Adolescents are not known for reflecting upon their own mortality. They're supposed to run around robotripping and crashing cars into brick walls because they "think they're invincible" and thus incapable of risk/benefit analysis. But a recentish study in the Journal of Adolescent Health suggests that teens are actually pretty morbid. When around 9,000 15- and 16-year-olds were asked "What is the chance that you will die from any cause in the next year?" and "What is the chance that you will die from any cause between now and when you turn 20?" they massively overestimated the likelihood of their own deaths. The mean responses were 18.6 percent and 20.3 percent, respectively, and the medians about half that. One in five teens put their likelihood of perishing soon at 50 percent. (The statistical death rate is .08 percent.) Adults do not overestimate their mortality to this degree. The obvious conclusion is that teens are innumerate as well as reckless. But they tend to be much more accurate at predicting the likelihood of other near-term life events, like whether they’ll get the flu.

I've been thinking about this because I'm writing a story about the way our expectations of lifespan affect they way we map out our lives, but it also ties into the sex-ed discussion. It is difficult to change adolescent behavior. Supporters of any kind of sex ed who say it “works” tend, I think, to have a generous definition of “work”—at least that’s what I took from the Kristin Luker book Hanna mentions. The perceived mortality numbers suggest that kids see a world full of lethal risks, of which sex is only one. “Adolescents need faith in their future so as to invest in their own human capital, by studying, working, and avoiding risky behaviors,” say the researchers. “That faith may require both the belief that specific threats are low and the feeling that their world will protect them from unnamed threats.” [Emphasis mine]

The suggestion is that alarmism can backfire. Much as I wish rainbow parties were real, our collective need to invent stories about carnal teens spiraling toward tragedy is probably not helping.

Tags: adolescents, morbidity, sex ed, teens

Emily, I attended public school in Texas in the ‘90s, which made me a guinea pig for Gov. George W. Bush’s abstinence-only curriculum. While my peers in more liberal corners of the country were being shown how to put condoms on bananas, I was trapped in a stuffy high-school classroom viewing pictures of what various STDs looked like when they infected someone’s eye, as the program coordinators were presumably too squeamish to show us pictures of actual genitals.

The message was that having sex equals getting pregnant and contracting an STD (probably in your eye). Better to wait until marriage. In our classrooms, condoms were never mentioned. Abstinence, viewed as the only answer, was the only thing worth discussing. Of course, this morally tinged, abstinence-only approach did not prove to be effective at curbing teen pregnancy or the spread of STDs in Texas. While Bush was governor, the state had the fourth-highest number of teen pregnancies in the country.

I think my peers and I would have been much better served, Hanna, by the system you describe. It is difficult to see comprehensive sex ed for younger kids playing well in Friendswood, the conservative Houston suburb where I grew up. So keeping an abstinence-focused program in middle school but shifting to a more well-rounded, “abstinence-plus” approach in high school might be a way to compromise and to add a much-needed dose of realism to the curriculum. Thankfully, it appears some school districts in Texas are moving in this direction, as federal funding for abstinence-only programs withers.

Tags: abstinence-only education, george w. bush, Texas

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This week, the media has been debating whether the thirtysomething woman with no man is single because she's too picky. Meanwhile, on television, the other half of that debate has been unfolding on The Bachelor, which has provided us with very convincing rebuttal to Lori Gottleib's thesis, showing that the thirtysomething dysfunctional male is not at all worth settling for and can have just as much trouble making up his mind.

Pilot Jake Pavelka is about to crash and burn. The famously rejected contestant on The Bachelorette has made some pretty poor choices thus far. This week on The Bachelor he eliminated the last sane—and I use that term loosely when describing an emotionally stunted 23-year-old virgin—candidate. Corrie may not have been the love of his life, but she seemed like a reasonably stable person. Last Monday, he eliminated four women, two more than he needed to, and when he dramatically incinerated one of the leftover roses in a conveniently placed campfire, he destroyed with it the last shred of hope that he will end up happy.

It's like watching your most embarrassing Match.com experiences played out on prime time. Throughout the season, Jake has repeatedly shown a shocking lack of self-awareness when dealing with the opposite sex. (Would the “nice guy” dump the woman with the kid?) Though his little on-air confessionals tell us he is confident with his choices, one has to wonder about that, given the weird and wonderful crackpots who remain.

