Palin Pregnancy: Mother Daughter Interrupted

It was the first visual of Sarah Palin with her family that caught my attention and somehow it didn't feel right. No, it wasn't Gov. Palin's weird retro hair style or her obvious good looks. It was Palin's eldest daughter, Bristol holding her parents' 5-month old baby. Now, we learn that Bristol will soon be holding a baby of her own.

Still, it's their business isn't it?

Yes and no.

When Gov. Palin decided to accept John McCain's invitation to become the Republican- presumptive vice presidential nominee, she opened her daughter up to the scrutiny that comes with the territory.

As a mother of a daughter, I question Palin's decision of jumping into the political fray of the most important campaign in the world, knowing that it would put her daughter through the media meat grinder.

Rather than being the "wonderful mother narrative" that the GOP is spinning, Palin is putting her ambitions ahead of her daughter's well-being, at a time when a daughter needs her mother most...a little privacy wouldn't hurt, either.

Palin's public statement about her daughter's pregnancy sounded so scripted and so unreal -- ready for a made-for-TV LifeTime special -- it made my stomach turn:

Our beautiful daughter Bristol came to us with news that as parents we knew would make her grow up faster than we had ever planned. We're proud of Bristol's decision to have her baby and even prouder to become grandparents...

"Bristol and the young man she will marry are going to realize very quickly the difficulties of raising a child, which is why they will have the love and support of our entire family.

Come on! This is a tragedy for most parents of teenagers, except for the anti-choice crowd, of which Sarah Palin counts herself as varsity cheerleader.

These are sad facts the whacko right doesn't like to acknowledge about teenage motherhood but any school teacher and social worker will confirm:

Most teenage marriages end in divorce. The children of these children are mired in poverty and lag behind children of older parent families. Too-young parents are steeped in poverty, their education interrupted, their potential squandered. Most children of these parents will replicate their parents' lives and Sarah Palin is proud? I don't believe it.

The personal decision for Bristol Palin to continue her pregnancy is her business, but her mother won't allow other women to have the same choice.

Palin is vehemently anti-choice and wants to overturn Roe v Wade. She is also against sex education in our public schools and both of her positions on these two important issues are now being spotlighted because of her daughter's unfortunate pregnancy.

Barack Obama is right, but only partially right, in stating that "families should be off limits" in this campaign. However, in this particular case, Sarah Palin put herself -- and her daughter -- on the altar of public opinion, subjecting her to national humiliation and emotional trauma at a critical time in her life. Sarah Palin didn't have to do it, but she did.

It is Sarah Palin's character and judgment that ought to be questioned if she continues this campaign despite the harm it inflicts upon her own daughter. The girl has been interrupted and now it's time for the candidate Palin to be interrupted.

Comments

[collegegirl19]

How any mother can do this to her child and act like it's not a big deal is beyond me. It's terrible, thoughtless, heartless, and disgusting. Her daughter needs support, not for the whole country to know about what she's going through. So I say Good luck, Bristol and I wish you the best.

[Sun Tzu]

Bev,
If we only afford rights to those who agree with our position on those rights, then they cease to become rights, and are instead reduced to privileges: something to be granted and taken away according to circumstances.

While humiliation can be self imposed, it can also be brought upon by others. Are you so eager to plunge the knife into Palin's daughter as she lies "on the alter of public opinion"? If you only pretend to care about a child's emotional well-being, then I guess carry on as you have.

[BevDavis]

Sun_Tzu,

It seemed to me that Palin plunged threw the first knife at her own daughter by accepting the veep nomination...the daughter deserves all my/our best wishes for the tough road ahead...like it no, most teenagers need to have an 'available' mother who cares first for them...and with all that is going on in Gov. Palin's public life, one does wonder who is taking care of the family?...those aren't my values and I just don't see Palin as the 'great mother narrative' that keeps rolling at the convention­...especia­lly because of her purported 'feminism' while she takes a hard stand against choice for other girls and women and decries public school sex education instead hawking the 'Just Say NO to premarital sex' crap that surveys have proven Don't work.

By the way, all the social conservatives who care most about children BEFORE they're born and not so much after, love the whole Palin/daughter story and while we're at it, they can let their little baby get some sleep instead of schlepping the kid around for a photo-op at a big convention...it's all a bit sickening and I shudder to think that Gov. Palin will become Vice President Palin though stranger things have happened in national elections.

thanks for your comments...

[Sun Tzu]

"...those aren't my values..." I can wholly respect that your values differ from what you perceive Palin's or anyone else's values to be. I am just surprised to find that you suggest your values should be Palin's values. That what you think is the right way to raise a family--especially the role of the mother--is somehow right for a family of which any of us only know the most superficial things? Isn't that exactly what bothers people about the far right and their "family values": that they seem to try to impose them on the rest of us?

