Bristol Palin said she is getting help from many members of her family with raising the infant while continuing her studies. She told Van Susteren she has no immediate plans to marry Levi Johnson, who she described as a 'hands on Dad." Last year, there were reports that the couple would marry in the coming year.Bullshit. They weren't fucking "reports." They were the words of her mother speaking on her behalf:
In a statement released hours before the convention opened, Palin and her husband, Todd, did not say when their daughter Bristol, 17, told them of her pregnancy. Bristol intends to marry the father, the statement said -- a move that drew widespread praise from religious leaders and convention delegates.Where are those sanctimonious fucks, now? Where is the stigmatizing of Bristol Palin? Where is all their self-righteous howling? These people are not simply proud of being ignorant. They are proud of their arrogance. They are proud of their lack of self-awareness. They're proud of their fraudulence. This is real talk, for real families out there on the frontlines, doing the real hard work of child-rearing. These people want to balance your books, but they're steady bouncing checks the whole way.
UPDATE: Yeah, Frak just doesn't capture the insanity of all of this. Meanwhile commenter Buster offers a more useful frame:
I just wonder if it's not more helpful to frame it this way: Why don't these frauds extend the same decency to everyone that they are to Bristol Palin? Why are some people deserving of respect and others not? Who are those others?The trouble is that I don't know that they've extended her any decency, as much as they know it isn't in their interest to stigmatize her. I don't think that have any more respect for her than anyone else. She's a prop to them.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
Word.
*gasping for air*...mister Coates! I believe the term you're looking for is "sanctimonious frakks"!
and...to answer your question...the outrage, howling and stigmatization is reserved for the swarthy people...you know, the un-americans. the khaffirs/goyims of the world.
TNC,
You my friend have captured the essence of Republicanism in the last 30 years. Not a political party, but merely a device for social conservatives to obliviously pat themselves on the back while sticking their nose up at the rest of society. Facts and reality not required. In fact, the more point out your neighbor's flecks, the more you ability to ignore the f-ing telephone pole sized log in your own eye......
I see that we've abandoned "Frack" and I understand why.
Where is the stigmatizing of Bristol Palin? Where is all their self-righteous howling?.
I know that you are not actually asking for those windbags to attack Bristol. Because I know that your point is that the moralizing frauds should shut up.
I just wonder if it's not more helpful to frame it this way: Why don't these frauds extend the same decency to everyone that they are to Bristol Palin? Why are some people deserving of respect and others not? Who are those others?
I agree you got folks like Ann Coulter's in her latest book were she holler single mothers are a national problem, not a solution. But I guess that means single mothers other than those with the last name Palin.
This is, after all, the same Ann Coulter who call Sarah Palin her conservative of the year. Ann Coulter is a hypocrite! She can call other single mothers, "selfish". But, she won't dare say it about Sarah Palin daughter who's a baby mama, also.
TNC, you sound angry.
to answer your question...the outrage, howling and stigmatization is reserved for the swarthy people...you know, the un-americans. the khaffirs/goyims of the world.
And while I was typing Bruce answered my question.
And sorry for the failure to turn off italics above.
Preach! I'm loving the proverbial fire being spat in this post.
I grew up in the Deep South, and this post really touches on the core of my perceptions of the mandatory marriage movement that formed as a result of my experiences there.
The conservative bloggers that have been criticizing the structure of your family ignore the negative by-products that idolizing and mandating marriage produces:
1) Abusive relationships in which one party will not leave because of the pressure to stay married. This is a very, very real problem in the Bible Belt.
2) Loveless marriages formed in response to out-of-marriage pregnancy.
3) Marriage that deteriorate into bitterness overtime, but the parties refuse to divorce because of pressure to stay married.
And the list goes on and on.
Now don't get me wrong. I'm no anti-marriage partisan - I'm happily married myself. However, the knee-jerk mandatory marriage arguments that I've seen you critiquing the last few days have summoned the memories of misery in marriage that I saw in the lives of many friends and neighbors growing up.
Much prefer "fuck" in this context. It's necessary.
Republican/right-wingers follow two simple rules regarding out-of-wedlock/teenage births. They are a bad thing if:
1. The pregnant women/girls are any other color than white.
2. Mother is from "Hollywood" (see: Spears, Jamie Lynn).
And don't forget, the Republicans can't bash Sarah Palin's daughter. She's their big hope for taking back the White House in 2012. She won't appreciate it if they're tearing down her daughter. That's the real reason for the silence.
Made my morning - I especially liked "sanctimonious fucks".
Just to be clear, the "she" in my "she's their big hope" comment above referred to Sarah Palin.
Although maybe Bristol Palin would be a better presidential candidate. At least I heard her talking about wanting to be an "advocate" for "preventing teenage pregnancy". Like maybe encouraging the use of birth control. Imagine that.
What I think is more important is to really reflect on how the poor white small town constituency has viewed the Palin situation. What they see inre Bristol Palin and her boyfriend is a situation that rings true--young people, even young religious people who even make abstinence pledges have sex, which sometimes leads to pregnancy. And to be honest liberals also have families in which this occurs.
