Palin’s Family Values: Un-Married with Children

As the Palin family continues their bizarre interpretation of good old-fashioned RNC family values, it’s amazing that Sarah manages to keep a straight face.

Now that the First Grandbaby has appeared more than a week late without benefit of the protections afforded those born into marriage, one has to ask why. Considering how apoplectic Evangelical Christians are about preserving teen virginity through ineffective chastity pledges, blocking sex education, and preventing LGBT marriages, it’s rather bizarre that the most public Evangelical politician doesn’t see the need to trot her kid down to the local Justice of the Peace? Hey, what’s good enough for Mama Palin and the First Dude should be good enough for the youngins, right?

For LGBT Americans denied the right to raise their children within the protection of marriage, the intentional out-of-wedlock Republican Evangelical Christian birth has to be yet another slap in the face. They’re waiting for the summer? Why– so they can have a big party and their baby can be the ring bearer?

Just wondering– what would have happened if Palin was moving this week to Washington, as Vice President? Would Bristol have gone with them, dragging the baby along, or would First Grandma have left Bristol behind to care alone for her new baby?

What about the First Grandbaby’s other illustrious grandma, Sherry Johnson, busted for possession? Apparently she sells Oxycontin pills for ten bucks a pop, giving grandmas and coffee klatches everywhere a bad name. Would her Secret Service detail make it tough for her to make it to her coffee klatch?

In Wasilla will the First Teen Parents live apart or will the First Dude-er be around for diaper duty, midnight feedings, and such? Or is he just visiting his child in the home of his not-yet-inlaws?

Is it meanness to focus on the family’s dysfunction, or is it a necessity, given Palin’s thirst for the political limelight and her ability to turn catastrophes from political suicide into a mere flesh wounds? American history is littered with the bodies of politicians felled by photo opps with vicious rabbits, tanks, boats named “Monkey Business”, and stained dresses, and it would be easy to assume that Palin’s surreal Cohen Brothers-esque Turkey Farm appearance sealed her fate. However, Palin’s biggest skill seems to be her ability to put an acceptable spin on things that Teflon Ronnie couldn’t have imagined. It would be a mistake to dismiss her, because marginalized and disgruntled rural blue-collar Americans feel she is one of them.

Before we ever get to the next election cycle, keep an eye on Palin, because she isn’t’ going to go away and she isn’t going to change her bullying Wild Wild West political style. She used her office to get her former brother-in-law fired, and managed to weasel out of that one. Now troopers report that her campaign stalled investigation into felony drug possession charges against daughter Bristol’s Baby Daddy’s own Momma (did you get that? There will be a quiz at the end.).

Palin brightly natters on, like a pretty Granny Clampitt, trying to sell her brood and her politics as the Poster Family for Evangelical Christian (Republican) values. What she does with her own family is her business until it gets sold to us packaged as good old-fashioned American values and politics-as-usual, appearing next on a ballot near you.

Blinking at Condoms and Bananas

At the recommendation of mothers older and wiser than myself, I put my teen daughters on the Pill and provided them with a bottomless container of condoms. No strings attached and no questions asked.

After bolstering myself with a glass of wine and a few tears on my friends’ shoulders, I pulled myself together, and did my job as a mom. I didn’t blink.

Of course my girls were mortified to talk openly with their mom about sex, and we were all uncomfortable. But we didn’t blink. We talked anyway, and collapsed into giggles to diffuse the tension. Between giggles, they heard that we care about them and want them to be safe. We also were clear that we don’t want them to have sex as a teenager, but if they do, we want them to be smart and safe.

After the giggles subsided, life went on as usual. Because sex and birth control had become a safe topic, our daughters shared worries about friends who engaged in risky sexual behavior, and doled out condoms trying to help.

Our daughters have repeatedly said they are grateful and proud that they can talk to their parents about sex and birth control.

Having an uncomfortable conversation with your kids isn’t a big deal. Watching your child deal with unplanned pregnancy is. Palin’s squeamishness and reliance on hope as a birth control method resulted in her daughter’s life being changed forever.

Nobody wants teenagers to have sex, get pregnant, or have to deal with the consequences. Facing reality and putting my teens on double birth control is my way of wrapping them in bubble wrap.

Palin’s parenting choices are her business until she interferes with how the rest of us parent our kids. No bananas and condom demos at school, but she does want ignorant Christian silliness taught in our science classes.

Palin and her daughter get the “choice” of how to deal with their unplanned pregnancies, but she clearly wants to overturn Roe v. Wade, ban “explicit” birth control information, and keep us from having choices. Even if it’s rape. Even if it’s incest. Even if her daughter and her “baby daddy” don’t finish school.

Obviously, she doesn’t care if there are more unplanned pregnancies, more teenagers not finishing their education.

Don’t blink. This really matters.