The Real Palin Pregnancy Question

So, Gov. Sarah Palin’s 17-year-old, unmarried, high-schooler daughter Bristol is with child – and apparently not by the power of the Holy Spirit. Many Democrats are predictably chortling that for a highly religious family-values candidate who opposes sex education in the public schools, the elder Palin’s predicament is poetic justice. Democrats have a right to be harsh, under the circumstances, given all the morality crap thrown at them over the years by self-righteous, holier-than-thou Republican theo-cons. Remember when that fatuous fathead Newt Gingrich blamed godless Democrats for Susan Smith driving her kids into the lake and drowning them? 

But my take on this situation is a bit different, and more personal than political. I don’t think it is so much a moral issue as one of parental judgment. Even in my God-fearing evangelical family, one family member got a 17-year-old pregnant and had to marry her – with ultimately disastrous results. Good kids can do bad things, and bad things happen to good families. My question, thus, is why on earth would a mother who knows her teen-age daughter has conceived out of wedlock agree to accept an offer to run for vice president, knowing with absolute certainty that the pregnancy will be publicly exposed sooner or later and her daughter mortally embarrassed? 

Was Sarah Palin so into this unexpected, unearned ego trip that she didn’t care it would expose her beloved daughter to nationwide ridicule and make her the topic of intense discussion all the way from TV news to water cooler conversations? Wouldn’t the better part of valor for a loving, caring mother be to say, thanks but no thanks, I have a private family situation that I don’t want to go national? Had she declined McCain’s offer, Bristol’s pregnancy would have remained a family matter and one known only to the probably sympathetic tiny population of Alaska. As a father myself, and uncle to 21 nieces and nephews, I feel horribly for this poor girl. She will go through life with a scarlet letter on her public record and personal life – and also may be stuck marrying some jerk she doesn’t love just to provide cover for her own hyper-ambitious mom. 

It’s just unfathomable to me that Sarah Palin, as a supposedly doting mother of five, would put her daughter through this ordeal in the interests of her own political advancement. This is family values?  God spare me – and God spare the United States of America from such a self-serving, family-sacrificing barracuda (certain Alaskans’ name for her, not mine). 

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