In her NYT’s article “TV’s Perfect Girl Is Pregnant; Real Families Talk” Sara Rimer interviews families and high school students about the pregnancy of Jamie Lynn Spears. Families seemed concerned about supposed impressionability of their children. A S. Carolinian father said, “She was supposed to be one of the good, clean actresses for girls to follow after. I think it just sends an awful message for the young girls [my emphasis].” Sex is so dirty.
Overall, I’m impressed with the perspicaciousness of the high schoolers, who generally just questioned why she didn’t know about contraceptives. As one astute 16-year said, “There is no excuse for not using contraception.”
Because beetles form families with two parents and many offspring, the lead researcher Dr. Per Smiseth thinks that this research may offer insight into human parental relationships: “The burying beetle Nicrophorus vespilloides has a similar family structure to that of a human family unit in that there are two parents, a number of offspring and interactions between parents and their young.” (more…)
