The XX Factor: What women really think.

Leaving the Safety of the Bubble

I, too, was fascinated by that Washington Post piece on pregnant high school students—and very conflicted about it. Making it as easy as possible for pregnant teens and young moms to get an education is admirable, but it also, I'd imagine, establishes unrealistic expectations for these girls. Once they're done with high school, even if they qualify for assistance, as many of them do, they'll face far more obstacles. It seems highly unlikely that they would have access to on-site day care in the real world, for instance.

Ann, I love your idea of having a new mom speak at the "family life" courses—and maybe she can be joined by a young mother who got pregnant as a student and has spent a few years trying to juggle work and getting a toddler to (and paying for) day care. That might help the girls and guys alike realize that the school's Tiny Titans is not something to be taken for granted.

Teen Parents in School

Did anyone else see the piece about teenage parents in high school in the Washington Post Outlook section on Sunday? It's rare to get the kind of close-up look offered by Patrick Welsh, an English teacher at Alexandria's T.C. Williams High School, where 70 girls—almost all low-income black or Hispanic students—out of a 2,000-plus student body are either pregnant or already mothers and now have an in-school day care facility, Tiny Titans. He focused on an issue blurred in the Bristol Palin coverage: mainstreaming adolescent parents and its dilemmas. Welsh was unsettled less by the absence of stigma and more by the not-so-tacit atmosphere, and assumption by the girls, of approval. Sure, there is a required "family life" course at school that duly covers the dangers of teenage sexuality and pregnancy, and the Adolescent Health Center is a few blocks away. But as a social worker in the support network put it, "I don't personally accept it, but once a girl is pregnant, I have to be all open arms."

It made me wonder if schools have considered even more mainstreaming, with a twist. What might be the impact of having teen mothers—after they're done boasting about their pregnant bellies (as they evidently do) and deep into dirty diapers—help give those "family life" classes? Welsh quotes one mother who sounds ready to give her classmates an earful about "how difficult their lives are going to be if they have a baby." Are there enough others to be a group of peer advisers? If the adults can't convey disapproval, maybe the kids could help—and convincingly.

Whatever You Say, Senator

One Smart List, Fifty Nude Women

Hey Melinda, when you get off your fainting couch, John Kerry did NOT give that speech—not in the memorable, reimagining-family-values way that Judith is imagining. And yes you're right, Rachael, these issues are divisive, and I guess I have to reluctantly agree that it wouldn't be in the Democrats' interest if Hillary or Obama decided to have a Big Gender Moment. Which is why, as Dahlia and Melinda started out by acknowledging, we're not having it. But I applaud Judith's list, especially in its attention to economics and employment, which never quite seem to get their due and catch on fire, and so leave two-working parent families scrambling to keep it all together. I'd like to think that someday the country will be ready for and will find the candidate who will make universal preschool seem as important as saving Bear Stearns.

On a lighter note, earlier this week I watched Fifty Nude Women by Margot Roth of New Yorker Talk of the Town fame and marveled at its winsome playfulness. The women in this 12-minute film seem entirely at ease in their bodies, of all varieties. I'm with Jezebel in that the video made me think about weight but in a much less tedious way that usual. The curves and rolls and wrinkles and scars and stretch marks signaled vulnerability and also a record of lives fully lived.