Celebrity pregnancy is the ‘new black’ unless you’re a teen mum

Notice how everyone is talking about the possibility of a newly pregnant 16 year old giving up her baby to her mother with a kind of creepy glee? The idea that pregnant Jamie Lynn Spears, sister of another case study in motherhood moralising is ”reluctantly agreeing that giving up the baby is the right thing to do” [my emphasis] isn’t ringing alarm bells for us. In fact, we’re all a-ok with that kind of decision making because it really is for the best that this baby not be raised by a teenage mother, even one with family support and lots of cash besides. Apparently Jamie Lynn should try to put this whole silly mistake behind her and move on with her life, because teenagers don’t get attached to their babies and anyway, it is All For The Best. “Jamie Lynn will be back at work and trying to remind people of her talent and not that she is an unwed teenage mother”. This thinking is all sooooo retrograde, you’d think we still dashed pregnant teenagers off to homes for the unwed mother. But it is permanently open season for teenage pregnancy. The idea that being pregnant is tragic or a sign of stupidity and that having sex is shameful and disappointing; there is a lot you can’t say in polite company these days about your bigoted views on women’s sexuality unless you’re talking about a teenage mother.

There is always the possibility that Jamie Lynn Spears really has made a well-informed decision to give up her child to her mother when it is born (or even that the whole rumour is fabricated). But with all this talk of her pregnancy as a moral scandal threatening the purity of her young fans, and the thrill of pondering whether being the kind of girl who gets herself pregnant she might also be the kind of girl to be sleeping around (ie. who is the father-to-be of her baby) - it is disturbing to think how disempowered she might be feeling about her pregnancy and, to what degree she is responding to our intense pressure on her to do the 1950s thing.

Ariel Gore, well-known motherhood writer and previous young mother herself’, rolls her eyes thoughtfully at the media response to Jamie Lynn Spears’ pregnancy in “congratulations, Jamie Lynn”

And, you know, even if you’ve got a hundred reasons why teen parenting isn’t a good idea—don’t you think it’s rude to share your opinions with expecting moms?

The decks are stacked against teen parents. We all know that. So why not unstack the decks instead of making everyone feel bad on top of it all?

I guess I just wanted to remind everyone that when you hear that someone is pregnant, no matter her age, marital status, sexual orientation, or financial situation, the correct response is:

CONGRATULATIONS.