Sarah Palin: Family-Values Feminist?

I don't know any women like Sarah Palin.

Most of the women I know became far less ambitious when they had just one child. That one child caused them to see their role in life quite differently. I know many women -- doctors, lawyers, journalists, business executives -- who've given up or postponed or cut back on their careers because they wanted to care for their children. I know a lot more women who desperately want to cut back but can't because their families need the money.

I don't know any women with five children, but I know plenty of mothers with two and three children. They shudder at how much responsibility having five would entail. These mothers are almost impossible to get time with. Being with their children, listening to them, insuring they're safe and making good decisions, dealing with school and extra-curricular activities takes more time than there is every day. One has a 17-year-old daughter, who is getting extra maternal attention right now. "All the adult decisions kids have to make frightens them," the mother said. "I have to protect her."

I'm told that Palin is part of a new trend: women with high-powered jobs who also have lots of children. I guess that's the latest version of having it all. I probably don't understand that because I'm a boomer. We tried it. Nobody gets to have it all.

But Sarah Palin is not like any of the women I know.

I don't know any women who would have agreed to run for vice-president of the United States knowing that their ambition would expose their unmarried, pregnant teenager to national publicity.

Issuing a statement that said her daughter would have to grow up too soon wouldn't have been nearly enough for the mothers I know. They wouldn't think that a quickie marriage between two teenagers would make everything fine. They would be soul-searching, repenting, anguishing over how they had contributed to this disaster.

Maybe Sarah Palin is doing that. Maybe she's doing it privately.

But again, I'm at sea. Bristol Palin has been nationally shamed because of the attention her mother's ambition has drawn. Party pictures are already circulating on the Internet. It's likely to get uglier.

Obama would like to spare her that. He's promised to fire anyone on his staff who throws the first stone. (He's got this follower-of-Jesus thing.)

But Obama shouldn't have to protect Bristol Palin. Her mother, who is said to have known about her daughter's pregnancy before she accepted McCain's offer, should have done that.

I don't mean to sound old fashioned or judgmental. I'm pro-choice. Sarah Palin has made her choices, as she has the perfect right to.

It's just that that she is outside my experience. I don't know any mothers who would have accepted McCain's offer knowing what Sarah Palin is said to have known. If the pregnancy had surprised them after their acceptance, they would be taking as much blame on themselves as they could, shielding their daughter, berating themselves, deflecting attention from their darling child. Publicly.

All the mothers I know blame themselves far too much. I'm not saying they ought to. Only that they do. Something happened to the ambitious, driven, career-focused women I know when they became mothers. Their values shifted.

But then my experience isn't all encompassing. I don't know any mothers who crusade for family values.

I only know women who live them, quietly, without lectures, without trying to make other people live as they do, without pride, with lots of guilt because they can't do better.

I talked to one of them today. She asked, "What exactly does the Religious Right mean by family values?"

A good question.

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Christine Wicker is the author of "The Fall of the Evangelical Nation: The Surprising Crisis Inside the Church." Her website is www.christinewicker.com.

Comments

[cruiseat60]

I have long said that just because a woman can give birth does not make her a mother. Palin has clearly shown that her family comes second to her career. Saying her family is off limits and then using any situation toexploit them (ie: front cover of magazines, bringing in the boyfriend,) only confirms she is an opportunist. What should be investigated is the fact that as Governor, she has cut 1.1 million dollars from a program for teenage mothers and reduced by 40% the funds for special needs children. Yet in her speech , mothers of special needs will have a friend in Washington. A bit of hipocracy. The McCain/Rove strategy is to stress personality and character of candidates (POW and Pit Bull /Hockey Mom) to avoid discussing solutions to the true problems our country is facing. His choice of VP shows his lack of judgment and his disperate need to bring attention to his campaign. Do you really think 8,000 people would show up to hear HIM talk. No! People want to find out more about Palin. Yet they keep her secluded so the media could not ask questions to truly vet her. She is paraded out like a trophy to speak and attack then led away til another day. It frightens me that she could be a heart beat away. Hopefully enough people will wake up to this pandering on election day and make sure we do not have to face that possibility.

[HesterP]

I don't know any PARENT who would knowingly subject their child to the national arena in the midst of a life-altering mistake, and I wouldn't like them if they did.

[zann]

We ought to hire a VP based mainly on her public self. I don't know Palin or her family, their attitude towards her job, or her support system, so I'm not judging her on that basis. She is energetic, thinks big, and isn't afraid of heavyweight opponents. What you see as "bad mother" is probably that she is a sort of intensity junkie as deficient as any male in empathy. She pushed the sports center on Wasilla, probably a great thing for kids (like hers) in a small town, but the cost was scary. She built on land they didn't own, fired people who opposed her in the election, and used her power against her brother-in-law. She's gotten more earmarks per capita than any state, on top of maximizing oil and gas income for every citizen of Alaska (including about $22,000 a year for the seven in her family), at a cost to big oil in Alaska and the American taxpayer. She's a willful, pushy, competitive team player who is mean and petty with opponents rather than respectful and willing to learn like Obama

[DoTheMath]

Excellent points, Ms. Wicker. Your perspective is probably similar to what most of us, in general, and even on the left, experience. That makes the current opinions expressed from the right even more shocking. This sudden whole-hearted acceptance by the religious right of mothers of five, including an infant and an unwed pregnant teenager, taking on not just a job, but potentially THE JOB, makes my head spin. I'm not trying to pigeon-hole these people or freeze them in time, but isn't this the same group that was just the other day decrying the breakdown of "traditional family values" and including among those values abstinence and stay-at-home moms?