[janetke]

I also have some trouble accepting the dedication of a mother who has a 6-month-old Down's Syndrom child and decides to put herself in a position in which it will be impossible for her to give that child the maternal care and touching, nurturing and nursing which he deserves. No doubt he will be well cared for, but Nobody is Mom, but Mom.

janetke

[Molster]

A life interrupted - you hit the nail on the head. Poor Bristol's life has been interrupted on so many levels it is downright staggering - not the least of which is some privacy for what has to be a difficult time, at best. I keep thinking about the movie "Juno" and the choice she made (in Hollywoodland) to have the baby and give it up for adoption. Would that have even been an acceptable choice for Bristol? The other comments about how no one jumped up and asked Ms. Palin about the fact we do have choice in this country speaks volumes about the media, unfortunately, more than it does about her. The family photo gave me the creeps too - although honestly, it might have been the hairdo that stopped me first.

One of these days, I'd like the republicans to define family values for me.

[Clavis]

As long as abortion and birth control and stem cells are legal matters, and politicians like Sarah Palin think they have the right to take their goofy religious notions and turn them into laws that all women would have to follow, then their own behavior and the behavior of those for whom they are responsible (and the mother of a 17-year-old girl is responsible for that girl's behavior) is indeed relevant.

You hit the nail on the head. When Palin said "We're proud of her for choosing to keep the baby," someone should have said to Palin, "What if she didn't have the option to choose?"

[BevDavis]

Wow...I wish I would have thought of that line, Clavis!

thanks for commenting!

[plafayette]

Yes, just imagine young Bristol having to tell a mother like Sarah that she was pregnant and that she did not want to have the child? What would Sarah say and do then? Force her to have that baby...thats what. No the child did not have any real choice with Sarah.

And, does the seventeen year olds nightmare end there? No, now she has to marry the baby daddy and care for her infant brother while her "mom" runs for vp. Sarah Palin is a fake and a fraud on the whole family values issue. Her special needs child will not have his special needs met whether mom "wins" or not. She does not seem the least bit interested in the child except as a photo-op for herself being mother and woman of the universe

[lbierma]

Poor Bristol. And we have yet to hear any thing from her or from the man (or boy) who impregnated her.
I too only partially agree with Obama, that this is not an issue deserving our attention. This hypocritical vice presidential choice, sucking up to the radical right wing voters by putting this champion of vengefully forcing young women to bring an unwanted child into the world, is nothing but political. We all know self righteous people like Sarah Palin. Does anyone actually want them with their finger on the nuclear button?

[BevDavis]

Dear Lbierma...I don't want her finger on ANY button! All the women I know who are Dems and support choice and several Independent women who are pro-choice are horrified by McCain's pick...more will unfold about Palin in Alaska...of that I'm sure...thanks for your comment!

[Montanus]

I remember the Palins went shopping for a cheerleader outfit. Who for?

[blaqntelligence]

Excellent post...

I respect Senator Obama's position....
But considering Palin has involved herself in this election...
AND considering her diehard position on abortion...
AND considering she, herself, had the luxury of making such an intensely personal decision...
BUT would deny women, who don't share her beliefs the same.....

Fair game.
The media absolutely should not bother the young lady (her mother needs a beatdown for exposing her daughter to this feeding frenzy in the first place, but I digress).....
As another poster so succinctly phrased it.....Control your kids before you try to control [the Navy] a nation of adults.

[BevDavis]

thanks blaqntelligence! agree agree agree...

on the other hand...who can really control a 17-year old with raging hormones? I've had two but they did have public school sex education and me talking to them every morning over breakfast about what would happen...if they put themselves in a pickle like an unplanned pregnancy...I've got all the good will in the world for Palin's daughter...NONE for her on this subject...and how she put her daughter through this and by her own position on choice...she creeps me out...

[blaqntelligence]

Ms. Davis, creepy is the only word I can think to describe this entire process and the republican party.
From this woman and her far, far, far out in right field views...
To all of the drama unfolding since Friday....
To the way the right, and their minions, will brazenly, blatantly, in-your-face lie and have the nerve to get outraged when called on it.....
To the way I've found myself second guessing myself when I've heard something I know to be untrue.
They speak so convincingly, I double check myself......and feel like a fool afterwards.
To the fact that this is even a contest.
Harvard grad, first Black Editor of the Law Review, humble roots, single-parent household, successful father and husband, up-by-his-­bootstraps success story
versus
Silver spoon, bottom-fiv­e-in-his-c­lass, adulterer, admitted liar, horrible temper, medical issues.....
And it's STILL supposedly close.....
THAT creeps me out more than anything.
And serves as a living testament to the fact the Black man has had to be damn near perfect to compete with an incompetent.

[c64audio]

It's spelt "altar", not "alter".

[BevDavis]

absolutely...will correct! thanks

[BevDavis]

P.S. Palin is also against abortion in the case of incest and rape.