Thinking about Sarah Palin today and the fuss about her daughter. Apparently it is heating up the long simmering “mommy wars” again, much to the delight of the media, but what does being an elected official have to do with parenting? Isn’t there a divide between career and family that shouldn’t be crossed when deciding what is important – really important – about the future POTUS and his/her running mate?
Check out my article and let me know what you think.
anniegirl1138 
A: I have added your article to the top of my blog-site… please check it out.
http://www.sjfreed.wordpress.com
Sheri
Thanks! And for your comments too. Palin does not line up with my political views but as I have said here and elsewhere, I identify with her quite a bit.
I’m so infuriated about all of the blogs about Sarah… and the press. I don’t get all of the “hoopla” about her… I really don’t. Brittney, Madonna, L. Lohan… all train-wrecks and making millions… people still going to their concerts, buying their albums, and going to their movies!
In defense of Sarah, in MY opinion:
1. After her son, Trig’s birth, her husband took a leave of absence from his job to assume the child-care responsibilities and he has since stated that he would continue this leave to assume the parenting duties of all children should she be elected into the White House with McCain. That’s good enough for me, folks.
2. Personally, I was a 4.6+ G.P.A./Honors student in high school, from a decent middle-class family, and attending church on a regular basis. I had sex at 16 and just was lucky enough to fly under the radar and not get pregnant. I do hope that my daughters elect to wait until they are older than that, but… sex is sex. It happens. Sometimes when people fall in love, especially their first love which is so overpowering emotionally, you want nothing more than to share that experience with them.
3. Her daughter’s pregnancy really has nothing to do with Sarah, in my opinion. I think that Sarah’s achievements are an outstanding example for her daughters. Think about it… these girls (especially little Piper) got to see their mother at the Republican National Convention speaking in front of 34 Million viewers (I believe they said as much as, if not more than Obama’s speach)! These girls get to see that a woman CAN accomplish great things and face adversity with grace and honor.
4. People are too quick to judge parents when they feel that their children have done something “wrong” or “bad.” But, a 17 year old is hardly a child. By the time I was 17, I was in college and working 3 jobs… living in an apartment and doing quite well for myself. I wasn’t this way because of good or bad parenting, it was just the person that I was.
5. People in this country are to quick to pass judgment on others. What mother out there can say that she has done a “perfect” job? None of us!
6. Her ability to mother well, or not mother well is not what should be in question. Her ability to do the job, however is! The press keeps discussing the fact that a male VP candidate is not scrutinized so closely on his parenting skills so neither should Sarah. I agree!
In light of the foregoing, I feel that this woman is brave to face what she knew the media would slam her with in the hopes of bettering our country and changing the world for women, everywhere! That’s you and me, folks! I think that she is lovely, smart, and I can’t wait to vote for her (not McCain, but her). I had been saying for quite some time that McCain better pull out a great VP candidate or I just didn’t know if I could vote for him (I’m a republican for and have voted that way forever… except for GWB). McCain has done that. This would be a wonderful experience for our country to have Sarah as a VP. We’ve needed a women’s input in the WH for such a long time and we’re almost there.
This almost feels like these mothers out there are casting stones and shouldn’t be in glass houses. We should be treating others the way that we’d want to be treated. Would you like your friends and family saying this crap about YOU if this happened to your daughter? It’s almost like those preachers who are porn addicts… they talk one thing but their lives are totally something else!
As women, not a race, color or religion, but WOMEN… it is time that stop attacking other women and start supporting them. That’s not to say that you should vote for Palin because she’s a woman, but if you feel she and McCain are right for the job, don’t let what her nearly adult daughter do get in the way of that vote.
Personally, I just wish that Condalesa Rice (sp?) was running for President! I’d quit my job and follow Condi around the country making sure she was elected!
(Whew… who knew I had that in me?) Sorry if anyone took offense!
S
I really do love that you make me think about these issues.