I had some problems with the whole shotgun wedding aspect of how this was dealt with, McCain grabbing the callow boyfriend by the ear so to speak (like McCain was the model of sexual ethics as a young man), but have never been interested in making much of Palin's daughter's situation. I sympathize with her--to go through all that in the public spotlight, so that her mother could play out her political ambitions...well (and the idea that the boyfriend would have to drop out of school and get a job to support the family with Ms. Palin and her million dollar wardrobe parading around...well).
But what is offensive is how social conservatives want to shove their unrealistic morality that they know from their own experience belies the truth down other peoples' throats--tribalism, not values.
...they know it isn't in their interest to stigmatize her. I don't think that have any more respect for her than anyone else. She's a prop to them.
Point taken. In part.
I also think that they refrain because the language they would deploy to denounce her poor choices are wrapped up in understandings of race and class (as mentioned by Texas Girl above, to whose comment I'd add that the Spears stuff always reads as stomping on "trailer trash" to me, the problem not being that Mom's from Hollywood, but that she's akin to a Beverly Hillbilly).
If they were to use that language, the hypocrite squad would have to paint Palin as white trash and retrograde, which is what they accuse the left of doing (not without cause, I'd add here).
So yeah, maybe it's a negative view of decency--that is the freedom to be free from attack. I still think that it has a lot to do with how these attacks can be sprung and upon whom.
Where is the stigmatizing of Bristol Palin?
Right here, baby: Bristol Palin, I hope my daughter turns out nothing like you.
How's that for stigma?
Didn't we all know at the time that Levi and Bristol didn't want to be married? That it was all a matter of political convenience?
That's what bothers me about Republicans these days. They don't even try anymore. They just give you a stupid lie and expect you to be stupid enough to buy it. If you're gonna lie to me, dammit, put some effort into it!
To rephrase: it's not Bristol's "fault". She's 17, or whatever.
But her mother is a bad parent who runs what I consider a household with poor values, which her daughter has inherited; and if my daughter were in school with Bristol, I would use whatever limited tools are at the disposal of a parent to try to ensure that my daughter stayed away from Bristol and her crowd.
Good point. Although I think they got away with bashing Jamie Lynn because of the Beverly part. The Bill O'Reilly's of the punditocracy can't go around bashing anyone whose life has a whiff of trailer trash-ness about it, because a lot of the most dependable Repubicans voters seem to be in the less-affluent, more-rural white demographic. A demographic that is sometimes referred to as "white trash". If they're seen bashing that demo on a too-regular basis, eventually their viewers might see them for what they really are. And that wouldn't be pretty the next time elections rolled around.
Brooksfoe: that's not fair. It's not Bristol's fault that she was born to Sarah Palin. As much as I hate to say it, I think people are forgetting the most important part of Bristol Palin's interview: Bristol Palin.
This is a kid whose life has been ruined. Of course, getting knocked up before the age of 18 certainly had something to do with it, but her mother's heartless manipulation of the situation can't have been good for poor Bristol, or for her relationship with Levi Johnston. Instead of a girl who screwed up and is rebuilding her life, she became the poster child for Right-To-Lifers, a tool of "conventional" marriage. Bristol Palin's mother jacked up her entire life. That is completely obvious and inescapable.
So, can't we lay off the assholes and take a moment to show some compassion for this girl?
You know how sanctimonious those fucks on the right sound? That is how we are sounding now. It is satisfying, in its way, I guess, but it doesn't advance the conversation any more when we do it than when they do it.
Coates religious groups are like every other organization they want power and they want to subordinate others. Ad hoc reasoning allows them to excuse their own while continuing that subordination.
p.s. Was I the only one that immediately called bullocks when McCain proudly boasted of the impending marriage?
k1
ryanculver.blogspot.com
Well, I'm on board with the notion that the right should stop already with the stigmatizing. But the fact that they do it doesn't justify me stigmatizing Bristol Palin. Bristol Palin is not a "bad person", but she made a bad decision or two.
And it sounds like Bristol agrees with that. As for her parents, I don't know how they raised her, so I can't really say much.
However, I do know parents who sexualize their daughters starting at a very early, and to my mind, wholly inappropriate age. Probably because they see that as the path to her being powerful and successful in life. Sometimes they are even right about that, (see Spears, Britney) but mostly the result is a 17-year-old mother who's prospects have been sharply constrained.
Brooksfoe: that's not fair. It's not Bristol's fault that she was born to Sarah Palin.
No, but whether or not it's the other kid's "fault" isn't the main determinant of a parent's judgments in assessing who they'd like their own teenager hanging out with. Peer pressure is powerful and dangerous, and I prefer my kids not spend their junior and senior years of high school hanging with the dope-smoking self-professed rednecks of the hockey team, or their shopaholic non-birth-control-using girlfriends.
