Both my half-sisters got pregnant at 16. One had twins. They were idiots. One of them is still an idiot. The other just votes NDP.
They had the “excuse”, I suppose, that it was the early 60s and they didn’t have the Pill or something.
There is no excuse in 2008, especially when you come from a decent, educated, well-off family, and don’t have some obvious mental defect.
Sex is where babies come from. It doesn’t matter that you “didn’t mean to get pregnant” and only wanted the fun parts. An extreme skateboarder doesn’t “mean” to break a leg in eight places, but guess what?
I’m glad she’s not getting an abortion. I’m less thrilled that she’s getting married, but she probably isn’t thrilled either. If it works out, great. It’s been known to happen. But she should have planned her life better. It really isn’t that hard to do. Call it “delayed gratification.” Just control your damn self.
First you finish high school. Then you get married. Then you get pregnant. Those are the rules. Otherwise your life will be, at minimum, 50% more ****ed. It isn’t Fermat’s Theorum.
Yes, I am harsh, meanspirited and judgemental. Also not a pregnant unwed mother and never have been!! And that’s way more important.
This makes the Palins look really really tacky and low class.
We should want people better than “tacky and low class” in the White House. I left Hamilton to get away from tacky, low class people and their pregnant teenagers. Now they’re all over my damn television.
We criticized Bill Clinton for helping kids think “oral sex wasn’t real sex.” But we’re all cool with this? Kids will say, “So? Whatsername’s pregnant.”
It is really funny seeing social conservatives turning themselves inside out to excuse/explain this because now it is someone on “our” side.
With all the excuses and double talk abroad in the blogosphere, I haven’t read a single conservative blogger ask: how does your newfound “understanding” suddenly render our carefully crafted messages to the culture moot?
But why did the two interrelated Big Ideas imported from Sweden in the Sixties – (1) generous welfare for unmarried mothers; (2) no social disapproval of childbirth outside marriage — turn out to be Bad Ideas?
Because people on the left half of the Bell Curve tend to be below-average at prudent long-term decisions. When American intellectuals imported these concepts from the Swedes, they expected Americans to act like Swedes. That was like expecting Jimi Hendrix to sound like ABBA.
How many girls will model themselves after Palin’s daughter? Hell, they model themselves after Paris Hilton. “Oh, but that’s different!” Tell me why. “Oh, but that’s stupid.” Doesn’t matter. You are thinking like an adult.
Sociological stats don’t matter to teenaged girls. Neither does “the whole story.” It doesn’t matter that Palin’s daughter is getting married; teenage girls will remember the “pregnant” part and conveniently forget the “marriage” bit (they’ll have to, because their boyfriends will take off running). Let’s not forget how lucky Palin’s daughter is that the father of her child hasn’t bugged out. That is VERY unusual.
If they see something personified, in the neighbourhood and in the media, then that makes it acceptable, no matter how unappealing or irrational it seems to you and me: anorexia, drug use, pregnancy, beating each other up on YouTube.com.
It doesn’t matter if said activity is stupid; what matters is that it can be seen.
This “seen-ness” alone mysteriously bestows acceptability and respectability, otherwise Maury Pauvich’s “baby daddy DNA test” episodes wouldn’t still be his biggest ratings grabber, with an endless supply of willing and eager guests.
What girls don’t see is Palin’s daughter changing diapers at 4AM and missing her prom and getting 8 hours sleep ever again. So that part isn’t real to them. It doesn’t matter if it is real to you. They don’t care about old farts like you and I.
There was a reason girls used to “go away” to have their babies. Now we give the pregnant girls their own special clubs and high school yearbook sections.
How does this reward the girls who do the right thing and keep their legs closed?
I guess we’ll all have to stop quoting good old William Gaston now, eh?
William Galston, the former advisor to President Clinton, has found that in order to avoid being poor you have to do three things:
(1) graduate from high school,
(2) wait until getting married to have children, and
(3) wait until age 20 to have children.
Only 8% of people who do those three things are poor, compared to 79% for those who do not
We will never hear the end of this and much more importantly, teenage pregnancy will go up now. Period.
Think less about putting out GOP fires and damage control and trying to pacify the leftwingers and cooking up ingenious reasons why this isn’t a really regrettable thing — and consider how your excuses will all come back to haunt you, and countless young women you will never meet or have to be responsible for.
At least the daughter’s not the one running for Veep. (Although give it 30 years…)
Still, I hope this is the last surprise of its kind.
PS: have the Juno jokes started yet?
UPDATE: this post in two sentences:
Not getting an abortion is awesome. Not getting pregnant in the first place is WAY better.
PLUS: Conservative bloggers, make up your minds: either Palin’s daughter is off limits OR she is a “great example” (which I don’t accept; see above).
