I have officially heard everything. Just when I was dumbfounded by the fact that John McCain selected an NRA card carrying, anti-abortion, moose and wild sheep hunting salmon fisherwoman to be his running mate this November, comes news that the mom of five’s 17 year old daughter is pregnant.
Now is it just me, or does this mean that as governor of Alaska Mrs. Palin was too busy to stay on top of the fact that her teenage daughter was already getting busy while her mom was busy attempting to get her brother in law kicked off the police force?
I may be sounding incredibly judgemental considering this site is all about celebrating women who balance work and family without ever missing a beat. But something tells me that Palin might be in a bit of denial that she’s going to be able to be John McCain’s VP and have kids who aren’t affected by the fact that she’d have to uproot their lives in order to fulfill the #2 slot in America. Is her fisherman husband going to quit his job and raise their kids full time? And D.C. is way more problematic than Alaska – it’s teeming with bars and college kids – a veritable oasis for her troubled teenage daughter. Will her daughter marry the kid who got her pregnant in the first place? This and many more questions have me concluding that I’d rather see Palin as the star of a reality show than as John McCain’s pick for the vice presidency. While she’s earned the reputation for being a whistleblower and a barracuda on the job, her #1 role as a mom is suffering in the process.
Again, I know it seems like I’m jettisoning the female gender back to the 1950’s but trust me, that’s not my intention. Hillary Clinton pursued the presidency the right way. She encouraged her daughter to achieve her true potential by being there for her every step of the way and once Chelsea entered adulthood, Hillary went for the brass ring with her daughter at her side. As working moms, we are constantly struggling to decide whether our kids will be scarred for life if we work non stop. Perhaps as governor, Palin wasn’t readily available for a heart to heart talk about the importance of protecting oneself from an unwanted pregnancy. According to the Republican spin masters, they knew about Palin’s daughter’s pregnancy and didn’t hold it against her. Nor do they hold against her the fact that her husband was caught driving drunk more than 24 years ago. Well at least Sarah never cheated on anyone – how could she? She’s too damn busy trying to keep everybody else in her family in line.
I wonder what Karl Rove is thinking right about now since he would instinctually use this kind of dirt to bring a Democratic candidate to their knees. I guess the Republicans thought that in Sarah Palin, they had the perfect American story of a mom who has managed to do it all while raising a family. Sure she’s doing it all, but doing it well is a whole different story.
Role Mommy 3.0