TNC,
I think my framing quoted above also checks some of the uglier spots in this thread.
Just saying.
Not that there's anything wrong with a little moderate dope-smoking, within reason.
Actually, I take this whole thing back. Jay is right: the kid appears to be having a rough time of it, and it's actually a relief that nobody is going to force her to go through with an early marriage that, statistics say, had about a 50% chance of ending in divorce by the time she's 25.
Oh hush. (I say in a friendly spirit)
I don't like the whole stigmatizing thing, or prying on politicians kids, but in this case she put herself out there.
I'll admit a part of me still feels for them. Bristol in particular seems fairly clueless. Still to claim to hold to these values and then basically just dismiss them in an almost glib way is grating. If they never believed in any of it that'd be different, and I wonder if maybe they never did believe any of it, but I think social conservatives were sold a bill of goods and should be a tad embarrassed. Where I disagree is I think many of them will be.
Understand I really don't want people stigmatized for not living the more restrained and traditional way, but it saddens me that that seems to be dying out altogether. When kids know they can sleep around and not marry it's going to be a very attractive option whether it's the better one or not. It's also going to be the more "capitalist" option as sex sells a variety of products and the spending habits of stupid young people is important to the market. So again I think they shouldn't be stigmatized by social conservatives, but they maybe should be ignored.
bristol palin's child: a blessing from god
any other children of any other unmarried women of any age or any other color: not a blessing from god; indicative of the decline of civilization
it's really that simple
questions?
I don't know about how the two young people were or were not sexualized by their parents, but looking at photos of both of them, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see how nature sexualized them. Teenagers have sex; many make the same "bad" decisions these young people did but don't wind up pregnant and pasted to tabloids world wide. Abstinance as a way of doing things doesn't seem to be realistic. Condoms sometimes don't work and lord love us, while condom education is essential, sometimes, let's be honest, condoms can blunt the passion; human beings are fallible, nowhere moreso than in their most intimate behaviours and exchanges. The issue here is that in my opinion we care less about our children--that is the lesson--than we do about how what they do protects our own images of ourselves. I think Bristol Palin has been stigmatized; what sticks in Mr. Coates' craw here I believe is that somehow he is supposed to be stigmatized, his children stigmatized.
But then there's a whole lotta people who talk Christianity, but few who really get what do unto others or let he who is without sin cast the first stone really mean.
I think some people are missing the point. I don't think TNC really wants you to stigmatize Bristol (brooksfoe). Nor is he saying that stigmatizing her or any other celebrity's kid the right thing to do. His underlying point at least from my reading is that Rod Dreher and his ilk are hypocrites plain and simple and their silence over Bristol Palin flies in the face of his "they need to be stigmatized" rhetoric. Of course you can read between the lines about why they would treat her different but I am pretty sure that race, and political party had quite a bit to do with it. See for Rod Dreher Bristol Palin is a hero for keeping her baby but if its a little black girl she is an embarrasment who will likely turn out a criminal and should be shunned.
I think this gets at what's behind all of Dreher's talk of "statistics" and "in general" and "beating the odds."
When confronted with an actual family, whether it's the Palin's or the Coates' or whomever, they don't have the heart to bring the blade down. There aren't many who are going to walk up to their gay friends and say "I think your family is less valuable than mine." They're fine with policies that dehumanize you, make your lives and families harder in the abstract.
But there's not one family in the world who lives in the abstract. We're all flesh and blood. And when you talk about stigmatizing families that don't live up to your ideal, and banning gay marriage, you are talking shit about my divorced, single mom, and about my gay friends.
If you can't face up to what your policy means in concrete terms--its impact on real living breathing humans--maybe you need to rethink it.
I can't know for sure, but I seriously doubt that Bristol Palin chose to be thrust into the spotlight
Sarah: Kids, John McCain asked me to run for vice president.
Bristol: But ma, that means the national media will pry into every part of our lives!
Sarah: Oh, you're right Bristol. I guess I'll decline.
Can you imagine Sarah Palin turning down that opportunity out of concern for her daughter? I can't see it, she's far too ambitious. So I think we should leave Bristol, and the other children, alone.
Maybe I'm oversensitive, being from the sticks myself, but I was awfully bothered by my liberal friends' jokes this campaign season about the Palins' lifestyle. So they eat moose? People from Tennessee eat squirrels. People in Hawaii eat poi. It's a cultural difference people, have some respect.
So I see hypocrisy about the Palins from the right- huge, nasty, indefensible, as TNC has pointed out- and also from the left. Sarah Palin's pride in her ignorance is totally mockable. Her shooting skills, not so much.
Wow. Nothing about this post or the responses to it makes me proud. Bristol may still marry the father, she may not. She may have thought she was going to, but things didn't work out. The idea of marriage might have been a political ploy, it might have been a teenage girl's dream that fell through.
