In honor of "Let's Talk" month, the Candie's Foundation launched the America, Wake Up PSA campaign, which is designed to encourage teens and adults to talk about sex and teen pregnancy.  One of the PSAs aired this past Monday night following an episode of the wildly popular Gossip Girl, with advance press appearing in the Monday issue of USA Today to the tune of a full page ad. 

But...

Those of you wondering if your memory is going need not fear - you did not in fact see the ad anywhere in Monday's edition of USA Today.  In fact, it was pulled by USA Today on Friday afternoon out of fear of offending its readers.

Now, I'm the last person to impugn the rights of freedom of speech - USA Today has the right to do and print whatever they deem appropriate.  Their 11th hour rejection of the ad doesn't make them bad or unfair.  Instead, I'd argue that it just makes them gigantic 'fraidy cats.  For a major newspaper to reject an ad that simply encourages talking to your kids about sex based on the rationale that it might offend people shows just how inflammatory this issue has gotten.  What's worse, it throws into sharp relief just how much work we still have ahead of us.

Again USA Today has the right to approve/ reject anything they want.  But if it's a matter of offending their readership, in my humble opinion there are a thousand things more offensive than having an honest conversation with your kids about sex.  

But that's just me.

As a person of faith, I can't help but snicker every time something makes me remember how utterly confused God-fearing people get about issues of sex and pregnancy.  From "Jesus Camp" (a variation of which I proudly attended) to purity balls (which I proudly did NOT attend) to married people sex-a-thons, I count myself among the young people in this country who received mixed, and sometimes conflicting, messages about sex for the first 18 years of my life.

Margaret Talbot at The New Yorker sums up my childhood pretty well in her recent article, "Red Sex, Blue Sex."  Despite the discomfort that pious parents and their children experience when it comes to trying to understand their sexuality (and in some cases, trying to convince them that it's not even there until their wedding night), one strange phenomenon is that we are supposed to be excited when a baby results from this otherwise banned activity.

Sadly, more people probably heard Jon Hamm talk about Mad Men, the fantastic AMC series he stars in, on Saturday Night Live than actually watch the series itself. But, the fortunate 2 million or so viewers who caught the season finale last night got great drama and a great history lesson about a time when we were at the brink of a missile crisis, people smoked and drank in the office, and women's roles and options were a lot different than they are today.

The show also had a key theme about unplanned pregnancy among adults—something that is not as well understood or as much talked about as teen pregnancy.  Without giving it away for the millions who did not see it*, two of the characters remind us that unplanned pregnancy can happen to anyone and that once someone gets pregnant when they weren't planning to, there is no easy path. I don't know what the number was in the early 1960s, but today, 3 million women—and men—experience an unplanned pregnancy each year. Some are welcomed and wanted, but many are not and result in considerable real life drama for those involved.

*Read a recap of the finale or find out where you can watch the whole episode On Demand.

Two of my favorite things will be together in one place tonight -- a teen pregnancy prevention ad is scheduled to run during Gossip Girl!  (Actually it's three of my favorite things -- tonight's GG is directed by Vondie Curtis Hall -- an original Broadway cast member from my all-time favorite show, Dreamgirls, but I digress...)  Anyway, if you're not already watching Gossip Girl for the fashions, intrigue and hilarity, you should at least tune in tonight to see the PSA.  

It comes from our friends at the Candie's Foundation -- longtime allies in the fight to keep teens from getting pregnant.  Perhaps you saw their big print ad in today's New York Times.  It's always good to see some of the startling statistics associated with teen pregnancy laid out in black and white (and pink).  Such as the fact that 3 in 10 girls in the U.S. will get pregnant at least once before their 20th birthdays.  Or that fewer than half of teen moms ever graduate from high school.  It can happen to anyone -- any sexually active teenager who doesn't use protection, even one time, can get pregnant (or get someone pregnant).  It doesn't matter if you go to Constance Billiard or a big public high school, if you're the Queen B or a regular girl.  It doesn't even matter if your name is Chuck Bass.

xoxo

The 1997 book Kids Having Kids was the first real effort to examine, in deep detail, the consequences of teen pregnancy and childbearing.  An updated version of the landmark publication was released yesterday. 

Read a related Associated Press story about some of the volume's findings.

When I wrack my brain for examples the gold-standard in parenting, I don't often think about 80's metal bands.  In fact, I don't ever think of 80's metal bands as good examples of much beyond proper eyeliner application and why spandex is wrong in so many ways. 

But to my surprise, some of those ertwhile made up and spandexed out rockers are now parents - and pretty good ones by the sound of it. 

This morning, I came across an article penned by former GnR bassist and current dad of two girls (one 8 and one 11), Duff McKagen.  After learning that some of his daughter's classmastes were "joking around about sex", McKagen realized he had to have "The Talk" with his girls. 

