Where are the female role-models for the teenage children that I teach? Here's a news item about how Jamie Lynn Spears "sent" a gift to Bristol Palin.  I use quotes, because apparently Ms. Spears' mother actually set up the whole stupid gesture.  In case you're wondering what the card said, the Daily News doesn't disappoint:

"Dear Bristol: Hang in there!!!!! XXOO"

And then there's this piece all about Palin the Not Quite Youngest's "Baby Daddy."  Would you like to know how young Levi Johnston feels about his upcoming entry into the world of men?

"Of course he is psyched to be a father," said Blake Weiland, 18. "I mean he loves the idea of being a father and raising a child."

I'm so glad that the young man is "psyched."  I'm glad that he's not "jazzed," that would be tacky.

And bonus, the kid has dropped out of high school! Sorry about that.  His mom says that he hasn't dropped out, he's just "no longer in high school," so that's a relief.

Psyched to be a dad at 18 and no longer in high school.  Sorry ladies, he's taken.

I think the thing that bothers me most about this is how coverage of this kind of thing makes teen pregnancy come across as something that isn't so bad.  Admittedly it's not--if your sister is a singing cash cow or your mother is a governor of Alaska currently riding the veep train.  But for the rest of the teenage female population of this country, getting pregnant is a really, really terrible idea.  Somewhere just below a mainline heroin habit.

Even if I were ideologically predisposed to vote Republican, I'd have an awful hard time voting for this kind of a trainwreck.