Tuesday, September 02, 2008

I really want to leave the kids out of it...

...but it is really difficult when they are being used as political props.

Baby Trig is held up as evidence that his mom is really, really pro-life.

Eldest son Track signed up for the military on 9/11 and is going to be shipped off on 9/11. (As I understand it, dates for shipping off soldiers is not told to the soldiers themselves until just before they go and then it is supposed to be secret. So is this a lie or a violation of confidentiality?)

17-year-old Bristol is used as a shield to protect her mama from ugly rumors about not really being Trig's mom.

Now Levi, self-described red-neck from Alaska is being brought down to the convention, presumably so that he can be displayed as the good Christian boy who is doing the right thing and making an honest woman out of Bristol.

It is all so nauseating.

Sure, all the candidates show off their pretty children, and then ask us and the press to respect their privacy. We should respect their privacy. The kids should be left out of it.

SO LEAVE THEM OUT OF IT, SARA!

Bristol, Levi, Trig and Track are not props or evidence of a Christian life-style. They are people, two of them minors, and they deserve to have their parents attempt to protect them from the gaze of the world.

I don't object to her being a politician and a mommy at the same time. I think it will probably be more difficult to campaign with a baby than be a governor working at a desk with a crib in the office, but that isn't my business. If she can make it work, bully for her. I'm struck by the irony that a woman who insists on abstinence only education has a pregnant daughter, but I know that no education program is 100% effective. Sometimes seventeen-year-olds get pregnant. It happens.

That does not bother me. It is pulling her children into the spot-light to enhance her career and then being angry because people are talking about the kids that makes me insane.

Is it because I am a foster parent that I am especially sensitive to children being used to further their parents lives?

5 comments:

  1. Don't forget Bridget McCain being used as an example of her parents' charity and colorblindness. It's part and parcel of their whole campaign.

    Of course, Biden's military son was touted during the DNC, too. So it happens on both sides, but not to the degree it's happening with Palin right now.

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  2. My husband's friend was shipped out recently. We knew a few weeks beforehand when he was going. There was no secret made of it.

    And I've seen newspaper stories in advance of the local guard units going out. I think they usually start a couple weeks early. Unless those have been "heading to place X in the US before shipping out to Iraq" type stories. Never read them that closely. Just remembering that there would be a number of stories about the shipping out coming up.

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  3. The whole thing makes me nauseous. I am trying to avoid all of the media coverage about it. Isn't there a center for exploited children? I wonder if that is mandated reporting?

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  4. As for Levi being a "good Christian boy", have you seen his MySpace page? Wow, the language coming from a 17 year old is enough to make this ex-US Navy sailor blush.

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  5. I disagree that the kids are being used as props or as shields - if they hadn't made the announcement about Bristol, then some media outlet would have, and accused Gov. Palin and the McCain campaign of hiding it. Part of how she has managed to balance her career with her life is to bring her kids along when she can - she had the younger ones with her in Juneau last year while the older ones were at home with Dad in Wasilla. Having her kids around her is normal for her career. From a more political standpoint, having them around probably plays up the youth she's brining to the ticket.

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