Check out his blog post on Seattle Weekly, The Birds, the Bees, and My Daughters.  It's hilarious and - if you're a parent - will certainly make you realize that you're not the only one dealing with this!

Laura Beil---a terrific reporter who has written repeatedly and skillfully about teen pregnancy and related issues---has a piece on abstinence education in the current issue of Newsweek.  

The piece delves into the abstinence education debate aplenty but it was the following passage that really captured my attention:

The vast majority of public-health experts, however, seldom discuss sex education and marriage in the same sentence. They gauge success by pregnancies prevented, germs not contracted, and kids who enter adulthood with a healthy view of sexuality. The public-health community views a wait-until-marriage message as blind to the world most teens inhabit. The average age of matrimony has steadily climbed, and is now past age 25. (Which is probably why 95 percent of Americans don't walk down the aisle as virgins.)

So what about it?  Should discussions of relationships and marriage have a more prominent role in sex education? Discuss  and decide.

Not to infringe on Joe the Plumber's 15 minutes of fame, but can we reflect for a minute on this response from Sen. Barack Obama during the third and final presidential debate when the issue abortion reared its head:

This is an issue that -- look, it divides us. And in some ways, it may be difficult to -- to reconcile the two views.

But there surely is some common ground when both those who believe in choice and those who are opposed to abortion can come together and say, "We should try to prevent unintended pregnancies by providing appropriate education to our youth, communicating that sexuality is sacred and that they should not be engaged in cavalier activity, and providing options for adoption, and helping single mothers if they want to choose to keep the baby.

Those are all things that we put in the Democratic platform for the first time this year, and I think that's where we can find some common ground, because nobody's pro-abortion. I think it's always a tragic situation.

We should try to reduce these circumstances.

Yes!  Reducing unintended pregnancy!  It's important!  Not just to the women and men who find themselves in situations where there's a pregnancy they weren't planning on, not just important to the children who are borne of these pregnancies and are forced to endure less than ideal conditions both in utero and throughout their lives, but important to a nation of taxpayers, voters, community members, aunts, uncles, grandparents, neighbors, classmates, colleagues and citizens who want this nation to be better, stronger, and populated by people who were wanted and welcomed from the get-go.

Kudos to Sen. Obama for looking for a way to find consensus on an issue known for its ability to divide us.

Now if the candidates would only talk about contraception...

For more questions we wish the candidates would address, please look here:  http://www.thenationalcampaign.org/policymakers/questions.aspx

Somehow I managed to live 30+ years without having to change a single diaper, but that all changed eight weeks ago today when my wife and I became new parents to our daughter, Lucy. While I am not a parenting expert yet and still have a lot of questions, I think I am getting the hang of life as a new parent. Dirty diapers, it turns out, are only the tip of the iceberg. In the last two months, I have learned a great deal about babies and what it means to be a father - things I never knew before.

Get your Mr. Mom on after the jump.

In December of last year, when data were released showing an increase in the teen birth rate for the first time since 1991, there was quiet a stir, and rightly so.  Between 2005 and 2006, the rate increased by 3%, from 40.5 to 41.9 births per 1,000 girls age 15 to 19.  This translated into roughly 20,000 more teen births in 2006 compared to 2005.  Everyone from parents to policy makers worried whether the progress we had been making in preventing teen pregnancy for the last 15 years had stalled, or, worse yet, slipped into reverse.  In another month or two, we expect to have data for another year of teen birth rates, and many fear the rate will have increased again. 

Is this a big deal?  You bet. 

If the rates go up again between 2006 and 2007, it will signal that we have turned a corner, and not for the better, and so the anticipation grows around the expected release of these new data and what they will signal.  But let me remind us of the obvious--another increase of, say, 3%, as alarming as that may be, would be dwarfed by how high the rate already is.  In 2006, this rate translated into roughly 435,000 births to teen girls age 15 to 19.  Whether 2007 shows another 20 or 30 thousand more teen births, or even 20 to 30 thousand fewer teen births than in 2006, we are looking at a staggering number of children being born to parents who are still children themselves. 

So, we needn't wait until the next round of data to assure ourselves that teen childbearing is still a crisis, and, if the teen birth rate happens to go down, we better not kid ourselves that the crisis is over.

Further to Laura Sessions Stepp's point that Americans generally have different attitudes towards sex and contraception than Europeans comes this blog post from John C. Dvorak's Dvorak Uncensored blog: Condom Ad you won't see on U.S. TV.  It was posted awhile ago so  think of it as an "oldie."

It shows a Mom entering her son's room to give him some timely advice!  How's that for an effective method of birth control?  But, as you'll see, her advice extends beyond the condom.  The fact the we would be unlikely to see such an ad in the U.S. suggests that parents are not as involved as they should be.

What do you think?

Note from the blogkeeper:  This post by Laura Sessions Stepp is in response to yesterday's post by Bill Albert, the subject of which was a Washington Post op-ed by Amy Schalet.

