Posted on Sat, Jun. 28, 2008

For years I've joked that the best contraceptive was a bawling baby at 3 a.m. I was a young mother then, still inexperienced in the ways of colic and projectile vomiting. I thought I would never get a good night's sleep again.

Time worked its magic, of course. Those nerve-wrecking colic bouts faded into memory, and I learned to clean up vomit with one hand while soothing a child with the other. I still don't get enough sleep, but now the occasional late-night squalling has more to do with curfew than hunger pangs.

As a result, my sense of humor has evolved. I want to start a business, Rent-a-Teen, where prospective parents can get a true feel for what awaits them a dozen years down the road. After all, there's more -- a lot more -- to babies than soft blankets and cute booties. Children are a life-changing force, and that's when they're on their best behavior.

Tell that to the pregnant sophomores from Gloucester who will soon learn what bleary-eyed parents already know. In case you haven't heard, this seaside town in northern Massachusetts has been the center of a media firestorm ever since Time reported that 17 students at Gloucester High School became pregnant this year, quadruple the number from the year before. Half were sophomores who had made a ''pact'' to become pregnant and raise their children together, according to the school principal.

Principal Joseph Sullivan said these girls repeatedly requested pregnancy tests at the school clinic and then high-fived each other when they got positive tests results.

As you might well imagine, the story prompted a whirlwind of blame and nay-saying. Top city and school officials held a press conference to rebut the pregnancy pact version of the piece. Talking to news crews from as far away as Australia, Gloucester Mayor Carolyn Kirk claimed there was no real evidence of an organized conspiracy. Apparently, the sudden rash of pregnant 15-year-olds was a coincidence.

Gloucester adults, in a fit of soul-searching, blamed broken families, a depressed local economy and girls who had little parental supervision. Hit movies such as Juno and Knocked Up, which glamorize pregnancy, didn't do much for the cause, either.

But the damage control turned particularly phony when the CEO of the organization that runs the school's on-site day-care center -- yes, the school has one of those, so what does that tell you? -- admitted that its social worker had heard the girls planning parenthood as early as last fall. Some had been requesting pregnancy tests in middle school.

Seems to me that town officials, worried about the ramifications, are missing the point. Pact or not, coincidence or epidemic, high school girls should not be getting pregnant.

It's ironic that the Gloucester teen story broke on the day celebrity mother Jamie Lynn Spears, kid sister to Britney, gave birth at 17. Ironic that these students got pregnant accidentally and/or on purpose at a time when teen pregnancies have suddenly spiked after being in decline for years. Ironic, too, that as pundits debated education and prevention on news programs, NBC debuted The Baby Borrowers, a reality show that has couples ages 18 to 20 learning that a bawling baby is much more than a fashion statement.

For the Gloucester baby mamas, the show has just begun.