Absolutely, it is inappropriate to judge Mrs. Palin’s fitness for the job based on her family dynamics or her role within them, and we would not have these discussions if it was her husband who had been nominated. I hadn’t seen that or “gotten” it until some way through your comments/responses.
I wonder if I can continue to maintain some balance and equality in my ongoing thinking/discussions on the subject.
I think a lot of the trouble with gender relations is that we don’t have a back and forth dialogue that is heard by both parties. The level gets shrill before anything is truly talked over.
The inability to make a rational decision is something that cuts across both genders. After 9/11, the Current Occupant and his manly cabinet panicked and made one bad decision after another and it has wrecked us. My comment was not intended as a dig at women and I am sorry that you misinterpreted it as such. I have a wife, two daughters and a lesbian sister who would all be dumbfounded to hear that I was accused of making a sexist remark.
I hope I haven’t offended you now. It’s just a loaded phrasing when discussing a woman’s decision making abilities. And I agree completely that current male administration members think with other than logical thoughts.
Gloria hit the nail on the head. I have so many concerns about Sarah Palin that her parenting doesn’t even make the top ten.
However, as the second commenter said here, her parenting does give some insight to perhaps some of her motivation. I think each parents should approach the decision on who works and where they work based upon their own family’s needs. That said, flying while in labor and then going back to work three days after delivering are both things no doctor would recommend. Frankly, it seems a bit narciscistic to me, putting her ambition above her own health and that of her unborn child. It just seems strange to me that she would consider murder abortion, but what if that child would have died while she was flying home from Texas to deliver after her water broke? Would that be manslaughter? It is just all too nuts.
Ok, I’d like to comment.
Raising a child takes two parents and that would be great if it worked out that way. In Ms Palin’s case it did. I’d have to say that between being parents of five children, governor of a state and snow mobile champion of Alaska, they both failed at being parents. Their daughter is 17 carrying a 5 month fetus. Was she 16 when this started? Was she 15 when she became sexually active? When did she have the mother-daughter talk about birth control? I suspect that mommy’s religious views precluded that.
Being a devout evangelical, she believes that birth control are bad and that the war in Iraq is a mission from God. So, she’s got a pregnant 17 year old, soon to be married to another high school kid, and a 19 year old son heading off to fight the holy war in Iraq. (let’s not get into going back to work 3 days after giving birth to a ‘special needs’ child)
I’d say that as a parent, she is a terrible failure. She and her husband have more kids than they can handle while continuing to pursue their own agendas. Her judgment is fatally flawed, possibly by her blind evangelical faith that seems to say, “Keep having the kids. Let God sort out the details.”
I wouldn’t follow her out of a burning house.
I am reluctant to judge her parenting because I don’t live in her house or know the true details. But the point is that no one uses my or your parenting skills/decisions to decide our competency for our jobs. Right? So why is it okay to do that for public officials?
In my opinion there is plenty on the record about Palin’s tenure as mayor and governor to call her skills into question. Why go down the mommy road? It doesn’t help women overall if we willing attack each other off topic. The topic is – will Palin make a good VP or president based on what we know of her work as mayor and governor. Period.
The fuss (for me, anyway) has nothing to do with career vs. motherhood. Mrs. Palin supports abstinence-only programs and wants contraception discussed only in relation to how it can fail. She is against any type of sex-ed being taught in schools. Look where that brand of good Christian parenting got her (and her daughter)! I don’t trust her to make rational decisions in times of crisis.
We don’t know the circumstances surrounding her daughter’s pregnancy or what kind of mommy/daughter chat they had when Bristol was old enough to learn the in’s and out’s (no pun here) of what really goes into being a woman. And that is my point, it’s not relevant. What Palin chooses for her children is her business. Now what she advocates for you and me, that’s our business. That and only that is what we should be talking about.
And just personally, the comment about making rational decisions in time of crisis – sexist. Totally. Because it is recalling the old idea that women are irrational and more when the stakes ramp up.