The key phrase here, Bill, is "later teens." I can't imagine parents are offering bedrooms to 14- or 15-year-olds. But older teens? That's a different matter.

By the end of high school, a sizable majority of American teens are having sex. Is a pal's basement a better place than home? How about the back of a car? Or the Econo Lodge? We Americans spend too much time thinking about how to prevent young people from having sex (with mixed results at best) and not enough time helping them think about how, when the time comes, they can do it safely and in a loving relationship. I think Schalet is correct: Sleepovers at home, smartly handled by parents and teens, could encourage conversations that young people badly need before they go to college. And once they get to college, give them something to remember when they're tempted to sleep in some stranger's bed.

Amy Schalet is an assistant professor of socilogy at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.  In an op-ed piece today in The Washington Post entitled; "A Question for Sarah Palin,"  Schalet discusses the importance of talking to teens about sex and contraception and the critically important role that parents can and should play in helping their children make good choices about sex.  She correctly notes that teen pregnancy is not inevitable but notes with concern the recent rise in the teen birth rate.

Right on.  Amen Amy.  I'm with you.

Schalet goes on to suggest that the United States might learn some valuable lessons in preventing teen pregnancy from the Dutch.  Citing her own research, she suggests that a majority of Dutch parents are willing to permit their older teen children who are in committed relationships to spend the night together in their parents' homes, "but only when they see that they have formed a loving relationship, feel ready for sex, and understand how to use contraception responsibily."  Schalet notes, "by accepting teen sexuality within these parameters, Dutch parents can stay involved, monitor relationships, and urge proper contraceptive use."

Huh? Amy, you lost me in the Netherlands.

Click the image for a non-Leo obstructed version of the Parade article

Parade is read by almost every living, breathing human being in the United States.  Or close to it.  Still, many of you may have been so distracted by the cover treatment on dishy Leonardo DiCaprio that you failed to note a story on teen pregnancy inside the magazine.

Specifically, the brief story highlights the recent increase in the teen birth rate and wonders why rates of early pregnancy and childbearing in the United States are so out of kilter compared to other countries.  The article also discusses the effectiveness of abstinence programs.

Take Action (Make your own whooping siren sound here and then explain to your colleagues, co-workers, friends and family why you are making such a ruckus.)  Parade is asking readers the following question: "Should abstinence-only sex ed continue?"  Let them know what you think by voting here.   The results of the online poll will be published in an upcoming issue of Parade.

Between 1991 and 2005, the teen birth rate decreased 34% to a record low.  Now that's a stat worth celebrating.  Between 2005 and 2006, however, the teen birth rate increased 3%—the first increase in 15 years.  Say it ain't so. 

In an effort to help us all understand this troubling shift, we've published a new paper written by Kristin Anderson Moore, Ph.D. of Child Trends.  Teen Births: Examining the Recent Increase investigates the available data on teen sexual activity and contraceptive use and offers some thoughts on what may have contributed to the increase in the teen birth rate.

Download your copy of the report now.  Questions about the research?  Concerns about the uptick?  Ideas on how to resume the downward trend?  Talk to us.

Although the National Campaign is not focused intensely on sex education, I am often asked what I think should be taught and when and by whom and under what circumstances, and usually I find ways to refer people to our website, where our "Ten Tips for Parents" appear, along with much else about effective curricula and more. But I am beginning to think that we need a new list—or perhaps an additional list—of topics to discuss with young people as well as among ourselves.

Here is the way I think about it. This nation has been engulfed for years in a series of arguments that touch on sex, love, and relationships—a partial list includes abortion, abstinence-only curricula versus comprehensive sex education, parental consent, and birth control clinics in schools. There are more, too, but those are the biggies.

But I think that while we have all been arguing about such matters, a number of simple, basic ideas has fallen by the wayside. When I speak about them—see list below—people often write them down or ask me to "go slower" so that they don't miss any. Sometimes they are treated like news, even though I would imagine my grandmother might have laid them out quite easily. So, here is my list of topics we need to discuss with teens, in particular, although many apply to young adults as well.

Aunt Sarah's List

1. Sex has risks, meaning and consequences.  Take it seriously....
2. A couple shouldn't have sex if they can't talk about birth control and what they will do if pregnancy occurs. 
3. Girls: Sex won't make him yours and a baby won't make him stay.
4. Boys: Making babies doesn't make you a man.  Being a devoted partner and father can....
5. Babies need adult parents.
6. Babies don't cement relationships; they stress them.
7. Babies don't give unconditional love; they seek and demand it from the adults around them.
8. Children do best when they are raised by parents who are committed to each other and to years of devoted parenting.
9. Getting pregnant, having babies, and raising children is perhaps the most important thing we do (and it also costs a lot).  Therefore, it needs to be thought about carefully, not stumbled into.  We plan many relatively unimportant things all the time: vacations, outfits, dinner, presents, what movie to see....  Doesn't pregnancy deserve at least the same amount of planning?