Stereotypes in our time

Even among Bible-believing fundies it's pretty hard to find anyone who will criticize a teenage girl for getting pregnant. They'll criticize that behavior in the abstract, but when a pregnant girl is actually sitting in one of the pews they won't say a word against it. Is this polite, or is it spineless? I don't know, but I do know it's hardly unusual for people who meet in church - even in a conservative church - to find themselves in this situation.

jaybird, that is awesome. Who needs the Onion anymore?

Man, even before this latest crisis, I think that title would be questionable--to say the least.

Now, come on, everyone, be nice. I know next to nothing about the younger Spears sister or their parents, but it is not exactly like they are the only ones to ever be in such a predicament. I agree with Rod, kudos on deciding to keep the baby, and I hope that all of them manage to work out all the problems in their lives, even if many of them are the fault of their own less-than-perfect choices.

God bless.

Someone (I forgot who) once said, "I don't hate Britney Spears because she's from Louisiana. I hate Britney Spears because I'm from Louisiana."

Apparently being a walking stereotype is a family affair for that crew.

Re: The Donald
I'll stick with Pascal's thank you very much.

Re: The 16 year old from LA.

Nothing to be ashamed about LA. Sorry 'bout the stereotype.
God bless her. She's got a long road ahead. More trouble than a lot of us have had to bear and maybe more sacrifices.

Can't help but pass this along. . .

Word is, Mary was a 14 year old unwed mom way back when. . .

[Shut down my mouth really fast, got me to say a prayer and go buy diapers!]

I'm sure it WAS embarrassing to have to share the news with the whole freakin' world! She made the right and difficult choice! Put the baby above all else. Fame, fortune, ridicule, etc. . .

Seems the Churches ought to be providing a much better way for teens to talk about sex and the Church's views. And practical reasons why the Church's teachings are the Best way to go and -seriously- practical ways to avoid the temptations. "Just say No." doesn't work too well. Talking about the elephant in the room? An excellent way to go.

"Wait a minute! I thought churches taught abstinence before marraige.
What went wrong?"

Just because some churches teach it doesn't mean everyone learns it. Drivers' ed classes teach everyone to buckle up -- not everyone does.

Everyone can think of things WORSE than a surprise pregnancy.

But 16 is 16 and you can't get that back. No matter WHO you are - having kids at 16 is no emotional picnic. Just look what it did to her sister in her 20's?

I suppose the NET WORTH will take away teenage post-partum?

Granted, Maybe it'll take away the diapers and the breastfeeding and the sleepless nights. But IF she's responsible and doesn't pass everything off, it WILL give her a completely different life. When she could've just skipped it with a trip to a clinic.

So yes God bless. Maybe there's somebody out there who's had an easy time raising young kids at 16, But I've never met them! And the superRich who constantly pass off their kids to live in nannies to jet set to St. Bart's have their own set of parenting nightmares to deal with too.

Mary was a 14 year old unwed mom way back when

No, she wasn't an unwed mom.

---------------

Actually, at the time she became pregnant she was unwed, but was betrothed to Joseph. According to the Bible he was planning to "put her away," i.e. renounce the betrothal, until the angel spoke to him and explained the situation.

I still get letters, emails, and the occasional phone call because of a story I wrote almost four years ago for D magazine here in Dallas on this topic. If Rod is so inclined he can link it.

A couple of weeks ago while working on the edge of cellhell (no signal is cellhell) I got a call. It was not unlike some of the others I've received. A mother with a sixteen year old twelve weeks along and the child with child wanting to raise the child even though parentage was iffy as to fatherhood.

I don't believe my observations were appreciated. The most important thing I wanted the mother of the mother to be to know was it was no longer about her and her husband. It wasn't about her friends at church. It wasn't about her mother and it sure as heck wasn't about what the rest of the world would think.

There was one and one thing only of importance here. It's about the baby, and to a lesser degree, the baby's mother. Everyone and everything else is similar to the some of the comments here, pure t b.s.

The self righteous amongst us need to stop and consider for just a minute why families choose abortion, THE Christian honor killing if you have enough vision to see beyond your eyelids. The number one reason Christians resort to abortion is because of the condemnation of their brethren. And don't tell me all these abortions are the work of atheists either, remember atheists are smart enough to use protection.

I read the Spears story this morning and wondered how many preachers would see this as a wonderful opportunity to pass on a life lesson to their parishoners. Actually, a whole bunch of life lessons, doubley important this time of year.

One has to wonder, one in a thousand maybe?

I'll bet most of them will mention the sin and shame and feel good about themselves. Sad, really really sad. And they're the ones that worship the fruit of an unwed mother's loins.

