The Curious Case of Bristol Palin

My niece declined a glass of wine at dinner, beamed and announced she is pregnant. I am thrilled for her and her husband. I am amazed at the implied optimism - they are going to be able to afford food, shelter, Hello Kitty clothing. They'll save money under the bassinet mattress. They will be able to afford vaccines, braces, dance lessons, pre-K college tutoring, tuition, treatment for that rare skin problem, therapy for the behavior problems, lawyers for drug busts, a large enough fallout shelter.

But that's just where my mind goes.

When we first moved to New York, my building was like an ambulatory assisted living facility. I flirted madly with the old women and men in the elevator and loved their stories while we drowsed and waited for the laundry room dryers. Thirteen years and many early morning sirens later, instead of walkers and three-pronged canes, the elevator is jammed with state-of-the-art, plastic encased, dual purpose jogger-strollers.

A recent newsletter announced there are now thirty-three kids in our building, including six sets of twins, with two more kids in the hopper. With the new surveillance cams, I'm concerned how the board got that last bit of info. Everywhere in my neighborhood there are double-wide strollers. When a friend told me her partner was pregnant, my first thought was, "Just one?" and I realized I'd had the same thought when my niece announced. I find myself looking at women pushing single strollers like they are somehow slacking.

And that was before the saga of the Octomom. While grimly enumerating the details of the story - Nadya Suleman is Iraqi, single, disabled, unemployed, on food stamps, obsessed with Angelina Jolie, in graduate school for pediatric counseling, lives with her parents, has six other children - commentators look relieved to be covering a story about unscrupulous fertility bankers and absentee octodads rather than the collapse of banking in the fatherland.

Has Bristol Palin weighed in on the Octomom? In her FOX news interview with the tiny, deconstructed Greta Van Susteren, Bristol's 'likes' and 'y'knows' certainly disqualified her for a New York State Senate seat. She said she wants to be an advocate for teen pregnancy, even though we already have a pretty good record in that category.

Just before her mom, Governor Palin, inserted herself in the room, Bristol said that telling her mom she was with Tripp [after Linda?] was harder than the actual childbirth. Bristol also said that she wished she had waited ten years, that teens should wait for marriage but that abstinence is not realistic. They had an interesting family dinner table discussion that night. You betcha. Good thing Grandpa Todd is away on another of his snowmobile idiotrods.

It is all a very Curious Palin clan. The thirty year crusade for family - the straight is understood - makes a young girl derive identity and meaning from her offspring. As a young mother she takes on adult responsibility. Conversely, lack of responsibility and self-regulation infantilizes adults. Tax cuts, endless wars, assaults on mother earth? Trust us, we know what we're doing. Go out and buy yourself something pretty.

For the last few years, I've been fascinated by a growing trend at my local grocery. The produce department is stocked with misted bins laden with baby carrots, baby spinach, baby arugula, baby brussels sprouts. They should call the produce department 'the nursery'. Once I inadvertently spied a bunch of fully-grown adult carrots. I quickly looked away in baby beet red embarrassment.

Comments

[propitiousmoment]

I read this just after it was posted, and thought, must be a first draft, it gets a little incoherent there at the end. Then I went on to other things, and a couple of hours later, I thought, I get it! It's actually making a very clever point. So I'm a little slow. I had to read Maugham's The Razor's Edge twice before I figured out the ending, too, I guess subtlety escapes me sometimes. But anyway, my compliments on a clever piece of writing, and the discernment behind it.

[TakeNoNeoConPrisoners]

The problem is that we the US is headed in the wrong direction -profusely procreating while the worlds natural resources are diminishing, the environment is under attack predominately by Americans preoccupation with a disposal society while the costs of raising children thru adulthood is skyrocketing. How about we start a real honest dialogue about population control which would go a long way in solving a lot of society's problems.. If you need gov't assistance to provide for your babies, then you need to be cutoff after 2 children by mandatory birth control methods. If you refuse and violate such policies, you don't get to keep your litter. Are we raising responsible adults in America or just a bunch of dogs and cats that reproduce sensilessly. Are there any real responsible Americans left or are we all just a bunch of spoiled brats, wasteful consumers and liberal "procreators."

[Syrin]

From Wasilla
It's called IronDog he was the loser 6th- he would never have ever won previous if were not for his partner Scott Davis.
Todd is nowhere to be found. The 'ball-less wonder' has not worked in 3 years. Sarah must be doing well, especially with per diem, travel and transfers.

[PanFx]

Idiotrods?

Hilarious! Classic jab.

[alcamgram]

ditto-loved it.

[ignoranceequalsfear]

I really like Kate Cliniton, but I'm not sure what the point of this is? There were so many.

[Alex Hodson]

Agreed. What was the point of this? People are having more babies? Our culture is more accepting of pregnancy? Get on with it!

[aloha43]

The problem is that our culture is overpopulating our planet. I'm pretty sure that is why there is such an outrage.

Our culture, I hope, will be less accepting of pregnancy, and more accepting to less pregnancies, or the future will be bleaker than ever before.