Yet, now when anyone asks about this glaring contradiction between THEIR stated values and THEIR candidate's behavior, the questioner is attacked as sexist and worse.

[zann]

I'm on Palin's side in this one. Her husband is a full time father, and there is lots of extended support. I like her spirit and intensity. Its her lie about the bridge to nowhere, her snide distortion of Obama's positions, and her pro-fetus anti-mother stance that are deal breakers.

[muirbeach]

Sarah Palin - Those 18 Million Holes are the holes of the "Liberal" woman, of Susan Anthony, Betty Freidan, Ella Grasso, Madeline Albright ..... "Liberal" holes that allow you to preach against a woman's right to choose, to advocate home schooling and "Family Values".

The issue of teen pregnancy is not off limits. As the eldest girl of 5, the only sex education I got at home was a booklet from a "Sanitary Napkin" manufacturer. Thank "God" for public school and sex education! Reproduction was explained without religious or "moral" comment. I GOT IT! My boy friend GOT IT! We understood our bodies, we established our goals and paths to college.

Palin is supposedly ready to make decisions that will have effects world wide- yet she believes in the isolation and inbreeding of home schooling - in not allowing children access to thoughts other than those of their family so they may establish their own values, sense of being and place in the world - so they may construct a wise path.

Palin and the Republican Party chose not to put "Family First" by parading a naive couple in a life changing moment on national television. "Family first " would have kept a daughter's life private until a time when one's own interests could be pursued without the scrutiny of the nation on a teen. The blind political ambition of Palin and desperate position of the Republican Party that placed these teens before the world should be an issue worthy

[cheferic]

Dear Ms. Wicker
In Your article "Sarah Palin : Family -Values Feminist?" You used the phrase ' I dont know ' five times.
I for one am convinced of your premise , thank you .
I am not aware that Sarah Palin is on a crusade for family values -she hasn't said that she was.
You have said that she was -after admitting in all candor that you didn't know her or anyone like her and sometime before your final statement , a rhetorical question as to what the term family values meant .
I wish this question was asked and answered publicly when it was the Bush platform but I digress.
So if you "don't know any women like Sarah Palin "and you" dont know any women with five children" ,
the women you know would be "soul searching ,repenting and anguishing over how they contributed to this disaster " their 17 year old daughters pregnancy .Doesn't that negate all of the words of the title of your article,Sarah Palin,Family Values,and Feminist ,leaving us with a hyphen,a colon and a question mark?
Once again, thank you for sharing what you don't know and best of luck to you in not seeming old fashioned and judgmental.I am sure that those of us with more than 3 siblings, and nephews and nieces , sons and daughters less than than 2 decades younger than us;have full confidence in the abilities of the mothers that we know to attain political office.

[Christine Wicker - Huffpost Blogger]

Good thing you like her so much. She's promising to treat America just like she's treating her children.

She either lied about her child's pregnancy or exposed her child to national ridicule so that she could get more power.

I'm hoping your friends with children wouldn't behave that way. Mine would not. Not with their children, not with the country.

[cheferic]

I 'm not agreeing with Sarah Palins' politics .I'm not going to vote for her for ' political ' reasons . All of the reasons in your article are personal,not professional or political,I'm not going to judge her candidacy for political office based on this .

The way we choose candidates in this country is outrageous and it is this kind of thinking that gave us the Bush family not once but twice! Quite frankly it is dangerous.
Never a thought of the political plan for economy.foreign policy,health care,educa­tion,socia­l security,the elderly.These issues are separate from someones home life, religion or values , to combine them, is to invite the cult of personality and reduces journalism to the lowest common denominator forcing us to judge everyone and everything in terms of " Who we know " not what we think or dream is possible for this country.

If you want to discuss the politics of a candidate , that's wonderful. Ask me to vote,based on her private life, the way she raises her kids, or the decisions her kids make, and I will defend Sarah Palins' rights as an American citizen every time. Your article and dozens of other Sarah Palin articles on this site are quite simply
'Bashing Sarah Palin to victory ' .

As someone who wants Barack O'bama to win,
I need to take up her cause so people don't say that the press was unfair.
Thats what 'the men I know 'do.

[arthur2008]

Sarah Palin is largely irrelevant in this discussion -- what matters to voters is the fact that the Republicans have yet, in the fonal hours of their convention, to address a single issue facing the nation, notably the disastrous economy they have created while lining their own pockets. Instead, they have nothing to say but more of the Bush administration's lies and fearmongering to distract the people.