But apparently republicans are not the only ones who are free with stigma about parenting, pregnancy, and sex- when it is politically in their favor to do so. If it is incorrect to stigmatize communities with high rates of teenage pregnancy and the parenting of said teenage parents in some cases (our cases); then it's wrong to stigmatize those pregnancies (and the parenting of those teen mothers) in all cases. Especially since we all know that at least some of those high rates are in our own neighborhoods and communities.
Not only is Bristol's pregnancy not our business, the parenting of Bristol is not our business-- unless we truly are declaring all mothers of teen mothers unfit- which invalidates a large slice of the parenting in our own communities.
Yes, Sarah Palin is probably a hypocrite. But folks, obviously, so are we.
@bread&roses
I think the jokes started when shooting shit and eating moose became synonymous with being a "real american" and eating arugula meant you were an unpatriotic elitist.
This stuff cracks me up.
I love watching hypocrisy in all its wide screen glory. HD ignorance baby!
Ravenfrog,
No offense, but I think you are missing the point. Please refer to SG's post at 12:21. TNC is not suggesting that we stigmatize Bristol Palin. He's just looking for consistency from the other side. To which many have wished him "good luck."
If you can't face up to what your policy means in concrete terms--its impact on real living breathing humans--maybe you need to rethink it.
This. One set of standards for people you know-- or people whose parents you support politically-- and another for black people, gay people, and people whose parents you don't support politically-- is insulting and absurd.
Ravenfrog, when the same people who keep telling you your relationship is harming your kid and that you should be shunned say nothing about a white girl in a similar situation, then you have a right to be angry.
Right again TNC. We shouldn't stigmatize a 17 year old mother BUT we should definitely call the folks who promoted her and paraded her around as a walking monument to the pro-life movement on their bull$#@&.
Sarah Palin DID use her children for political gain -- remember how her baby was literally turned into a political football and passed around at the convention? Remember her releasing a statement and saying over and over that Bristol would marry her boyfriend?
Call her and the rest of the "values" clowns on this one. Not even the most reality denying, dimiwitted, conservative bigot in the world has forgotten that she was going to marry the father. They were probably looking forward to the photo spread in People magazine. Keep asking what happened and for their thoughts on this turn of events. They made it an issue, FORCE them to deal with the fall out.
One more thing. Sarah Palin's parenting is questionable because her two oldest children didn't graduate high school. Yes, Bristol is in correspondence courses and her son eventually got a GED when he joined the Army. BUT the reason myself and so many others are mad about this whole thing is that we know if Obama had showed up with this family (drop outs, teen pregnancy), he would still be in the Illinois State Senate, if he'd made it that far. It's the double standard that pisses people off.
Ravenfrog and bread & roses--
Hypocrisy is a pretty tough charge to be laying out on the people in this thread. Maybe you could give us some quotes so that the people you're talking about can defend themselves?
This issue is all about hypocrisy and not about Bristol Palin in particular. Although I do note that Bristol chose to do an interview with Greta Van Sustern. I didn't get the impression Sarah forced her to do it, although I guess we never know what goes on behind the scenes.
Further to rufustfyrfly's discussion of policy being made in the abstract and the issue of smacking down people who don't agree with you politically, it would be interesting to see if any of the right wing ideologues who speak so earnestly of the downfall of civilization because of unwed mothers and teenage pregnancy have ever held up one of their own as an example of poor behavior. I can't think of an example.
It seems to me like it's just another case of IOKIYAR. Which is why it's so annoying. It's bad enough for them to slam people for poor personal choices. But when they can't hold their own up to the same yardstick, it's hypocrisy. And that grates.
Quoting Thomas R.
"When kids know they can sleep around and not marry it's going to be a very attractive option whether it's the better one or not."
Thomas, Kids have always had this option and known about it in America. Unless we plan on using the legal system to stop it people are going to do this. There is no point in pretending otherwise.
My opinion is that we should teach Sex Ed so that they will be prepared to live their lives both in and after school. Stis and unplanned pregnancies don't stop affecting people just because they turn 20.
rufustfyrfly's discussion of policy being made in the abstract and the issue of smacking down people who don't agree with you politically
Just to be clear, I didn't necessarily mean that the double standard has to do with political allegiance (though that's in there, too). Rod Dreher and Ta-Nehisi Coates do not agree politically, but Dreher suddenly backs off from stigmatizing when presented with an actual family. It forces him to deal with the complexities that make up a real life.
I don't doubt that if I told Dreher the story of my family, he'd say once again, "I'm not talking about you--you're one of the exceptions." But he is talking about me. His policies would make the lives of my family and friends more difficult. Stigmas and policies
In essence, I'm saying "say it to my face." If you want to value certain families less than others, and you want public policy and social norms to back you up, look those people in the eye when you're doing it. If you can't look at them as people, as individual human beings with all the complexities and imperfections and beauty of our species, and still say they aren't worthy, then your policies need to change.
CitizenE, Ravenfrog, et al.
