Well, who knew that Sarah Palin would turn out to be the Lynne Spears of politics. In case you’ve been recovering from your Labor Day Weekend hangover all day, let’s recap:
- Sarah Palin is indeed the mother of the four-month old son Trig. Her 17-year-old daughter Bristol is not Trig’s mother.
- Because Bristol is five months pregnant.
- John McCain apparently knew. But almost no one else did.
- Bristol is keeping the baby. Well, duh. It’s not like as a conservative, evangelical household there was much of any other option.
- And she’s getting married.
So thoughts?
First, leave Bristol alone. Sex education is taught in Alaska schools and despite Sarah Palin’s personal distate of it, she hasn’t done anything to change the fact that, in theory, totally adequate sex ed is available to Alaska teens.
Second, please don’t make her get married. I mean, if they want to get married in 5 or 7 years, then fine. But please, let her get a college education, let her get to know who she is as an adult (an adult with a child, true), let her be herself for just a little while. And two wrongs don’t make a right no matter how you do the math.
Stop with this talk about her getting to choose to keep the baby. She’s 17, her mother is a freaking governor and there’s about seven abortion providers in the entire state. Her options were — frankly — pretty limited. And she was probably painfully aware of that.
You can’t talk about Bristol. But if Sarah Palin trots out this family situation to somehow prove political points or to prove her bonafide conservative credentials, that’s fair to confront. And whatever you do, don’t allow her to give a People cover story.
And the thing that is most annoying are these reactions from people (women!) who are now talking about how is Palin going to do it all? How is she going to be a mother to a young girl who’s going to be a mother herself, how is she going to take care of her four-month-old Downs Syndrome child, how is she going to multi-task, yada, yada, yada? You know what? If this were Sam Palin, no one would be asking those kind of questions. No one would be making comments about how can she control the country if she can’t control her own kids (Does anyone control their own teenagers? Anyone?). No one would be worried about her energies and her divided loyalites and all that jazz if she were a guy. No one is asking how Obama manages to do it with young children. So. Cut. It. Out.
I guess the glass ceiliing only gets cracked for post-menopausal women. Geez.
6 responses so far ↓
1 Melissa // Sep 2, 2008 at 3:13 pm
Those kids aren’t getting married. The family’s just saying that. If they were going to get married, they would have done it already. The boy’s Myspace page (before it was pulled offline) said he didn’t want kids.
I bet you a buck the Palin’s opted their kids out of sex ed in school.
I wonder where a horney 17 year old would go to get birth control in Middle of Nowhere Alaska? How many pharmacies do you think that town has? What are the odds that if that poor girl had walked into the town pharmacy and purchased a Today Sponge or some IVF that the cashier wouldn’t have promptly called her mother?
What would have happed if the girl had said to her mother, “I need to get on the pill because I’m gonna have me some sex?”
Not that I’m saying anything about the Palins, but wasn’t it just in the news that that young woman in Florida (who probably murdered her child) never wanted the kid? That she was bullied by her mother into 1) having the baby 2) keeping it?
What else is there to do up there besides play hockey and copulate?
2 Kathy // Sep 2, 2008 at 7:46 pm
i’m sure their form of birth control was abstinence. funny how now we can see that it really wasn’t all that effective . . .
no parent should encourage their 17 year old daughter to get married. continue the pregnancy? fine, i am pro-choice and if that’s her choice than so be it. but, really, this is the 21st century. no one should expect or even encourage a 17 year old to get married because he/she didn’t think to use protection. i guess maybe in conservative land it’s better for them to divorce in 10 years than have a baby out of wedlock now.
and we could blame bristol (terrible name, what were her parents thinking) but then there’s another party involved here. what was levi thinking? wrap it up boys, wrap it up. you are just as much to blame.
3 lil' bro // Sep 2, 2008 at 11:26 pm
Lynne Spears of politics, that’s funny. “I’m gonna be a gran’ma y’all!
4 urbanmenno // Sep 3, 2008 at 8:55 am
Even if sex ed were taught in the schools, I don’t know either if they were really aware of them. One thing that no one has mentioned is the teen pregnancy rate in Alaska. I’d be curious to see how high it is. Maybe she’s just your basic Alaska teen. You’re right Melissa … it does get really dark up there.
You do have to wonder how much of an impact her family beliefs had on her birth control choices. I think about those pregnant high school kids from home and it’s a mixture of home-taught abstinence and maybe just sheer stupidity?
It’s really the marriage thing that gets me. True love and all that? Fine. It should be able to handle waiting for the next several years.
5 Melissa // Sep 3, 2008 at 9:30 am
I think statistically people who get married young actually have lower divorce rates than than people who wait until their knee deep in their 30’s to do it the first time. Not, that I’m advocating 17/18 year olds getting married. But, I had friends who did it, and 15 -20 years later they’re still married. ALL of my friends who waited until they were in their 30’s to get married the first time were divorced within five years.
My not-quite-20- year old son is getting really to marry his girl. He would have married her on his 18th birthday, but she was like, “We’re 18! Whaddareya nuts?” So, now, they’re not quite 20, and they think they’re ready. I’m just happy that he found such a sweet girl.
6 Kathy // Sep 3, 2008 at 8:39 pm
It’s not just about getting married younger, it’s about getting married that young because you’re knocked up. Very different. In my opinion.
Leave a Comment