An interesting thing I learned from this series was not that teen parents are idiots--that's a no-brainer. What I found interesting was the level of incompetence in the real parents who "loaned" their kids to these teen idiots (even if we forgave the "loan" itself, which borders on emotionally criminal in most cases). They certainly had more of a clue than the teens, but often, it wasn't much more.

Perhaps all prospective parents (those wanting to be parents), regardless of age, should go through some kind of qualifying, real-life exam like these teens. (For those who have no clue who I am: no, I'm not suggesting government intervention!) Especially helpful would be the part where real, competent parents (see below) critique the skills of the prospective ones. If all prospective parents chose to partake of such an experience, I wouldn't surprised if the national birthrate dropped from about 14-per-1000 to 1-per-1000.

How do you define parental competence? If you're liberal with the parameters and suggest competence merely means the kids physically survive into adulthood, then most parents are indeed competent. If emotional health and maturity (by the time chronological adulthood is reached) are the criteria, though, I suspect competent parents represent less than 0.1% of the American population. If you include "Biblical worldview" in the criteria for parental competence--that is, the kids are Biblically grounded when they become adults--then the number probably drops to less than 0.01%.