We might find common ground in the sincere wish that Bristol might have had some level of privacy with her situation. What throws her into an unavoidable spotlight, though, is the fact that her Mom wanted to legislate Abstinence-Only education. She wanted to curtail people's right to knowledge, and the right to make their own decisions about their sexuality, in favor of a single thin thread of reasoning... which apparently FAILED TWICE in her OWN HOUSEHOLD.
This is not small hypocrisy, this is Huge Capital-H Hypocrisy. It's like watching a politician whose child was killed by an improperly stashed firearm campaigning AGAINST gun control. It emphasizes teh crazy that's in play.
It is necessary for me as an American voter to know about these kinds of crazy, so I can make informed decisions, like immediately donating money to her opponent. Stuff like that. Yunno?
I think there is a lot of misunderstanding of the conservative position here, conservatives are against pre-marital sex and anything they "think" smacks of aiding and abetting it, conservatives understand that some number of teenagers are going to have sex, conservatives do not want to run any teenagers that have sex out of town, and while this is hard for many liberals to accept, conservatives REALLY believe that abortion is murder.
The problem with conservatives is not that they are hypocrites on teenage sex, they really aren't, the problem is that their solution of attempting to deny teenagers information and access to contraceptives is WRONG.
There is really no hypocrisy in Palin's position, she's against teenage sex, I'm sure she is still against teenage sex and still favors abstinance teaching, her daughter did not follow her beliefs about teenage sex and became pregnant, and wholly consistent with her philosophy her daughter had the baby and is being supported by the family.
C'mon, Anon, the hypocrisy lies in the fact that people like Rod Dreher says that unwed mothers need to be stigmatized, yet Bristol Palin was defended vigorously by those same types of people. This isn't difficult.
I think that unwed mothers need to be stigmatized to a degree, if society doesn't make any kind of judgement about being a single parent then you will have exactly what we have, declining rates of marriage among all races and classes and increasing single parenthood across the board.
There has to be a happy medium between the 1950's where having a baby outside of marriage literally ruined your life and placed you outside of polite society if it was ever uncovered and what we have today where the prevailing sentiment is that single parenthood is just as good, nothing wrong with it whatsoever and anyone who dares to say that children are better off with 2 married parents is a puritanical throwback.
The problem with conservatives is not that they are hypocrites on teenage sex, they really aren't, the problem is that their solution of attempting to deny teenagers information and access to contraceptives is WRONG.
It's not being sold as "well, abstinence only teaching does absolutely nothing for teenage sex rates and makes it less likely that if your teenager does have sex they won't be using a condom or birth control pills" It's sold as a program that works and an alternative to what's currently being taught in schools. They then go on to bash single mothers, when their policies are designed to increase the number of single mothers.
Why do i register FAIL on Anon's two last posts??
Again, being wrong and semi-delusional is not the same as being a hypocrite.
I believe teenagers should have access to birth control and information not only about birth control but also about the negatives associated with pregnancy as well as promiscuity. I believe that the statistics are soundly on the side of giving teenagers the right information and access to contraceptives will decrease teen pregnancies.
I also believe that our society has gotten too accepting of single parenthood.
Conservatives don't think their policies increase unwanted pregnancies, they think that sex education increases teenage sex because it provides a tacit endorsement that it will happen..this is the same reason they want weed to stay illegal, they think that if you make it legal everyone will become a stoner. Also, sort of the same way many liberals are in denial about how the welfare state policies actually contribute to ongoing generational poverty...
Every group has a blind spot or more than one, but demonizing conservatives because they support a teenager that did have a child instead of advocating she be thrown out on the street with a scarlet letter tattood on her face is more about conservative bashing than analysis of policy or motivations.
"demonizing conservatives because they support a teenager that did have a child instead of advocating she be thrown out on the street with a scarlet letter tattood on her face is more about conservative bashing than analysis of policy or motivations."
Really, you're still confused on this. TNC is not demonizing conservatives because they supported an unwed mother that happened to be the daugher of Sarah Palin. He's demonizing them for not extending that same courtesy to ALL unwed mothers. Instead, they insist we need to stigmatize them. You still haven't addressed this hypocrisy.
My opinion is that we should teach Sex Ed so that they will be prepared to live their lives both in and after school. Stis and unplanned pregnancies don't stop affecting people just because they turn 20.
Or because they get married.
I've already tried to explain, apparently unsuccessfully, why I don't think it is hypocrisy. What would be hypocritical is for a pro life conservative to advocate their child have an abortion in order to preserve their image.
With the lack of class getting pretty deep here, perhaps a better example is relevant. This is what Obama said back in September, using himself as an example:
"I've heard some of the news on this, and so let me be as clear as possible. I have said before and I will repeat again: I think people's families are off-limits. And people's children are especially off-limits. This shouldn't be part of our politics. It has no relevance to Gov. Palin's performance as a governor or her potential performance as a vice president. And so I would strongly urge people to back off these kinds of stories.
You know, my mother had me when she was eighteen. Uh, and you know, how family deals with issues, and uh, you know, teenage children...that shouldn't be the topic of our politics. Uh, and I hope that anybody who's supporting me understands that's off limits."