[Christine Wicker - Huffpost Blogger]

You're right. We do need to keep our focus. As the New York Times' Bob Herbert pointed out yesterday, Republicans are great at distracting Americans from what really matters. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/02/opinion/02herbert.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=slogin

[arthur2008]

Gov. Palin has engineered the removal of revealing videos from her church's website, but they can be found here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k84m2orSOaM&feature=related

[allis1]

Check out the video, "Sarah Palin Wasilla Church Has Kooky Prophecy Sessions", from nyprogressive. Includes a clip that is targeted for young men especially, very spooky in my book.
But what's even scarier are the comments posted after, lots of anger and hate expressed by
Christians??

[confusedintexas]

Amen, I had to leave the other TV to come to the computer to see if I was the only one that was in disbelief about what I was hearing. Also, side note and probably out of bounds (was I the only one see the youngest girl lick her hand several times and lay the baby's hair down) As Larry the Cable Guy would say, Lord, I'm sorry... :-)

[tablesedge]

I agree that Sarah Palin is a limelight seeking woman who has put her ambition over her childrens' need for attention. Get a grip... a person on a blackberry is not paying attention to a child!

[tel8034]

On the day that McCain announced Palin, Bristol was standing with the rest of the Palin family holding a rolled up blanket/shawl over her stomach in order to HIDE her baby bump.

Palin knew Bristol was pregnant then, but deliberately tried to keep it a secret so that she could present a picture of her ALL-AMERICAN, FAITH VALUED BASED, NO SCANDAL RIDDEN FAMILY to the public....­..........­.... IT WAS ALL A FRAUD FROM THE ONSET

Then Palin, at another press conference told the public that Bristol was not with her at the time because she was taking care of her "sleeping baby brother"..­..........­..... ANOTHER ATTEMPT AT HIDING HER DAUGHTER'S PREGNANCY

We then saw Bristol again at another PR moment, holding her baby brother in a shawl over her stomach...­..........­... Again designed to hide the bump .................

Up to this point there was NO MENTION OF BRISTOL BEING PREGNANT.

It was only after the "rumors" started to swirl did Palin come out with the story that yes Bristol is pregnant , BUT SHE WILL GET MARRIED...­..........­..... As if getting married negates the SLIP.

Palin herself made the PREGNANCY ANNOUNCEMENT about Bristol, NOT THE MSM, and now she and McCain want to blame the media for their woes ..........­..........­.... And to fuel the media fire even more, we now hear that the BABY PAPA will be attending the convention on the night Palin is to speak.....­..........­.... SO MUCH FOR PALIN WHINING ABOUT PRIVACY AND THE MSM INTRUSION.

[mivogo]

The Republicans (those champions of women's rights) are trying to frame this type of argument as "sexist." But I don't know many FATHERS who accept a new job that would require him to barnstorm the nation for months with a Downs Syndrome baby and a pregnant teen at home, leaving it all in his wife's hands. People would pity the wife for having such an over-ambitious, self-centered creep for a husband. Am I missing something here?

[Mack777]

I am not seeing any writing about how there are two children with exceptional needs right now in the Palin family (who knows may be some of the other children are going thru a needy time also).

There is a newborn with down-syndrome and that would have been a good reason not to have accepted the VP nomination­-consideri­ng there are so many children.

And a young daughter is pregnant and she also desrves extra time with her mother-to understand herself and what being pregnant really means to her. And I'm sorry that her mom put her in the spotlight and subjected her to such pressure.How can a young person,so vunerable , make authentic choices for herself.
Sarah Palin knew she had these childrens' needs and accepted more outside work instead. I don't think she has used good judgement as a mother. Having five children is a fact. But how she treats them ,is about judgement.

McCain showed lack of judgement b/c he made up a flattering story about her and the facts are shown to be not true.


McCain

[consultmlcesq]

How can the Christian Right judge and condemn others’ sense of values and morality; and claim the mantra of pro-life, when they defend their own for engaging in pre-marital teenage sex and exercising the choice of life. One article after another I’m reading Christian Evangelical Conservatives praising the misguided child for “making the right decision” – choosing life but nonetheless, exercising the right of choice. Failure to abstain from sex and the freedom to make the decision is opposed by most evangelicals; but because this particular child “chose” life, she is somehow exempt from customary judgmental scrutiny. How convenient. It is commendable that the child chose to give life and to marry the teenage father. Being the child of a self-righteous leader, however, one may be caused to question the judgment and leadership skills of the heads of the household. Perhaps if the heads of all households and governments were to actually focus more on family, community and country rather than fascism, separatism and secessionism under the pretext of “family values” – we might strengthen our country as a nation despite our ethnic and religious diversity and despite our sexual differences or affiliations. However they couch their agenda, the GOP clearly seeks to fulfill the GOP Contract with America by any means necessary, including doublespeak – i.e. to usher in the New World Order – one world government and one world religion, all controlled by one association of self-righteous and reactionary, but craftily deceptive clones.