Jamie Lynn Spears’ pregnancy was revealed about two weeks ago, allowing just enough time for defenders of immoral, antinomian behavior to crawl out of their holes, now appearing as beacons of truth about all things sexual and underage. Two such impostors are Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post and Mary Sanchez writing for McClatchy-Tribune News Service. Both assure readers they have the right take on teenage sexuality. Ms. Marcus pontificates, “And so the message I choose from Spears’ pregnancy…and… delivered [to her 10- and 12-year-old daughters] 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.” And so we have the default position for 21st century parenting; when all else fails, use a condom. Quick, someone call Child Protective Services.
Mary Sanchez is equally unprincipled, suggesting Spears’ fornication be immortalized in future “Zoey 101″ episodes, even though Ms. Sanchez acknowledges Jamie Lynn’s target audience is “young girls 11 to 14.” Mother-of-the-year nominee Sanchez heartens us with, “Why not write it into the show? Such a plotline could serve as a valuable starting point for people to become less condemning and more honest about teen’s sexuality.” With starting points like that we need not guess the end result, delivery rooms and abortion clinics crowded with barely pubescent teenyboppers. Maddeningly stupid, such council spews forth from authority figures void of wisdom, a chilling fulfillment of ”blind guides of the blind.”
It’s about time average Americans called obtuseness by its name, renouncing the advice of libertines and, more importantly, re-establishing moral standards. Here’s a start; underage sexual activity is always wrong. Young girls especially are not emotionally ready for intimacy, a fact not altered by contraception. Promiscuity at an early age is often a harbinger of greater ills to come, and condoms or not, pregnancies do occur, a happenstance vastly complicating years rightly devoted to mental, emotional, and spiritual development. Many life goals — college and career to name two — are threatened and sometimes derailed when young people are allowed and encouraged to abandon propriety for adult behaviors many grownups can’t handle. Warning children of the dangers of improper conduct is a huge part of parenting, responsibility shirked by too many spineless moms and dads for fifty years.
Parents again need to state the obvious, refusing to be cowed by the likes of the authors in question. Ms. Marcus’ 10-year-old, for goodness sakes, was perceptive enough about Ms. Spears’ situation. ”Don’t have sex until you get married,” said the perceptive pre-teen, reciting the only reliable defense against unwanted pregnancy, sexual impropriety, and ruined formative years. Incredibly, mother Marcus, by her own admission, dismissed that observation, instead directing her 10-year-old to engage in protected sex ”whenever you choose.” Rather, we reject the shameful parenting put on display by Ruth Marcus, whose agnostic guardianship places her daughters in harms way.
Today’s pandemic teenage sexual activity is cited by both authors as reason to add to the tragedy by not setting standards, accepting improper behavior in the name of enlightenment. Ironically, this vacuum of leadership is the prime cause of the societal degeneration embodied by Jamie Lynn, a fact no doubt lost on journalistic elites. Proclaiming standards, naming unsuitable behavior, rewarding morality and not rewarding immorality, all scorned by Marcus and Sanchez, in fact gives our kids the opportunity to make right choices. Those who will not set boundaries for the young are complicit before the fact, forfeiting the right to moralize to those of us who have the sense and fortitude to say “this is the way, walk ye in it.”
Posted by Jerry Pomeroy in Cultural Insanity