many of you seem fine with teenage pregnancy and think it has nothing wrong with it. imagine you have a younger sister or a young daughter ….what if she asked you if she should start having sex? what would you say.. hopefully you would tell her to wait. do you know that if you have a baby at a young age there is more chance you or the baby could die than if you were older….and you may not be able to be as sucessful in your life. would’t you want to wait,get a career so you could get the baby everything it needs and wants. i know i would. if these people you talk about that had kids at a young age and are doing good then good for them. but i don’t think you should be posting these comments saying or implying that there is nothing wrong with having kids at a young age because there is and a lot of kids won’t be as succesful as the ones that you talk about that do make it in life. also i dont think you should post these because what if there is a kid reading them and thinks there is nothing wrong with getting pregnant and goes out and does and fails in life because of it…. what would you think. instead of posting comments that imply there is nothing wrong with teenage pregnancy i would write comments about kids that are not doing well so that other kids can see how bad this situation can be and how they never want to be in a situation such as teenage pregnancy.though i am against jamie lynn being pregnant and her still being on zoey 101 i wish her and her baby the best of luck.

I think many of you do not realize that this board has quite likely been self-selected for more educated and informed women from the outset- those that have access to computers and the time to blog (and blog and blog). There are some lovely anecdotes on this page of women who have been supported by their friends and family and who are convinced there is nothing wrong with teenage pregnancy. Have you ever stopped to think that you yourself may be the exception (as Ms Spears probably is) or you are in the lucky 10%? What about the fact that nearly 80% of single teenage moms end up on welfare within 5 years? (For those of you who like sources- this statistic comes from a series of televised sessions on welfare reform and social policy)Only 40 percent of teenagers who have children before age 18 go on to graduate from high school, compared to 75 percent of teens from similar social and economic backgrounds who do not give birth until ages 20 or 21. Teen mothers are more likely than mothers over age 20 to give birth prematurely (before 37 completed weeks of pregnancy). Between 2002 and 2004, preterm birth rates averaged 14.3 percent for women under age 20 compared to 11.7 percent for women ages 20 to 29. Babies born too soon face an increased risk of newborn health problems, long-term disabilities and even death. And finally, about 78 percent of children born to an unmarried teenage high-school dropout live in poverty, compared to 9 percent of children born to women over age 20 who are married and high school graduates and a child born to a teenage mother is 50 percent more likely to repeat a grade in school and is more likely to perform poorly on standardized tests and drop out before finishing high school. It goes on and on. So, congratulations to those of you out there who made it, but look at the numbers and be even more impressed that the odds were stacked against you. As women, you must know this affects you tremendously and it is not fair to distort the picture. Parenting is the greatest thing you may accomplish, but you don’t get to judge it- your children do.

she messed her whole life up with that baby

my two cousins had babies both in their teens. One was 15 and one was 17 and now their older and wiser and i must say that their kids turned out fine and i also have a friend who has just had a baby and she is 16 years old and she’s coping just fine and she’s less mature than Jamie. So whatever Jamie think’s is better for her baby. she is the one who is carrying the baby and she will be the one to know who is best for it. I’m sure she’ll be fine with the baby and Casey with lots of support from friends and family!!

CelebBabyLover –
I just checked the Babies R Us website to check on her registry again (I looked at it previously) and it is no longer there, as is any registry for any Jamie Lynn Spears.

Angela’s note: Jamie’s rep has released a statement saying that none of the registries belonged to Jamie.

Ok, I’ve tried really hard not to, but I’ve taken offence at some of the comments here.

“Fact is that in 2008 to get pregnant you must want it otherwise it’s not that difficult to put on a condom. I really don’t believe the whole “it happened” thing.”

I fell pregnant at 18 despite being on the pill and using condoms simultaneously. It does happen. Nothing is 100% reliable.

