Okay, Teachable Moment Alert. But what, exactly, to teach?

Mom: So, what do you think the lesson is here?

Ten-year-old Julia, brightly: Don't have sex until you get married!

Uh, um, is that the lesson? Did I hear Daddy's car in the driveway? Anybody want more peas?

I'm sure this is exactly the message many parents jumped to if they discussed Jamie Lynn with their kids at all.  But as Marcus points out, how realistic is it?  Do I really expect my daughter to wait until marriage?  I didn't.  I didn't have sex in high school, but I didn't wait until marriage.    I don't want my daughter having sex in high school, certainly, but that's because I don't think high schoolers are ready for the complications of sex--pregnancy or other.  I certainly wouldn't have been.  But I don't want to set unattainable expectations either.

Marcus' basic point boils down to this:

And so the message I choose from Spears's pregnancy--and the one, once I recovered my composure, I ultimately delivered, is this: It could happen to you--even if you're the kind of "conscientious" girl who, as Jamie Lynn's mother described her, is never late for curfew. And so, whenever you choose to have sex, unless you are ready to have a baby, don't do it without contraception.

Such a sane, rational response.  Sigh.  Its good to see.