Jamie Lynn Spears Speaks, Illustrates Why America Needs to Grow Up About Teens and Sex

Sometimes America’s backwardness about sex, gender and facing uncomfortable truths is underscored in pop-culture, and the pregnancy and subsequent shunning of Jamie Lynn Spears- Britney’s little sister and star of the old Nickelodeon show Zoey 101– was certainly one of those moments.

To my knowledge, homes for “unwed mothers” no longer exist, but they might as well have considering how quickly Jamie Lynn Spears was whisked from public view as if somehow an accidental pregnancy is contagious. To be sure, we’ve seen the effects of glamorizing teenage pregnancy with trainwreck shows like Teen Mom, but in a country that’s probably the least comfortable in the Western world with reproductive issues, it always seemed counterintuitive the way we cast young girls out of the tribe when they- not alone, it can never be repeated enough- get knocked up.

If you’ve ever been in the place Jamie Lynn describes in an Glamour interview, her words probably will take you back there. She says:

“It was 2007. I had been on a Nickelodeon show, Zoey 101, and after we wrapped shooting, I just wanted to go home to Louisiana and finish high school, be a cheerleader, all that. Then I found out I was pregnant. I was young. I was in love. I was like every other teenager, except I had this last name. And I made a decision that is forever my decision.”

But the next part should hit you right in the ovaries, and if you oppose an alternative to abstinence-only education, it should give you pause. Spears says:

I believe in safety and birth control as prevention. But like many young girls…I was really scared to go to the doctor. And I was on a Nickelodeon show, and it [felt] especially embarrassing to ask someone to put me on birth control. I didn’t want to ask my doctor, because she had a little girl.

Jaime Lynn even addresses the advent of the Teen Mom world, and a culture in which teen mothers are more visible but really no more supported:

When I saw MTV’s Teen Mom was coming out, I remember thinking, Oh my God, I cannot wait to see this show because there’s someone else out there. I mean, I feel for those girls. I’ve been that girl. It does show that motherhood is hard. There were so many times—especially when Maddie would get sick—when I would cry to myself and think, I really don’t know what to do. It takes bravery to be a young mom, and it does take bravery to let the world watch.

It’s certainly a difficult situation, because punishing teen mothers is basically closing the barn door after the horse has bolted- and gotten pregnant. It’s often been said that 40% of women get pregnant at least once by the age of 20- and unless we accept the eventuality that teens often get pregnant, without support and prevention, they’re either headed to the projects or the abortion clinic. Do you think teens like Jamie Lynn need more assistance and less judgment when they wind up in this situation?