“A young mom can be a good mom, but they are few and far between. Teenage girls do not have the capacity to truly understand what it takes to be a mother until they are faced with the daily realities. When they are finally faced with these realities, the lack of maturity kicks in. It’s not “fun” anymore. It’s not “cute” anymore. It is an incredibly task for anyone, and one a teenager should not be choosing.”

I go to a teenage mother’s group, and not one of us ever expected it to be “cute”. Just because we are (/were) teenagers we arent’ able to understand that a baby is bl**dy hard work? I don’t think so somehow.

I know lots of mothers in their 20’s/30’s who were totally shellshocked by having a baby, and who found it a lot harder than they ever expected. I always expected it to be hard, and so it wasn’t so much of a shock.

Yes, being a teenage mother isn’t ideal, but lots of people make the best of it and are fantastic mothers aged 16/17/18/19. There are good and bad mothers, and age has nothing to do with it.

I am now 22, and support myself and my daughter financially. We have our own flat, I’m in the middle of a midwifery degree and we are financially secure. All through my own work.

From the other side of the fence, as a student midwife I have time and again visited teenage mothers who are coping fantastically, breezing through it, and then gone on to visit a mother in her late 30’s who breaks down because she is finding it so hard. This is not only my experience, it’s something that has been commented on by a lot of the midwives I have worked with. I often get sent to deliver teenage mums because I can empathise with them, and I have never encountered one who is under any illusions, and is anything less than realistic about the situation ahead.

Please don’t make generalisations about teenage mums. You wouldn’t do it for, say, black mums, mums in their 20’s/30’s/40’s, lesbian mums or disabled mums, so why is acceptable to make sweeping generalisations about teenage mums?

Perhaps this has already been said. I havn’t read through all of the posts. But…

While being a very young parent might not be ideal, being a parent at all ALWAYS comes with challanges. I didn’t get married until I was 24 and had my first child at 25. Now at 33 we still have times where we struggle. Everyone does. My husband is 42.

I think that we as a society need to be better supportive of each other. Instead of getting down on other mothers, we should be supportive and encouraging. So Jamie Lynn is going to be a mother at 17 (I think she has a birthday before the baby is due). So what? She is already going through enough. Do we really have to sit here at our computers and contemplate all the things that she did wrong? Do we have to throw them in her face when she is just as hormonal as a 45 year old mother? No. Give the girl a break and wish her a healthy child and a bright future.

I just saw a picture (in People.com’s StarTracks) of Jamie-Lynn loading a pink papsan baby bouncer into her car. It seems she’s having a little girl!

I had my first child (a boy)at 16 years of age. Never married the father. Finished high school. Even did two years of college. My daughter was born when I was twenty-one. My last child, another daughter, was born 10 years later. I don’t regret any of it. Got married nearly four years ago, and my husband loves and reget me and my children, as do I respect him and his. The family is about to get even bigger this fall. I will become a Grandma. Jamie Lynn, as long as you have a loving, supportive family, you, your husband-to-be, and the baby will do just fine. Just stay out of the limelight.

i wish everyone would stop thinking so badly of teen mothers and getting married at 16 is not bad either. i met my husband when i was 14 we got married when i was 16 and had my daughter when i was 17 (my daughter was by choice and planned) this doesnt mean that my parents were bad. ia m now almost 20 and we are still together and very happy. we are raising our daughter and are doing very well. we are not rich but we are not poor. we made a decision to have our daughter while we were young and i am not quite 20 yet and we are planning our 2nd child. if i had to do it over again i wouldnt change a thing. i would have had a baby when i was 18 if i hadnt miscarried. So jamie lynn if you wanna get married make sure you love him and this is what you want and go for it. it may be rocky but you will make it through it
o and btw i had my own house when i got married and my parents have never taken care of my child. dont get me wrong they have babysat for me so me and my husband could have a nite out but my daughter is almost 2 and we have had maybe 5 nites out. i wanted my daughter and me and my husband take care of her no one else just us. not my parents and not his just us. she is our daughter and i dont want her to be raised by anyone but us.