Amen.
Yes, you've been incredibly unsuccessful with that. You're not even talking about the same thing. You're talking about birth control v. abstinence. That's not the discussion here.
"Really, you're still confused on this. TNC is not demonizing conservatives because they supported an unwed mother that happened to be the daugher of Sarah Palin. He's demonizing them for not extending that same courtesy to ALL unwed mothers. Instead, they insist we need to stigmatize them. You still haven't addressed this hypocrisy."
We on the same page now?
TNC,
"Sanctimonious fucks" really does leap off the page. It's a noun aimed at live people, rather than an adverb, and that makes it explosive. It hasn't lost the ability to shock, to make me think, to make me notice that people actually have been talking about your family, right in your face all week. I admire your restraint earlier and your swift demonstration here its (verbal) limits.
"This is real talk, for real families out there on the frontlines, doing the real hard work of child-rearing. These people want to balance your books, but they're steady bouncing checks the whole way." That is just so damn good.
How are you going to reduce teenage pregnancy if no stigma or negatives are associated with it?
Why does believing that teenage pregnancy is bad and that it should be actively discouraged have to mean that individual unwed mothers should be treated poorly in order not to be a hypocrit?
I disagree on this and my opinion is that the belief that conservatives are hypocritcal on this issue is rooted in a misunderstanding of their worldview.
"How are you going to reduce teenage pregnancy if no stigma or negatives are associated with it?"
How can you stigmatize teenage pregnancy by remaining hush when it happens to your candidate's daughter? You can't. So when you try to do so later, you are a hypocrite.
So easy to get misconstrued in these posts; makes me feel for TN. So I'll say it as plainly as I can: I think TN is absolutely correct in calling out these right wing social values folks for their screaming insidious hypocrisy. I think most folks on this thread have little desire to scapegoat Bristol Palin here. I am in complete agreement with those, TN above all, who are sticking it those wolves who like to prance around in sheep's clothing, who put their weak sauce on for the gander, and say screw the goose, who wish to scapegoat easy targets for social ills which they have now spent decades institutionalizing. I just like to bring in the human side of the equation when I rant.
Rufus, you're right, I wasn't talking about the people on this thread, I was talking about "my liberal friends"- which makes it off-topic. But Tessa heard some of the same stuff, and explains where the mocking came from. In response to that, I'd like to quote Curtis:
It is satisfying, in its way, I guess, but it doesn't advance the conversation any more when we do it than when they do it.
Anon: to me, stigmatizing people IS treating people poorly.
It's awfully hard for me to see how your project of stigmatizing out-of-wedlock births is going to happen without stigmatizing A. the mother B. the child or C. both of them. And stigmatizing people is treating individuals poorly.
First of all, Anon, the stigmas exist and that does not seem to solve the problems that are associated with broken homes, dysfunctional families, teenage pregnancy, et al.
All those problems are exacerbated by moral posturing that fly in the face of real experience combined with institutionalized bromides. In this particular case we could point out that abstinence only education has been an abysmal failure in remedying teenage birth or promoting success among teen mothers in every rubric imaginable. This really is about how the social conservative "world view" gets away with both making the problem worse and looking its collective nose down at those who don't follow their formulas for morality as a bait and switch that reflects either tunnel vision of tragic proportions in some cases or a smug, destructive arrogance in others, and a tribal identity politics in its hypocrisy.
I disagree that there is any significant stigma associated with being a single parent today. And surprise, surprise as the stigma of unwed motherhood receded the incidence of unwed motherhood has steadily increased.
So, if mostly everyone agrees that being a single, teenage parent is bad, increases the chances for negative outcomes across the board, unless your mother is a state governor or you are a celebrity, then what is so wrong with attaching a negative consequnce to a behavior that overwhelmingly has negative consequences?
People react to positive or negative stimuli..since the positives of getting married are a little ephemeral for a teenagers, I suggest that the negative side is more useful and more likely to be effective.
Anon,
I agree with Stacy. You really are talking about a different topic. The issue brought up in this post is that criticizing some unwed parents (Jamie Lynne Spears, those who are "like" the Coates family) while being supportive of others (Bristol Palin) is hypocritical. The question is not whether or not what you are calling the conservative worldview is internally consistent (that one can discourage out-of-wedlock teenage pregnancy while supporting single teenage parents). You argue that we must stigmatize teenage pregnancy yet support those who become teenage parents -- "love the sinner, hate the sin" kind of thinking. But what has happened is that some parents (Jamie Lynne Spears, etc.) bear the brunt of the effort to stigmatize, but others (Bristol Palin) enjoy the benefits of communal forgiveness and support. There's an obvious discrepancy there that makes many people question the motives of social conservatives.
sk
Anon
I'll start with Bristol Palin. Let's say she's 20, married, and pregnant. Her husband is her high school sweetheart, the former hockey star, who has a promising career in the oil industry that was facilitated by his father in law's connections. Does her story get the kind of attention it did. That's why I say Bristol Palin is already stigmatized; otherwise, she's just one of a former VP candidate's kids--the one with the least weirded out name.
