I currently live with a teenager. Last night, he made an interesting comment about the pregnancies of Jamie-Lynn Spears (sister of Britney) and (U.S.) Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin's teenaged daughter. He said he didn't see why such a big deal was always made about the fact that they were teenagers. "I mean," (and I'm paraphrasing horribly) "there were girls in my high school that were pregnant or had babies. It's not that uncommon."

A good discussion ensued, I think. The mix of politics (we were sorta watching McCain's speech, or the run-up to it) and alcohol makes it all a little hazy today, but I think it was good. We talked about why it's a big deal that teenagers --who don't yet support themselves-- get pregnant, and also why some people are fascinated by celebrities' lives and why Sarah Palin's politics in this instance (anti-choice, pro-abstinence-only education) are a little extra-hard to swallow for some of us, given she is in a position to understand that teenagers DO go ahead and have sex when they're lucky enough to have the chance.

Which brings us to my pondering today: Why do so many parents seem so completely clueless about this?

You'll often hear parents say that they REMEMBER what it was like to be a teenager. They tend to use this as some kind of argument for abstinence --like somehow the fact that they know from first-hand experience how randy teenagers can be provides them with the credentials with which to state that teenagers must not have sex. Like somehow randiness itself is a reason to avoid sex at all cost.

Quite aside from how illogical that is, plainly... I am beginning to wonder if it's not a crock of a different sort. I have this idea that maybe they don't remember anything at all. Their "memory" is based on teen movies that they can watch again, years later. The boy with the panties in Sixteen Candles. No actual sex, just a temporary insanity.

We might be barking up the wrong tree with this sex education thing. While I personally think we should stop telling kids to abstain and instead tell them about how to do it right... and perhaps provide very hunky older lovers for the shy girls named Becky goofing around in the yearbook club... Maybe what we really need is sex education FOR PARENTS.

Maybe they've just forgotten how good it is. They're not excited about it. They don't get it very often. So they think it's not worth it.

And they're flat-out wrong.