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Many celebrities have taken their own struggles with issues ranging from drug abuse (Betty Ford) to domestic violence (Eminem) and used them as an avenue to bring social problems into the forefront.
Teenage pregnancy is a very real concern, and it’s a dicey subject for a celeb to focus on. I get the feeling that Bristol Palin would dearly love to be the “spokesceleb” on this subject judging by her work for the Candie’s Foundation, her role on The Secret Life of the American Teenager, and statements she’s made to the media.
However, there’s actually a more legit celebrity who has shown true class in this very complex situation, keeping a low profile as she’s raised her daughter in a small southern town without glamorizing her situation. Instead, she has shown grace under pressure as she walked away from a blossoming career and made the child she gave birth to when she could have been out partying—or cashing in on her celebucause—her true focus.
Jamie Lynn Spears is walking the walk, not just talking the talk.
Yes, that’s the Jamie Lynn Spears with the big sister named Britney. The one who starred on Nickelodeon’s Zoey 101 for four years. The one who shocked the world when her pregnancy at the tender age of sixteen was announced.
The one that makes Bristol Palin, who has sparked a bevy of reality show rumors, look pretty silly.
Both teenage moms made bank selling the first photos of their kids to tabloids. Both tried to make it work with their hometown baby daddies, but ultimately broke things off. And both bravely stood by their decisions to accept responsibility for their actions and raise their children.
But Bristol could learn a lesson from Jamie Lynn. Since the birth of her daughter, Maddie Briann, Jamie Lynn has been laying low in Liberty, Mississippi. Her acting career seems to be on a slight hiatus, and we haven’t seen much of her in the press.
You know, good for Jamie Lynn. Being a teenage mother is incredibly difficult (and I speak from personal experience here), and it would be very easy to talk about everything she has given up, as Bristol Palin has made much press doing. Instead, Jamie Lynn Spears very intentionally stepped out of the limelight to raise her baby without fuss and fanfare.
Which isn’t to say that she won’t be back.
This much needed break from fame is exactly what Jamie Lynn needs in order to survive in Hollywood. She’ll reemerge in a few years, older and more mature, and resurrect her career. And because we won’t have been bombarded with her through her most trying of times, she’ll seem fresh and new and we’ll be willing to give her that second chance.
My respect for Jamie Lynn Spears is tremendous. Instead of making teen pregnancy “cool” or a venue for fame (or infamy, as I suspect poor Bristol Palin will go down in history for), she has shown by example that you can do right with an unplanned, unexpected, and unpopular situation.
It’s ironic that Jamie Lynn Spears is perhaps most famous for having a superstar celebutante sister with mental problems while Bristol Palin’s family is based in the historically more austere politically arena, and yet the Palin family is the one that’s living the circus.
Jamie Lynn Spears has proven that you can handle the most daunting personal crises in a private way with the focus being where it needs to be. Maddie Briann will not be a laughingstock the way that poor Tripp Johnston already is (although, in Bristol’s defense, her choice in men may have something to do with that) because her mother made that a priority.
Who’d have thought that a Spears girl would be the pinnacle of anything?
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i am a full time actress and ive been studying theater at NYU. anyway, i really want Jwoww on the Jersey Shore, it would be cool to get my start on a reality tv show similar to that!
I find it in poor taste that you’d refer to an 18 month old as a “laughing stock.” Lame.
I spend an entire year trying to work on word choice and the dangers of accidentally saying something you don’t mean with my students. I’ve learned through writing here that it’s a lot easier to teach something than it is to do it ;) I of course meant that Tripp Johnston’s parents are laughingstocks (as a direct result of their own actions), not the poor little guy himself. I wish that poor baby only the best.
I agree with Sara, I’m pretty sure no 18 month old is a laughingstock.
But I do agree that Jamie Lynn has pretty much totally disappeared instead of trying to force-feed hypocrisy on others. She has shown herself to be very mature.
[...] That said, though, it’s one thing to have followed the demise of—to give one example—Mel Gibson’s marriage as he knocked up (and supposedly knocked out) Oksana Grigorieva through tabloid mags and gossip sites. I suppose that makes me a voyeur, but I just find the whole idea of celebrity utterly fascinating, particularly when I see the point driven home again and again and again that the rich and famous have the exact same problems as everyone else. [...]
I’m tired of eveyone saying they except a teen after she has had a child come on people grow up. We have all been teens and have had sex don’t play innocent with anyone ok. Some of us get pregnant while doing the things that teens do and don’t act new.
[...] don’t know, Jezebel, there are an awful lot of teenagers out there who have dealt with pregnancy in one way or another. Why should this couple, who are already gaining status and presumably money [...]