Stigmatizing someone--calling them bad--when often unlucky might be a better adjective--does not help things out. What's more, just say no to sex seems to have an age old problem in effectiveness as birth control, for which no amount of running your index fingers across one another can answer.
I don't agree that being a teenage mother makes someone bad. That's the point. Now it certainly is difficult and puts stresses on the individual, her family, society, but part of the equation here is that it does take two to make a baby, and that part of the equation is repeatedly left out of the what is to be done equation. We have an entire society and consumer economy that valorizes sex for every reason under the sun--pointing the finger at one segment of society as the source of our problems...well as I have said above many talk, but few really walk the walk.
Well, she stayed in school, did not drop out and is allegedly engaged to the father of her baby who she says is involved with the child and has moved back home to take advantage of her family's help in raising the child and she straightforwardly says it was a mistake, hard and she wishes it didn't happen the way it did.
So, in terms of making the best of a bad situation, she seems to have done everything right and maybe, just maybe, even if she is the daughter of a hated GOP fundamentalist, she deserves a fairly light amount of 'stigma' based on how she has handled her situation.
I also think she has been treated MUCH more harshly by the media than Jamie Lynn Spears.
Anon,
That is the fundamental point:
"So, in terms of making the best of a bad situation, she seems to have done everything right and maybe, just maybe, even if she is the daughter of a hated GOP fundamentalist, she deserves a fairly light amount of 'stigma' based on how she has handled her situation."
You have to look back and the whole series of posts by TNC, Ross and Rod. TNC's point all along was judge each situation on how those individual people are handling it, he said: I want to punish and reward behaviors, not whether someone has a piece of paper that says they are married, unmarried people who stay involved with the kid are better than married people who neglect their kids and so on, it is Ross and Rod who are saying that single mothers in general need to ne stigmatized.
I haven't seen any 'Bristol's babydaddy demands paternity test!' headlines like there was for Jamie Lynn, anon.
How are you going to reduce teenage pregnancy if no stigma or negatives are associated with it?
1. Make abortion easily available without parental signature.
2. Make contraception easily available without parental consent.
3. Teach teens what contraception is effective and how to properly use it.
Most of these have been proven to reduce teen pregnancy and even delay the age of initiating sex. But conservatives would rather look down their noses at people 'caught' fucking.
Re: "I also think she has been treated MUCH more harshly by the media than Jamie Lynn Spears."
I don't agree with that statement. I'd be interested to see examples. I don't think there's been a lot of criticism aimed directly at Bristol. I haven't seen people saying she's a bad person, for example. She gets sympathy for her position more than anything. Sure, sympathy isn't a form of praise, but it's better than an insult. People have made personal attacks on Sarah Palin for being a bad mother. That's not really fair, but Gov. Palin did put herself out there and has made her fair share of insulting comments about others.
Mostly, the Bristol Palin story has stirred up a lot of criticism of people perceived to be spokespeople for social conservatives, be they politicians or right-wing media pundits, for their hypocrisy in criticizing teen mothers generally and then giving Bristol Palin a pass. Which is not to say that they think Bristol doesn't deserve a pass but that the response to teen pregnancy should be consistent.
The Daily Show video at the address below (after the advertisement and at the 1:40 mark) shows Bill O'Reilly commenting on Bristol Palin's situation and then Jamie Lynn Spears'. The difference in his attitude toward the two families is the kind of thing that pisses so many people off.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=184086&title=sarah-palin-gender-card
sk
Although I criticized her attitude a bit I do get a "vibe" from some of these posts that I really don't like.
When I was a kid the only person I really knew with my condition, osteogenesis imperfecta, was a black girl whose mom was unmarried. My parents were active in teaching her what they learned about the condition and my parents are, in many ways, more conservative than me. Oddly my Dad actually is a bit racist. Anyway as mentioned none of us "stigmatized" her family. We invited them over and did stuff with them. Although I admit I lost touch with her a bit after I went to college.
I think some of you are taking statements from a few politicians and then making an unfair generalization of conservatives. If Bristol Palin were poor and black you really have no way to know how Rod or Ross or me or most any McCain/Palin voter would feel. From conversations of even some pretty wacky Rightists they certainly wouldn't want such a girl to abort. I know I'm a naive white-guy, but I think some of you are too quick to make things racial.
Ann Brock wrote: "This is, after all, the same Ann Coulter who call Sarah Palin her conservative of the year. Ann Coulter is a hypocrite! She can call other single mothers, "selfish". But, she won't dare say it about Sarah Palin daughter who's a baby mama, also."
Coulter's just protecting "her" own. After all, "she"'s the baby's actual biological father.
Thomas R said: "If Bristol Palin were poor and black you really have no way to know how Rod or Ross or me or most any McCain/Palin voter would feel."
