I lived under a rock for most of yesterday. Not really a rock exactly but I was busy with two little boys, laundry, Christmas stuff, a bit of housecleaning and, well, it was our anniversary to boot! So, I was a bit shocked as my Husband and I watched the eleven o'clock news and heard that Jamie Lynn Spears, Britney's famous little sister, is pregnant.

Did I mention that she's sixteen?

I took some time and perused some sites this morning. I'm glad to hear that, after the initial shock, her mother is being supportive. I'm also glad to hear that the plan, thus far, is to raise the child back home in Louisiana which is highly different from her sister's parenting approach.

But I got a bit miffed by the OK! magazine cover which states:

Shocked & scared, but keeping her baby, she and her mom tell the whole story only to OK!

Talk about stirring up my adoption emotions.

Considering the fact that most teen moms (as opposed to the slightly older set who experience unplanned pregnancies) do choose to parent their children rather than choosing placement, I'm wondering why the statement that she is "keeping her baby" was necessary. I'm figuring that a star who has waited through the first trimester of pregnancy to make the announcement isn't going to either abort or place. Furthermore, the amount of stars who wear the title of birth parent is rather minimal with the majority having placed before their days of fame.

Of course, I am overly sensitive to possible adoption talk. Perhaps the headline writer was simply referring to the fact that she didn't get an abortion. Perhaps adoption isn't even mentioned in the full interview. (I didn't and won't buy the magazine. Have you? Hit me up with an e-mail.) Either way, it hard hard for me to read about sixteen year olds who get to parent when I was denied that same thing at a much older age. That said, I AM glad she's got the support of her family. I know many a birth mother who could have and would have parented had she received such support. Kudos to Spears' Mom!

All that said, you can't and shouldn't ignore that Spears is the star of a tween-and-teen show on Nickelodeon. A blog (Celebrity Baby Blog) put up an extraordinary post for parents to use as a resource on talking to their children about teen pregnancy. My boys are still too young for this to even enter their consciousness, however I know many readers of this blog have some tweens and teens at home. Unplanned pregnancies like these in the news may spark some adoption talk as well with such teens. It's important for those of us touched by adoption to address these kinds of topics when they're thrown in the faces of our children and step to the plate to answer their questions.

Our family is wishing the Spears' family a healthy rest of a pregnancy with as little stress as possible. Or, rather, as little stress as possible when you're a famous star, you're sixteen and you're going through an unplanned pregnancy. Personally I'm glad that another mother isn't joining our sisterhood of birth mothers. A twinge jealous, true, but happy all the same.

(In case you're confused by this post, here's a simple run down: hearing about teen pregnancies always makes me somewhat jealous, especially when they are getting support to parent, but I wouldn't wish a lifetime of birth motherhood on anyone. Well, almost anyone. For those about to say I'm either being too mean/negative or too nice/positive, this is just how I react to things.)

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For more on Unplanned Pregnancy here on the Birth-First Parent blog, read these posts.


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