If one wants to be intensely cynical about this (and I do), this is Jamie Lynn's only chance to retain a career someday.

If the tween idol were ever discovered to have secretly had an abortion ...

Though she seems sweeter in temperament than her sister -- so, with all the help that cursed Spears money can buy (honestly, they're beginning to remind me of that West Virginia lottery winner whose family went to h*ll in a handbasket), I'm sure she'll get through her youth to make a good mom.

Other teen-agers, of course, don't have unlimited financial resources. One reason I'm not so condemning as the majority of CCers might be if they made a different decision than Jamie Lynn.

Happy Holidays to you and yours also Scott. It is a great time of the year. I don't believe anyone appreciates the change of seasons more than us guys in construction. It's really kewel that when it's so darn cold outside the days are shorter. That's enough to make anyone feel appreciative and want to celebrate.

Yesterday I had two conversations with sons about daughters. One of them has a sixteen year old and the other a six. The girls are independent natured, a good thing in my book. The fathers are struggling with controling these young ladies. Any father knows this is extremely difficult in our world today because the father is just one voice in a chorus.

The good thing about being the father of a daughter is when she comes into the world he gets a room full of credibility. The only thing that can destroy that credibility is the father. Others can attempt to distort it but only he can destroy it. So even though his voice is just one in the chorus it's the one that's heard above all the others.

What fathers miss in the credibility/voice scenario is the kids hear not only with their ears, but with their eyes. In fact what they hear with their eyes most of the time comes across a lot louder and has more impact.

The six year old did a pretty serious bad thing. She lied to her substitute teacher about being allowed to walk home with a friend instead of waiting for pickup by a parent. When son showed up to pick her up and she wasn't to be found the reactions by all involved was appropriate.

The consensus was butt busting one oh one followed by spanking two oh two and then screaming three oh three. Son didn't do that and when a couple of days later he called me I was proud of him for not succumbing to peer pressure.

The sixteen year old missed curfue by thirty minutes on a school night. This son was complaining about the difficulty of raising a teen age daughter.

My advice to my two sons was very similar. When those young ladies came into this world the father not only got a room full of credibility that no one else had, he got a substantial down payment as compensation for future child rearing. The payments kept coming in and will continue to do so, even after he dies and someone else gets them.

The reason the payments come in so fast and furious is because there's no job more important in this whole wide world than that of fathering a daughter. It's not easy. If it was easy anyone could do it and the rewards for a job well done would reflect that.

Part of the payment was for not reacting like an idiot and thinking long and hard about how to address issues that come up. I didn't tell the boys what to do. But I did tell them that those girls were smart and they both loved their fathers and them on pedestals. There was something the fathers could say or so that would get across to the young ladies the gravity of the situation. Their job was to figure out what that would be and then do it.

My job as their father isn't to lead them by the hand and tell them exactly what to do. My job is quite similar to theirs, it's as a guide.

If some find this off topic, so be it. I see it being on topic because I believe there was something missing in the lives of Spears girls.

I really do think it's sad, though. That's why I'm heading up a teen girls' ministry at church at the beginning of this new year. The first lesson will be on self-respect and why they are entitled to have it. I want that message to be the one they "get" if they don't learn another thing in my class.

What makes this sad other than the fact she isn't married?

Excellent question. One thing that makes it hard for me to talk to my fellow feminists and liberals about such things as abortion and the "morning-after" pill is my opinion that unplanned pregnancy shouldn't be looked at as a humongous disaster. Maybe it's not a good thing, and the girl/woman should plan to give up the baby (one way or another). But maybe the only thing that makes it look so disastrous is that it's going to radically change the woman's life. Clearly, when you get blind-sided by the prospect of a radical change like that it's natural to want to try to avoid it. But can't you at least try on the idea that raising a child could be a good thing? We don't seem to be willing to do that (at least not in our rhetoric), and that's a pity.

Mrs. Pringle

joel,

"Even among Bible-believing fundies it's pretty hard to find anyone who will criticize a teenage girl for getting pregnant. They'll criticize that behavior in the abstract, but when a pregnant girl is actually sitting in one of the pews they won't say a word against it. Is this polite, or is it spineless?"

Forgive my cynicism, but isn't the pregnancy of a teen-aged girl the foundation for "Bible-beleiving" faith?

How to resist a sardonic pile on crack here, but I'll shock even me by saluting the choice to have the kid. And to tell you that strange as it might seem, the people I grew up with who had their tenage children, whether they shot-gun married or stayed single, ALL are happier for it. Every one of them says their child grew up to be the blessing. And the 'shotgun' marriages lasted until now, whereas the more thoughtful and appropriately timed are divorced. Go figure!