Ross denounced a poor black woman as a "welfare duchess" because he thought her TV was too big. Somehow I don't think he'd be doing handstands of joy over a poor black teenager running Bristol Palin's game.
I'm not entirely sure McCain/Palin voters HAVE feelings as I understand them, of course.
Bleh, it's MLPB&J.
Still I think your goading got me to give to a group that gives wheelchairs to Iraqi children so thanks on that.
1. Of course there are many hypocrites among both right-wing, religious Republicans and left-wing, secular Democrats. Both parties are full of people who will disregard their stated principles when it gives their "team" a better shot at winning.
2. Politicians should stop using their children to further their political ambitions.
3. Before posting a blog entry involving a politician's child, ask yourself if you might be able to make your point some other way. Just because politicians dangle their kids as bait doesn't mean you have to take it. Two wrongs don't make a right and all that...
If Bristol Palin were poor and black you really have no way to know how Rod or Ross or me or most any McCain/Palin voter would feel.
We have plenty of evidence of what they'd say, though.
Thomas, I think your story actually illustrates some of what we've been talking about-- when it comes to individual families, it's harder to 'stigmatize' and be, basically, an asshole. Witness the way this all started-- "Ta-Nehisi's individual circumstances are unique, but in the aggregate..." Every black family is unique (as is every family of every other ethnicity, blah blah). All this talk of 'stigmatizing' and 'social acceptance' ignores that in favor of wrapping up all African-American single moms as 'welfare dutchesses' with big TVs.
Well I may have went overboard a bit. Conservative whites probably are more likely to judge poor black single moms, but I just don't think it's a very exact correlation. I think it's become less of one all the time.
Even with the hard-nosed type Republicans I know I think it's becoming more classist than racial. If Bristol Palin was the daughter of some poor-white nobody I don't think the kind-of conservatives you mean would care for her much more than if she was the daughter of a poor black nobody.
Rod Dreher certainly has his problems, I disagree with him more often than not, but I don't think his stigmatizing is racial. He stigmatizes what he deems "sexually immoral behavior" in white kids and does so all the time. I think he is just a consistent scold on this kind-of thing while also being a believer in forgiveness. If TNC "repented", as he'd see it, and became a married Christian he'd probably be praising him to the nines. Likewise when people he thought were moral, like thoroughly white Catholic bishops, turn out not to be he dumps on them like nobody's business. (He is Orthodox now, but when I'd first heard of him he was Catholic)
"Bullshit. They weren't fucking "reports." They were the words of her mother speaking on her behalf"
No they weren't. Palin never said a thing about her daughter marrying in the next year. The Palin announcement simply said that her daughter intends to marry, something that Bristol Palin reiterates in the linked summary of her interview.
It seems that you go so excited by the prospect of a 'gotcha' that basic comprehension went out the window.
To rephrase: it's not Bristol's "fault". She's 17, or whatever.
I know brooksfoe has basically retracted his criticisms here (because I think he saw where it was going), but this is exactly why stigma needs to really be reserved for, yes, only really beyond-the-pale, violent behavior.
Because there is a hair's breadth between stigmatizing behavior and stigmatizing people.
Anon, despite his preference for stigmatization, hit on the actual consequence of what stigmatization does, and even he agrees that it's something to avoid. He hopes to find a "happy medium" between discouragement of the behavior and the marginalization of not merely the unwed parent(s), but the marginalization of the child who had no say in his/her birth.
News flash for Anon and social conservatives: a happy medium doesn't exist.
This should be, if anything, a conservative observation of history and learning from it. Human beings are really, really bad at distinguishing the behavior from the person (see also: homosexuals). You stigmitize the former, you will end up stigmatizing the latter, whether or not the latter "deserves" stigmatization. Ample illustrations from literature have even absorbed what happens, c.f. The Scarlet Letter, The Importance of Being Earnest.
When, social conservatives, people look at you like you're being assholes, it's because you seem pretty comfortable grinding actual folks underfoot in your quest for perfection. I understand it may be out of a desire to achieve a perceived "greater good," but you'll have to excuse me for being very wary of any laws you many propose to sideline people and children based on the evidence so far.
It's certainly your decision to treat any people in your community like dirt if they fail to measure up to your standards. But save the law for making good behavior easier, not making otherwise good people criminals.
(And don't expect a lot of invitations from your neighbors to block parties, not that I think you'd mind much.)
For the record Rod is criticizing Bristol Palin.
http://blog.beliefnet.com/crunchycon/2009/02/bristol-palin-on-abstinence.html
That might not be clear enough, but in the comments portion he says "I think she screwed up bigtime. I think the Palins made the best of a bad situation, but I think Bristol is only admirable in that she chose to have her baby,"
Have any of you thought about what this is really about? It's about insurance and embarrassment. The girl is now insured by her mother's health insurance. If she gets married, she won't be and she'll have to rely on the hubby's insurance, which won't exist since he's unemployed. As a result, Medicaid would end up paying for the pregnancy and the care of the baby. Now that wouldn't go over very well with all those conservative types would it.