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Sep. 3rd, 2008 11:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chhotiiKerry Healy was on WBUR this morning, saying that, in connection with Bristol's pregnancy, Sarah Palin is being criticized as a mother, and that that's not fair to women, because men don't get criticized as parents when they run for office.
Healy misses the point. At least regarding MY criticism of Palin. I wouldn't say that Palin is a bad mom. There's no evidence of that that I know of. Children are very challenging; you do your best, you can do everything right, and still, unfortunate things happen. Sophia's dance teacher's 3-year-old daughter lost her hand in an accident, for example. But do I think Laura is a bad parent? No. I look at that and I think... oh, that day must have been so terrible for them. There, but for the grace of God, go I. Thank God I have been lucky with Sophia so far. I would be the last person in the world to go around smugly calling other people inferior parents. I don't believe in throwing the first stone. Hell, Al Gore's son got hit by a car. (Fortunately he was okay in the end.) Nobody should be throwing the first stone here, people.
Furthermore, even if Palin were a terrible mom, I don't see what that has to do with qualifications to be veep. I don't think there's a lot of overlap between skills required to be Mom and skills required to head the Executive branch of the Federal government.
What bothers me about Bristol's scandal is that it contributes toward the continued glamorization of teen pregnancy. Recently Britney Spear's younger sister had a baby, and now this. I think that the anti-choice crowd is all in favor of the glamorization of teen pregnancy. They will give lip service to it being hard, and unfortunate, but really, they must argue that having a baby is not all that bad. If society shuns pregnant teens, and regards teen pregnancy as unacceptable, then teenagers are going to choose against carrying their pregnancy to term if they can choose, or they are going to go back to throwing themselves off buildings or trying to do it themselves with knitting needles, as they did before Roe v. Wade. The pro-life "pregnancy counseling" is all about getting across this message: It's not so bad; and besides, babies are cute.
And, if you're Britney Spear's sister or the daughter of the governor of Alaska, it really isn't that bad. First-degree relatives of major pop stars and leading politicians can probably secure enough resources to buy all the nanny services they want, enough to still go to college and do whatever they want to do. That's not the reality down here on the ground. For the rest of us, for girls that I have known, early pregnancy means hardship: limited career potential, a youth tied down with baby responsibilities, and grinding poverty. Unfortunately, I think that teenage girls are going to see the younger Spears and the younger Palin have babies and still go on to have a life, and think that the same rules apply to them. They're too young and too romantic to understand that privilege means a different set of rules for the rest of us schmucks.
Or do the anti-choice folks now support giving all teenage moms the advantages that Miss Spears and Miss Palin will have post-baby? If welfare were generous enough, I suppose all teenage moms could put their babies in daycare and go to school, and then the anti-choice propaganda would be correct: you could have a baby and a life, too. Wouldn't that be a funny reversal, though. Back when only the black teenage girls were having babies, the R's were not in favor of that kind of entitlement at all.
Healy misses the point. At least regarding MY criticism of Palin. I wouldn't say that Palin is a bad mom. There's no evidence of that that I know of. Children are very challenging; you do your best, you can do everything right, and still, unfortunate things happen. Sophia's dance teacher's 3-year-old daughter lost her hand in an accident, for example. But do I think Laura is a bad parent? No. I look at that and I think... oh, that day must have been so terrible for them. There, but for the grace of God, go I. Thank God I have been lucky with Sophia so far. I would be the last person in the world to go around smugly calling other people inferior parents. I don't believe in throwing the first stone. Hell, Al Gore's son got hit by a car. (Fortunately he was okay in the end.) Nobody should be throwing the first stone here, people.
Furthermore, even if Palin were a terrible mom, I don't see what that has to do with qualifications to be veep. I don't think there's a lot of overlap between skills required to be Mom and skills required to head the Executive branch of the Federal government.
What bothers me about Bristol's scandal is that it contributes toward the continued glamorization of teen pregnancy. Recently Britney Spear's younger sister had a baby, and now this. I think that the anti-choice crowd is all in favor of the glamorization of teen pregnancy. They will give lip service to it being hard, and unfortunate, but really, they must argue that having a baby is not all that bad. If society shuns pregnant teens, and regards teen pregnancy as unacceptable, then teenagers are going to choose against carrying their pregnancy to term if they can choose, or they are going to go back to throwing themselves off buildings or trying to do it themselves with knitting needles, as they did before Roe v. Wade. The pro-life "pregnancy counseling" is all about getting across this message: It's not so bad; and besides, babies are cute.
And, if you're Britney Spear's sister or the daughter of the governor of Alaska, it really isn't that bad. First-degree relatives of major pop stars and leading politicians can probably secure enough resources to buy all the nanny services they want, enough to still go to college and do whatever they want to do. That's not the reality down here on the ground. For the rest of us, for girls that I have known, early pregnancy means hardship: limited career potential, a youth tied down with baby responsibilities, and grinding poverty. Unfortunately, I think that teenage girls are going to see the younger Spears and the younger Palin have babies and still go on to have a life, and think that the same rules apply to them. They're too young and too romantic to understand that privilege means a different set of rules for the rest of us schmucks.
Or do the anti-choice folks now support giving all teenage moms the advantages that Miss Spears and Miss Palin will have post-baby? If welfare were generous enough, I suppose all teenage moms could put their babies in daycare and go to school, and then the anti-choice propaganda would be correct: you could have a baby and a life, too. Wouldn't that be a funny reversal, though. Back when only the black teenage girls were having babies, the R's were not in favor of that kind of entitlement at all.
