In order to do so, she must, with the help of People, imply that her life totally sucks. People helpfully mentions that she didn't appear at all in her high school class's graduation slideshow, and that she spent graduation night "not with a gang of friends but at home, giving her 5-month-old son a bottle while her extended family plays 'Eskimo bingo.'" Bristol adds that she has had to write a school paper while listening to her son cry, and that "girls need to imagine and picture their life with a screaming newborn baby and then think before they have sex." But perhaps the strangest thing about the article is her statement that,

If girls realized the consequences of sex, nobody would be having sex. Trust me. Nobody.

Not only does the ignore the many ways to prevent the specific consequence Bristol's talking about, it also sounds incredibly condescending. Does Bristol really think that girls have no idea that sex can lead to pregnancy? And what about boys? Bristol's statement lets Levi off the hook pretty easily.

But she probably doesn't mean to talk down to girls. Bristol is in an incredibly awkward position — she was forced to be a public figure when she isn't particularly suited for it, the most private aspects of her life became national news, and now she's supposed to simultaneously adore her baby son and hold him up as the career-destroying consequence of bad behavior. Bristol probably never would have become an abstinence advocate if not for her famous mom, and her life would probably be better for it. She certainly wouldn't be called upon to make public statements about teen sexual behavior, something she's clearly not very good at.

Bristol Palin Exposes Her Sometimes Isolated Life [People]

The research shows that the vast majority of pregnant teens do not have the financial and familial advantages of Bristol Palin and Jamie Lynn Spears. According to Saul Hoffman, a University of Delaware economist who has just written a book, Kids Having Kids: Economic Costs and Social Consequences of Teen Pregnancy, "The children are more likely to be in foster care, less likely to graduate from high school…The daughters are more likely to have teen births themselves, the sons are more likely to be incarcerated." In addition, Hoffman calculations show that teen motherhood costs American tax payers $7.6 billion a year. He also notes that the dire effects of teen motherhood drop a great deal if a woman delays childbirth by just a few years.

As previously reported, only 40% of teen moms graduate from high school, and a recent event in Nebraska is a stark reminder that not all teen pregnancies are wrapped up neatly like an episode of Zoey 101. A 16-year-old teen mom took advantage of Nebraska's "Safe Haven" law, which t allows parents to abandon their children without repercussions. But here's the twist: she was using the Safe Haven law "not to abandon her baby, but to get help for herself and her son. The girl, who was escorted by an aunt last week to Immanuel Medical Center in Omaha, told a social worker that she was kicked out of her mother's home," the AP reports. "She also said that she had been emotionally abused and suffered physical harm."

Sarah Brown, director of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, tells the AP, "We are, as a society, uncomfortable with sitting down and having conversations about what we expect…When is the last time we said, as a culture, 'Babies need adult parents?'"

Teen Motherhood: Celebrity Buzz Belies Its Cost [AP via CBS News]
Neb. Teen Mom Seeks Safe Haven For Baby, Herself [AP via Brattleboro Reformer]

Earlier: Ask Not What Bristol Palin Can Do For You, Ask What Sarah Palin Can Do For Your Pregnant Daughter