The pregnancy of 16-year-old Jamie Lynn Spears, who until lately remained in stark contrast as a “good girl” with her notorious older sister, has generated confusion: how is this unexpected, famous and taboo teenage pregnancy to be treated?

Her celebrity status and her reputation as a good-natured girl, a devout Christian - essentially a goody two-shoes, have turned Jamie Lynn Spears into an easy target for heavy criticism. As a role model, she may well fall from a particularly high pedestal.

Forgiveness is not something people appear ready to bestow to the teenage actress who announced she is three-months pregnant last week.

Jamie Lynn and mother Lynne Spears told OK! magazine in an exclusive interview about the unwed adolescent’s new status: mother-to-be. Jamie said she and her boyfriend of two years and father of the baby, 18-year-old Casey Aldridge, were shocked by the news but decided to have their child. Marriage is not something they are thinking about right now, focusing their attention and energy on the pregnancy.

Jamie Lynn, born April 4, 1991, has been the star of Nickelodeon series “Zoe 101” since early 2005. Soon after the teenager announced her upcoming entrance in motherhood, Nickelodeon issued the following statement: “We respect Jamie-Lynn's decision to take responsibility in this sensitive and personal situation. We know this is a very difficult time for her and her family, and our primary concern right now is for Jamie Lynn's well being.”

While some people are of the opinion that the 16-year-old should be fired from the show as a lesson that her behavior is not socially acceptable or encouraged, Nickelodeon has not expressed any wish to cancel “Zoe 101.”

Others have been more compassionate, appreciating Jamie Lynn’s courageous decision to keep the baby and not have an abortion. Both Britney Spears and Lynne Spears have received a fair share of condemnation for their supposed influence on the teenager yet there are some that say Jamie Lynn’s private life is hers and hers alone.

All in all, Jamie Lynn emphasized in her interview for OK! that she never intended to be an unwed teenage mother; she confessed she was scared and shocked; and that she does not advise anyone of her age to let themselves arrive in such a situation.

“I can’t say it was something I was planning to do right now,” the young actress told OK! last week. “But now that it’s in my lap and that it’s something I have to deal with, I’m looking forward to being the best mom I can be.”

She also talked about taking responsibility for her actions and their consequences: “I’m the one who has to live with it for the rest of my life. I put myself in this position, an adult position, so I have to act like an adult and take responsibility for what I did.”

Jamie Lynn added that having a baby in your adolescence is not “something you should do; it’s better to wait” but that given her own situation she cannot be “judgmental.”

Indeed. Teenage pregnancy happens. This time it just happened to someone famous. Would she have been as castigated had she not been the younger sister of Britney Spears?