Giving Holiday Sphears

It's kind of funny, considering that it is me, but I have been volunteering all over the place for Tristan's and Scarlett's school. The last week has been all about the PTA Holiday Gift Shoppe... Yup, running the holiday gift shoppe. Yup, the PTA. But, it's been fun and I can do it one handed. And it's good for all these kids, it's good for the school, and people really are digging our "Re-use, re-cycle, Green Giving Tree Shoppe". It's like working a huge tag sale for kids..so I am in my element. Laugh if you need to. It's not the point anyway. Yesterday, hanging out with the other PTA mom holiday shoppe helpers, we got the news that Jamie Lynn Spears is pregnant at 16. We all know this by now. The media went crazy! One of the moms got a call from her husband with the story and it was spread like wild fire. In fact I ended up hearing it all day.. at home from Rye, later at the Dartball Xmass party. It was definatly news... her getting kicked off her Zoey 101 show, being the trainwreck called Britney's sister, Britt being knocked up again after losing custody of her two boys, and the crowing association.. Brit and Jamie's proud momma is writing a book on parenting. Go ahead, have that chuckle. You know you want to. I want to say mean things about them. I want to make crude cracks about trailer parks and white trash. And you know, I have to admit that I stuggled with my reaction. It would have been really easy to give in to judgement and freign a disgusted horror upon hearing of her upcoming motherhood... that was my first instintual reaction. The meaness, the disgust, to look down on her, on them both, that they are not worthy of this life they lead. And then I felt real disgusted horror that I could think that way. Because it is so very judgemental. And while yes, Brittney herself I do observe with pity and sadness, yet that bizzarr trainwreck feeling.. you don't really want to watch, yet you cannot turn away. Obviously there is something very wrong with that poor woman. She must be hurting so much to be acting out in such a way though even that deep sufferning cannot justify or rationalize her behaviors as acceptable. But is that Jamie Lynn's guilt too? Yeah, it kind of messes with her role model via Disney or Nicolodeon status, but she'd be growing out of that soon enough anyway. And while she is 16, age is not an absolute determining factor regarding the quailty of motherhood. I have to belive that all the time.. with Hollywood kid celerbities and mothers targeted by adoption agencies... all inclusive. I can't just belive it true when it fits my agenda. I dispise hypocritical actions, so since I have said it before, I must apply it now. Interestingly enough, according to this pole most people claim not to be very shocked by this pregnancy news of JLs. If I am going to fight the industry that exploits these very attitudes that rise up instintually, then I have to first win that war within myself. And so yes, after I sheepishly cracked that one mean joke about trailer trash, I open my yawn and publically stood up in support of Jamie Lynn Spears upcoming teen motherhood....at a fundraiser for my kids school PTA..thank goodness it's not a snobby pretentious bunch! Coz I got to practice what I preach...walk the walk as well as talk the talk.. or I call Bullshit on myself! And we should be questioning the way we think about theses young women, these two sisters, these icons of our daughters. Beyond that perverse weird satisfaction that tempts us to delve into the supermarket tabloid, or TalkSoup, we need not worry too much about whether we accually approve or disappriove of what this familiy does, after all, the lowly opninion of you or me shall not alter thier reality or even cause the likes of them a momemnt wasted in passing thought. In otherwords, it matters not to Brit or JL really, I believe. They don't give a damn, caught up in their own affairs. But in the big picture, what we think of themreflects on what we think about all wqomen like them, but perhaps without their infamy or stardom? Are we more horrified now that according to a MySpace report Jamie Lynn might be a single mom now as well as 16? What can we use to damn her? I mean what did she do to get herself such scorn? She must have had sex. Man, imagine that! The nerve! The slut! No one else ever dared to have sex at 16! OK, stop laughing. Seriously, I think we kind of need to face the pure facts that.. ready.. human beings have sex around 15/16/17 years of age. I think they even like it. I think they even really, really want to engage in sexual intercourse. Maybe they even feel, in a very self abbsorbed way, that they need to get them some of that booty sex action. Like it's instinctual. .. human nature. So that evil slut Jamie, she gave in to human nature. Like.. the great majority of other human beings!! Holy horndogs batman! Most of us, rationalize our own bad behavors and poor chpices as we might, we still do the same things and give into the lusty temptations of the flesh. Can we damn the Sourthern tease for not controlling her fertility better? Proof that she went a whoring by begetting herself with chil'? Dirty cow! OK, but if we really are gonna blame folks for too much fertility then, in all fairness, we should personally blame the infertile for the too little fertility! Bit that's really, just too mean, and would go over like a lead balloon and people would think I'm all hating on infertile folks. Yuck. But we assume that Jamie Lynn Spears is knocked up because she is stupid. That she didn't know better, that for all their money and stardom and opportunity, that she's blowing it and ruining her life. Even her father is quoted in saying it. And dern Britnet isn't giving too much creedence that these Spears girls are just great mommas either. Jamie's got herself a tough raod ahead...sigh. But does she? And who are we to shake our heads and lose our fate in her perky cutness? She's only worthy is she acts the blond ditzy virgin and dare she venture off our sterotypical raod map, then she is no longer a positive role model to our children? I spoke to other mothers yesterday who worried how they were to explain to their 9 and 11 year olds why Zoey 101 was no longer with Jamie. Now, pregnant, she must be cast away to the shadows of shame. If we cannot even attempt to embrace this one girl, this one budding women, this one momma to be.. if she cannot still be a role model to our daughters.. for choosing life, for choosing parenting, for being fertile, for being sexual, for being human.. then who can? Shje thought about it.. she msade choices.. and she's dealing with life.. openly, proudly, with some fortitude and.. grace.. even. I have watched Zoey 101 with Scarlett. I wasn't ever too much impressed before, but I'll root for Miss Jamie now.. and I'll explain the real truth to Scarlett too. At least Jamie.. she became a bit real. More to come.. on Britney musings.