Posted by Helen on: 02.17.2009 /
So many things were said about Bristol Palin during Sarah Palin’s campaign - I was pleased to discover she got to speak for herself in a Fox News Interview this week.
Towards the end Sarah Palin showed up (apparently surprising the interviewer) and said a few words too.
Comment by: Anisha
1She seems so uncomfortable I wonder if Sarah put a gag order on her! Obviously it’s hard to toe the line between the love for your child and admitting it was still a bad decision, but I don’t know. Sarah jumps in and uses the platform to mention that it is the family’s role, NOT the government’s to take care of teenage moms. Thanks Sarah, great job stealing the spotlight from Tripp and Bristol.
Comment by: Helen
2I thought Bristol seemed much more uncomfortable after her Mom showed up. I think that was inappropriate of Sarah too. It was Bristol’s interview, not hers. And Sarah bringing Tripp meant Bristol then was busy trying to keep Tripp happy and quiet on camera, which wasn’t fair.
Comment by: David H
3I think we will see over the next few years that Sarah is no longer a mom, she is now a full-time politician and everything is playing to her power base. Having worked with politicians, I wonder if the concept of unfair ever occurred to SP. She was managing media exposure. Mother and child may be little more than props.
Comment by: Helen
4David, yes, it felt to me like Sarah was exploiting the media exposure at the expense of her daughter. But Sarah wasn’t the one who set up the interview - Bristol did; apparently she only told Sarah at the last minute.
So it wasn’t as if Sarah was behind the original interview arrangement, only Sarah’s decision to drop in unannounced while it was happening.
Comment by: Benjamin Ady
5I’m saddened that neither Bristol, Sarah, nor the interviewer seemed to be willing to address the subject of *how* one avoids getting pregnant as a teenager, nor to talk about the fact that whatever method they were or were not using to that end clearly didn’t work, and maybe there are other methods/ways of thinking about things etc that *do* work. One gets the sense with that “It can happen to anybody” quote from Sarah, along with the repeated “It was a shock!”, that they are really thinking about it like that–that “pregnancy happens”. This is silly. Pregnancy *doesn’t* just “happen”.
It seems like they missed out on a big chance for education–a chance to increase the number of the luminous and decrease the number of the dark. How many people who *also* think this way come away from this interview having their world view reinforced? What a missed opportunity!
Comment by: Helen
6Thanks for the Victor Hugo quote, Benjamin.
In the past Sarah has been an advocate of abstinence-only sex education. She may still think it works - Bristol’s experience might not have changed her mind about that. Sarah might just think Bristol failed to apply the method, as it were.
If that’s what Sarah believes would you really want her being outspoken about it?
I don’t think we can know what Bristol believes and if she happens not to agree with her mother I doubt she’ll be outspoken about that until she’s no longer heavily dependent on family support to take care of her baby.
Comment by: Elaine
7Benjamin - Remembering my teenage years, I am totally sympathic to Bristol’s response.
I interpreted her response and statements as naive and embarrassed. I appreciated that the reporter didn’t grill her.
For her to have done anything more - would have required more maturity, wisdom, and courage than most teenage girls have.
You are right this was an opportunity to raise the issue of birth control and what goes wrong, etc Perhaps as Bristol grows up, she will do this - but not now. I suspect it is too new, weird, and overwhelming. (who knows what all the family dynamics are behind the scenes)
Comment by: David H
8Having grown up in an area with a relatively strict Catholic church teaching on birth control I couldn’t help but be reminded of the joke my classmates would frequently make regarding that subject. I was reminded with the remark that pregnancy can happen to anyone.
The joke, such as it was, would begin with the question: What is the only form of birth control allowed by the Catholic Church?
Answer: Abstinence.
Question: What is the only side-effect of this method?
Answer: Pregnancy.
Comment by: Helen
9Elaine, thanks for the reminder that maybe it’s too much to expect more from Bristol given her age, circumstances and possible family dynamics.
David, what you said reminds me of something said to me by a therapist about ‘Natural Family Planning’ (formerly known as ‘the rhythm method’, i.e. married couples abstaining in the days when conception could occur).
Question: What do they call couples who use the rhythm method?
Answer: Parents.
Comment by: Benjamin Ady
10Elaine–yes of course you are right it’s a bit much to expect. Still I guess part of the deal with journalism is that the journalists are supposed to ask the hard questions, aren’t they?
Helen–It’s not so much that I would want to hear Sarah talk about it per se. I wish there could be a discussion of *why* it is that so many people who are taught/brought up in the “abstinence method” end up getting pregnant under it. It just doesn’t seem super pragmatic or useful, to me, to say “Well, they failed to use the method.”
If enough people fail to use any given method, with dire enough consequences, surely even those most sold out to the method would be wise, and be considered wise, to start to ponder if something might not be wrong with the method.
I mean if you throw a bunch of cucumbers in a jar of vinegar, and 90% of them turn into pickles, and you insist that your purpose was to have them stay fresh cucumbers, can you really blame the 90% of the cucumbers which turned into pickles for failing to “use the method”, whatever is was, by which they were to maintain their freshness? Maybe you should consider devising or researching another method, one where, perhaps, only 50% of the cucumbers turn into pickles in the vinegar jar.
Comment by: Helen
11Benjamin, I agree, but in reality it seems that when people have strong beliefs, they often interpret results to fit their beliefs rather than changing their beliefs because of the results.
The pickles do get blamed a lot in the Christian circles I used to move in and in some other branches of Christianity. Implicitly, if not overtly - after all, God is perfect, so it’s never his fault.
Comment by: Benjamin Ady
12Why is this? Is it about fear?
Comment by: Elaine
13Benjamin - I hear what you are saying about journalism.
Many of today’s interviewers are not journalist. Perhaps, that is true of this interviewer.