Family Values?

I cannot remain silent on the whole Sarah Palin fiasco. But I think I have a somewhat different perspective on it than what I am hearing in the news. So her 17-year-old daughter got pregnant. It happens, even in fundamentalist Christian families that preach abstinence. Anyone who has parented a teenager will tell you that reigning in teenage hormones is sometimes as successful as making ice cubes without a freezer. And attempting seems almost as futile.

No, it isn't Sarah Palin's impending grandmotherhood that bothers me. It is her willingness to subject her daughter, her other children, her future grandson, and her future son-in-law to the kind of media scrutiny and inevitable mockery that is now going on. She HAD to know this would happen. If she didn't, then this more than anything else speaks to her inability to lead politically. Naivete may be charming in Alaska, but it is meat for the rottweilers in Washington, D.C. and on the world stage.

I don't believe for one moment that Sarah Palin gave even a moment's consideration to what accepting the nomination for Veep would do to her family. This is not a rock solid traditional family values family. This is a family in crisis, that needs all of the energy of both parents and the extended family to get them through it. Their 17-year-old daughter is about to become a parent way too young. They have a special needs infant, and having had a Downs child myself I know what they are in for. This baby needs special training, special care, close medical supervision, and a host of other special stuff. What he doesn't need is the Washington limelight or an absent parent. And the teenage mother and father are going to need privacy, assistance, guidance, support -- not the mayhem and blinding expose that will be afforded them if their mother continues this reckless path.

I can only conclude that this is one of the more egregious examples of blind ambition with which we have been entertained in some time. I would have found it incredibly admirable and brave for Ms. Palin to have continued as governor under these circumstances, and applauded a decision to step down and put family first in the face of these dual crises. Instead I find myself appalled that any mother would for a moment consider doing to her family what Sarah Palin has done.

Family values? Real values require that family comes first, ahead of ambition, ahead of power, ahead of the spotlight. Do conservatives now believe that family values mean expose your extremely vulnerable children to as much blinding, negative publicity as possible just so you can brag about carrying your disabled child to term? Only to neglect him in favor of national political office?

It reminds me all too well of how many pro-life folks I know are pro-life as long as the kid is in the womb, but once she's born it's every one for themselves. Who me help them out? Help the people who didn't want still another child they couldn't afford? Not me! Let them practice abstention. Right, and we all see how well abstention teaching is working.

Nope. My sympathies are not with Sarah Palin. I do not see her as a mother who sacrifices herself for her children, who puts her children and family first, who treats parenthood as a sacred trust. I see her as someone who is both exploiting her children and failing to protect them from what should have been seen as inevitable.

All I have to say to her is, "SHAME ON YOU!"