There is Ali, who was obviously the meanest girl in her high-school gym class and hopes this strategy will keep working to her advantage in her adult life. There is the insanely beautiful swimsuit model Gia, who, while relatively smart, has more than an air of Mafioso about her that Jake will eventually find too edgy. (I predict next week, when he meets her Gotti-voiced mother.)

This leaves Tenley and Vienna who have been on their best behavior given the cameras trained on their every move. The final two are perhaps the most terrifying prospective partners I could dream up for any man.

Vienna was an early favorite, being less of a Barbie doll (minus her plastic-looking hair extensions) than the rest, and winning women viewers' sympathy when all of the girls in the house turned against her. But her neediness is already making me claustrophobic for Jake, and I can only imagine how batshit-crazy the girl is going to get after the crew leaves. I still like her as a character in a TV show, but I wouldn’t put a ring on it, Jake.

In the end, he will probably pick Tenley, whose childlike hand-clapping and high-pitched squeals (“This is fun!”) hint at a debilitating emotional instability that will emerge in full as soon as he gets her home alone.

It is possible, given his already erratic behavior, that Jake will chuck that final rose into a dumpster and ride off on his motorcycle to the nearest dive bar, leaving the last two women clawing at each other and pulling their hair out. In this case, perhaps Jake, who seems constantly eager to please, will fall in love with his inner bad-boy and live happily ever after.

Photograph of Jake Pavelka from The Bachelor © 2010 ABC/Greg Zabilski.

Tags: The Bachelor

KJ, I think the real reason people find another story in the New York Times about nannies so annoying is that, according to a recent study by the Center for American Progress, fewer than 3.5 percent of all families in the United States, at all income levels, employ a nanny for child care. That's right: fewer than 3.5 percent. And among middle-income families (i.e., most Americans), it's fewer than .5 percent. So what do all these other households do? They rely on spouses or relatives or day care or in-home child care or after-school programs—that is, on high-stress, patchwork arrangements, which is why work-life balance for so many families remains hard. Even among relatively high-earning Americans, only 3.3 percent employ a nanny.

Yet articles about nannies—about nanny diaries or nanny TV shows or whether it's OK to hire a nanny or how to treat your nanny or resentment of employers by nannies or vice versa—predominate. This is one reason why, according to the American Progress study, child care is such a problem in the United States. Americans focus on the poor (a group in which women are expected to work, even if they have kids) or high-powered, professional women (who "opt-out" of the workforce to have kids) and overlook the "missing middle," as the study calls it, which is where most Americans actually live and where virtually all women work, without very good or affordable child-care options. I have no beef with women who hire nannies. But this is why this story is so irksome—it's that much more attention is paid to a problem that affects only a miniscule number of women, even as the paper continues to ignore a child-care crisis that is everywhere around us. When someone writes a novel called The Day-Care Diaries, maybe I'll get interested.

Tags: american progress, nannies, new york times

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Everyone knows that an appearance on Oprah is a golden ticket to a best-selling book, a successful clothing line, or a huge elevation of your personal brand. In her last full year as a talk-show hostess (Oprah's retiring in 2011) her influential guests' missteps are becoming ever more dangerous—their advice has cost people their lives. This week has been a particularly bad one for Oprah, as two high-profile guests have been discredited: Jenny McCarthy and motivational speaker James Arthur Ray. McCarthy is an advocate who believes that vaccines played a role in causing her son's autism, and just a few days ago the only research that showed that vaccines and autism were linked was completely discredited. Who knows how many people have not vaccinated their children and potentially caused a resurgence of disease because of McCarthy's misinformation? Today, news broke that James Arthur Ray, a "guru" who appeared on Oprah in conjunction with the self-help book The Secret, has been charged with manslaughter for the deaths of three people who suffocated in a sweat-lodge ceremony Ray led last year.

But McCarthy and Ray are only the latest in a string of frauds Oprah has allowed to grace her stage. Just last year, Newsweek had a huge expose of the medical advice Oprah 's guests have peddled. The magazine mentioned McCarthy, but also the insane health-releated rantings of former Three's Company star Suzanne Somers. Then there are the Oprah-championed authors who turned out to be liars: rehab fabulist James Frey and Holocaust memoir faker Herman Rosenblat. Oprah's been on for more than 20 years at this point, so it's not surprising that a small minority of her guests would turn out to be less than savory. But because she is so massively influential, it's good that these high-profile snafus are getting a lot of press. For the armies of women out there who rightfully adore the impressive Winfrey, this is a great reminder that even the big O is fallible.

Photograph of Oprah Winfrey by Jason Merritt/Getty Images.

