Just in time for the DVD release of Juno tomorrow, CDC's National Center for Health Statistics has released new teen pregnancy data.  Good news---teen pregnancy declined 5% between 2002 and 2004. 

Of course, this news may leave some scratching their heads and wondering, "didn't the CDC just say that teen pregnancy rates were increasing?"  Close but not quite.  In December 2007, NCHS reported a 3% increase in the teen birth rate, not the pregnancy rate. 

Still confused?  Read on and be enlightened.

Read a statement from NC CEO Sarah Brown here.   Read a data cheat sheet here.  Read the NCHS report here.

When it comes to teen and unplanned pregnancy, 2007 was in many ways the perfect storm.  After all, 2007 saw the release of the movies Knocked Up,  Waitress, and Juno.  It was the year that brought the first increase in the teen birth rate in 15 years.  And it was the year of breathless, 24/7, coverage of 16-year-old Jamie Lynn Spears' baby bump to be. 

Cultural warriors and pop culture devotees have taken to their respective corners in interpreting the meaning of all this mishegoss.  We revisit all this due to the DVD release tomorrow of the Academy Award winning, indie-licious Juno. 

Generally speaking, the cultural warriors have been quick to pounce on the happily-ever-after nature of the movie--less than 3% of teen moms actually put their baby up for adoption, and exactly how many boys actually hang around in real life, critics wonder. As Laura Sessions Stepp of the Washington Post noted in a recent column, "Hollywood's attitude these days toward being young, single and pregnant by mistake: It's no big deal."

Pop culture devotees have been more sanguine.  This review from the Rotten Tomatoes website is typical: "Coming-of-age meets coming-to-term, in a film that is refreshingly frank about sex and love, pokes fun at the clashes between age and class, and, even more subversively...celebrates the pregnant possibilities of the non-nuclear family."

So, are both sides right?  Is this movie item number one on the teachable moments list or movie bad example?  Or are both sides missing the entertainment forest for the life lesson trees?   Your thoughts?

Bill's post on Straight Edge got me thinking about abstinence and what it means to declare yourself a "Virgin" (you can almost hear the capital letter 'V').  I was a student at an all-girls, Catholic high school.  It was a wonderful academic environment and - contrary to what you might have heard - we had regular dances and social events, shared with the neighboring all boys' Catholic high school. 

With this proximity to (gasp!) the opposite sex AND a rigorous dedication to creating a sheltered...goody-goody...parochial  secondary education experience, one might assume that the administration would have jumped at the chance to present its captive audience of impressionable young girls with the chance to sign a virginity pledge. 

What hath Ian MacKaye wrought? 

As leader of the great and seminal (Don't believe me?  Look it up here and here) punk band Minor Threat, Ian wrote a song way back in 1981--I think Taft was President at the time--called "Straight Edge."  In the song he celebrates his own choice not to drink, smoke, or do drugs; his straight edge. 

Quite unintentionally, at least according to what MacKaye has said in the past, the song took on a life of its own and became a rallying cry for many young people nationwide.  Since then, the straight edge "movement" has taken on a life of its own and now means many things to many people.  Some in the abstinence movement have, apparently, even latched onto the straight edge concept.

Tonight, the National Geographic Channel premieres a documentary on adherents to the straight edge lifestyle.  

This week MomLogic.com, a website community where Moms from all walks of life and in all stages of motherhood come together, launched the first of their three-part series on Spring Break and teens. Not surprisingly, what they found when they went on location at South Padre Island, TX was a variety of drunk, drunker, and drunkest kids - not all of whom were 21+ - reveling in the lack of parental authority.

On its face, Spring Break is a chance for kids to escape the pressure of school and spend a week relaxing on the beach. Dig a little deeper, as MomLogic did, and see that its become a weeklong binge of drugs, alcohol, and promiscuous and unsafe sex - all those things that make parents cringe in horror. Of course many teens and 20-somethings manage to have a Spring Break that balances fun and responsible behavior, but for every one of those young people are 10 who are busily engaged in the behaviors that MomLogic filmed.

Check out the first part of their three part series here (Spring Break Confessions), with Parts II and III being posted today and tomorrow.