well) don't plan on having sex. It's like you are making out with your boyfriend, and maybe you've been drinking, and the next thing you know your panties are off and you can't think straight with all his whining and pleading to "just put it in a little."
I wasn't schtupting at 16, but it's not hard for me to have empathy. Sometimes I think that's what's really missing from most people on the planet. The same tendancy of anonymous above to say, well I was smart enough at sixteen (so friggin' sanctimonious) is what causes 90% of the armed conflicts, fist-fights, and troll wars on blogs. It's that because you didn't make that sort of mistake, and you are so obviously right and perfect, then anyone who does make that mistake is less than you and deserves your scorn.
Ganging up on a knocked up sixteen year old girl isn't right. I'm sorry. She's not a slut. Having sex with one guy (your boyfriend of 2-3 years) doesn't a slut make. At least in my opinion.