Tags: autism, jenny mccarthy, Oprah, sweat lodge guru, vaccines

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Emily, I read the Washington Post op-ed by Frances Kissling and Kate Michelman and appreciate its careful and reasoned tone. I admit that if the shoe were on the other foot and CBS were airing a pro-choice ad during the Super Bowl, I’d probably be a little grumpy. I hope I would measure my response as they have theirs.

I have to admit, though, that my stomach flips a bit when they talk about abortion as a “successful choice.” Allow me to explain. The other day our colleague Will Saletan, whose writings on abortion I greatly admire and share with my pro-life friends, wrote a piece on the Tebow ad called “The Invisible Dead” about Tebow’s mother and the dangers of carrying a pregnancy after being diagnosed with placental abruption. While it was a typically excellent Saletan piece, it was the headline that grabbed me, and not for any reason that Will likely intended.

When I think of the “invisible dead,” I think of all the children who are aborted every day, every month, every year. The Tebow ad, at least how I imagine it, hits on what makes me pro-life. It’s the amazing human potential that is wasted when children are conceived but not given a chance at life. Pro-lifers and Operation Rescuers can wave all the posters they want of images of babies in utero. They’re no doubt powerful, but the images are still somewhat abstract and generic, unknowable. But there right in your face, for all the world to see is Tim Tebow, Heisman Trophy winner and national champion quarterback. He is, however you feel about his politics or religion, an exceptional person, someone who is making the most of his potential.

On the other hand, Tebow isn’t necessarily the best example of someone who might have been aborted. He was born to two loving parents who desperately wanted him and was surrounded by older siblings who probably doted on him. There are millions of others out there who, likewise, could have been aborted but weren’t. There are millions who were born into less than ideal circumstances, but through their parents’ sacrifices and hard work, persevered. And maybe we’re not Heisman Trophy winners. But we’re loving parents or successful businesswomen or teachers or doctors.

You asked for ideas for a 30-second spot to “bring to light the benefits of legal abortion.” I have to respectfully refrain. But I can come with a 30-second spot that can make the pro-life case perhaps as well as Tim Tebow. All we need is the same script that Kissling and Michelman cited: women (and men, too, in this case) “rushing out the door in the morning for work, flipping through a magazine, washing dishes, teaching a class of sixth-graders, wheeling a baby stroller.” Only instead of hearing about their “successful choice” of abortion, they simply look at the camera and say. “My mom chose life.”

Photograph of Tim Tebow by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images.

Tags: abortion, planned parenthood, pro-choice, pro-life, Tim Tebow Super Bow ad

—Despite their portrayal in pop culture as overentitled, micromanaging shrews, mothers who employ nannies often struggle to communicate with them and vent to friends instead. Recognizing this communication gap, some schools have begun training nannies to draw out their employers' needs. [New York Times]

—Senator and former Republican Arlen Specter obtained $10 million in earmarks for abstinence-only education between 2003 and 2009. Since switching to the Democratic Party, he has not sought funding for abstinence education. [Politico]

—Jon Stewart and Bill O’Reilly square off in the Fox News host’s infamous No Spin Zone. While O’Reilly pokes fun at Stewart’s large vocabulary and pot-smoking audience, Stewart offers a blistering critique of the right-wing narrative that his opponent’s network tries to pass off as news. [Gawker]

—A new report released yesterday found that only 8 percent of teens have embraced Twitter. Seeking to connect with friends rather than the world at large, today’s teens prefer more intimate forms of social media like texting and Facebook. [Washington Post]

—MIT-trained neuroscientist Aafia Siddiqui was found guilty of attempted murder for trying to kill American servicemen in Afghanistan. [NY Post]

Tags: abstinence education, arlen specter, fox news, Jon Stewart, parenting, teens, Terrorism, texting, the nanny diaries, twitter

Babysitters and nannies often fall somewhere between employee and friend, which makes it harder to tell them that you'd like them to load the dishwasher after dinner (with or without rinsing the dishes, in the right way, and wipe the counters, please—and nonstick pans don't go in the machine). But those who don't ask often don't get. The NYT's "How to Speak Nanny" piece is an excellent look at why parents still struggle with asking but has a title that makes what's a very common parenting issue look like a problem only for the elite, when my baby sitter—who has kids of her own—has trouble talking to her baby sitter. Great piece. Lousy title. But if you have kids and a sitter (or a nanny), worth a read.

Tags: baby sitters, child care, nanny